NYer Of The Week: Dance Teacher Makes Moves To Help City Schools
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The latest New Yorker of the Week is taking the right steps to get students moving to a new beat. NY1's John Schiumo filed the following report.Pierre Dulaine started dancing when he was 14 years old. He and his dance partner became four time exhibition ballroom champions. After his dance career, he started volunteering his time teaching a dance class in one public school.
"I wanted to give something back to society and I love kids and I love dancing, and it did a lot for me," says Dulaine.
After 15 years, his non-profit organization Dancing Classrooms employs more than 40 instructors who teach ballroom dance to fifth, eighth and 12th-graders in more than 240 city schools.
He teaches over 28,000 students each year in all five boroughs.
"My favorite part of dancing is to have fun and that's all that matters," says fifth-grader Brenno Trindade. "If you mess up, enjoy it. Practice makes perfect."
Instructors teach class twice a week and incorporate history, art and geography with the dance training.
"It also teaches our children about the various cultures of the world, very important," says Principal Monica Powers-Meade of P.S. 139. "New vocabulary and social skills, and in addition it teaches them how to listen to the teacher and work as a team."
"I think it was very wonderful because I think I was very brave enough to go into the competition and dance and just have fun," says fifth-grader Sharona Murdakhayeva.
At the end of the school year, students from each school compete in the citywide "Colors of the Rainbow" dance competition.
"Whether they become ballroom champions or not, that's not important, but it's team work, it's respect for each other," says Dulaine. "And they know how to treat each other as human beings, lady to lady, men to men, men to women. That's my real hope."
"I think that's amazing how much experience he has and how he was brave to start ballroom dancing for kids and I thought that that was exciting," says Trindade.
So, for teaching children to be champions both on and off the dance floor, Pierre Duliane is the latest New Yorker of the Week.
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