Bans on freak dancing grow

Contra Costa Times ^ | 1/23/6 | Eric Louie

[SmithL]

It was national news Wednesday when Foothill High School Principal Kevin Johnson declared a ban on freak dancing at the Pleasanton school's events, and penalties for the rebels who persist.

But the school is just the most recent battleground over the sexually explicit dance style. Freak dancing has been around for years, but in districts nationwide many school officials say the rubbing, bumping and grinding have to stop.

The students "forgot at school you have a different mode of behavior," said Thea Sorscher, president of the faculty club at Walnut Creek's Northgate High, where freak dancing at this year's homecoming dance was among problems leading to a moratorium on dances until new conduct rules are settled. The students have already missed their winter ball.

A search of national news finds hundreds of stories in the past year about the freak dancing debate in U.S. schools.

In December, the city of Lewiston, Idaho, dropped a 60-year tradition of postgame teen dances because of concerns about simulated sex and body contact on the dance floor.

Freak dancing led Seattle public schools in November to agree to stricter dance rules.

In Pennsylvania, students in one district wrote dance rules that ban lying on the ground and straddling a dance partner. In other districts, officials have asked students to sign pledges to refrain from drugs, alcohol, lap dancing and freak dancing at school dances.

"It's just gotten progressively worse over the years," said Susan Brott, communications coordinator for White Bear Lake Area High School near Minneapolis. "This year it just got to the point where we had to do something."

Rather than banning it, the school worked with the student council, DJs and staff to curb freak dancing.

"In a way there's a ban," Brott said. "If it's that sexually explicit, it's not tolerated."

But some students say this is their generation's style.

Couple Melissa Teixerira and Chris Hern, both juniors at California High in San Ramon, acknowledged students sometimes get out of control. Hern once saw a girl pretend to strip. But they said people shouldn't overreact.

"Dance is dance. It changes," Teixerira said. "Some people, they used to dance different."

At a 1980s-themed Cal High dance Friday night, a wide range of music played with brightly colored lights in a darkened room. For the most part, the students rarely had contact.

But when more modern, bass-and-drum-heavy beats came on, campus supervisor Krissy Frates used her flashlight to watch the crowd. She spotted four couples in a circle, each with the girl in front and guy pressed tightly against her rear swaying to the music. Frates gave them a look and the couples stopped, one girl smiling back.

"It's a total game," said Frates. She and school Principal Mark Corti said there's no definition of what has to be stopped, but when they see it they know it. Corti said students know, too.

At Foothill, a graphic letter from dance chaperone Corine Fanene describing what she saw at a dance in December led to the school's freak dancing ban.

"There wasn't anything inappropriate," said senior Sean Baltierra, who was at that dance. But Fanene begs to differ.

"What I saw looked like (dancers) were having sex. And you know what? It really looked like they could have been," said Fanene, a Foothill alum who doesn't believe all freak dancing should be banned, but that the most outlandish stuff has to go.

At Northgate, Sorscher said she has had to break up lap-dancing students.

She said she's surprised by how casual students are.

"A friend is not someone you would dance with like that," she said. "It looks immoral. It looks cheap."

Principal Martha Riley said senior and junior class leaders are creating a conduct code, to be put on a permission slip with rules for appropriate clothing and dancing. She hopes that, coming from students, the new rules will be accepted.

She said freak dancing's increased popularity has necessitated the new rules. Once it was only a few students, who could be separated and given a "time out." Now, there are too many freak dancers to do that.

Chris Webb, a Fremont DJ and owner of Californiadiscjockeys.com, said lyrics are also more sexual. He pointed to the progression from Sir Mix-A-Lot's 1992 song "Baby Got Back" to Nelly's 2002 "Hot in Herre," which includes the chorus "It's getting hot in here, so take off all your clothes."

Webb believes the dancing can be inappropriate, especially in middle school. But Webb, 40, who grew up in England listening to punk bands such as the Sex Pistols, said hard-line enforcement will only alienate students from such events.

That's what happened in 2004, when a new principal at Kamiak High School in an affluent Seattle suburb banned freak dancing.

"There's been drug problems and problems with student behavior and grades. It didn't make sense to me how this could be the number one issue," said Kristina Corbitt, a student who organized an alternative prom that allowed freak dancing and drew about 500 students. Attendance at the "freak-free" school prom dropped to 150.

"Dancing is inherently sexual. Our generation, this is how we express ourselves," she said. "Fifty years ago they would only show Elvis from the waist up on TV."

Davey D, a Bay Area disc jockey and journalist, said sex and testing boundaries have always been components of dance. He said freak dancing is more blatantly sexual than dances of old, but it has to be taken in the context of current cultural mores.

These days, he said, porn stars are mainstream. Paris Hilton, with sex videos on the Internet and frisky behavior on the TV show "The Simple Life," is a star.

"There's an upswing of crassness," he said.

At Brott's district near Minneapolis, the student council launched a "clean fun" campaign and encouraged students to tone down the dancing. DJs at school dances were asked to avoid certain songs, make announcements when things started getting out of hand, and mix in different kinds of music not so conducive to freak dancing.

The school has more staff patrolling the dance floor. And, as a last resort, the music is stopped and the lights turned on for a break.

"It's coming around and students are starting to accept this is how the dances are going to be," Brott said. "I think what's made it successful is that we had the students help us with a plan."

[SmithL]

Northgate Ping

[Not A Snowbird]

Nobody would dare dance like that when I was at Northgate. It's sad that this generation can't even dance without it practically being a sex act.

I wouldn't chaperone a dance now for love nor money. No way.

[Xenalyte]

In Pennsylvania, students in one district wrote dance rules that ban lying on the ground and straddling a dance partner.

How does one lie on the ground and straddle someone? I'm afraid y'all might have to draw me a diagram.

I really need to know.

[TheBigB]

How does one lie on the ground and straddle someone?

Hang on, I'll be there in a minnit. ; )

[starfish923]

The freak dance style is imitation.
Music videos set the stage. THEY are pornographic. Watching two women French kiss and lick each other to rap music is a turn-on to men, ALL straight men, whatever age. They will buy the music and support the industry.

Young women will buy into it too because they are stupid, stupid, stupid.

For old women like myself it's MAJOR LEAGUE barf-o-rama....and it only gets two seconds of watching as I channel surf.

Guess how much WORSE the industry will get? MUCH, MUCH worse because the majority of the population gets its cookies off watching that sewage.
There will be AWARD shows rewarding the sewage.
Hey, the guys are saying, it's wunnerful.
Hey, the young, stupid, stupid, stupid women are saying, you're just jealous.

Cheerleaders of the future will be wearing pasties, g-strings; they'll be crotch grabbing each other, French kissing and the men (all straight men of all ages) will be buying, buying, buying into it and demanding MORE, MORE, MORE. The young, stupid, stupid, stupid women will ADORE it, lap it up and try very, very hard to be one of those cheerleaders. Lol. I can see it now.

The cheerleading competitions have gotten glitzier and slicker as the years have gone by. It's only a matter of time before Sleazywood gets a hold of these young women.

We Americans get exactly what we want....and we wonder why RELATIVE MORALITY rules.
Lol. I don't wonder at all.
Gimme a F! Gimme a U! Gimme a C!
Well, you know the rest. Harhar.

This is one from Mr. Kewl Graphics himself, Fintan.

The o-so-cute Stanford band did that many years ago at a yearly Stanford-Cal football. Their painted seven tubas white and they spelled out "Fuck Cal" in red letters.
Stanford students thought it was sooooo kewl.
Stanford alummi thought it was so cuuuuuute OR they cringed at the band's crudeness and vulgarity.

[Bacon Man]

How does one lie on the ground and straddle someone? I'm afraid y'all might have to draw me a diagram.

If ya don't know then I'm afraid you're not doing something right. :)

[pissant]

Can we try it?

[pissant]

LOL. I thought Xena started the craze...