Figure 1.--This photograph at Tower Hill Country Day School shows the children participating in some kind of interperative dance. The school was located in Wilmington, presumably Deleware. The photograph was taken in 1942 or 43. The girls seem aittle more entusiatic than the boys. They look to be 3rd graders about 8 years old.

Some public schools did have dance programs, although our information on these programs is still very limited. There are a wide range of dance types. We have, however, noted only a few types of dance used in school dancing programs. Most commonly this was social dancing. I think most public schools offered dance lessons as part of gym. Some schools also did square dancing. This was common in the 1950s and 60s. I'm less sure before and after. A reader writes, "When I was in elementary school (in Washington) and Jr High (in California), during the late 50's through mid-60's, we learned to square dance in gym class. I should stress we HAD to learn to square dance. In Junior High, we did it in our PE uniforms. In rimary school, it was in our regular school clothes. When I was in 5th and 6th grades there were Friday night square dances that we held in the next town that we sometimes attended." Younger children may have done iterperative dance in some schools. I do not recall this in the schools I attended, but have seen photographs of these classes. This is mostly only possible in primary school, at least for the boys. The younger the children, the more willing they are to participate, at least the boys. The girls are more likely to participae at older ages. We note children do a kind of performance dabce as part of an arts festival at a Colorado school in 1969. Teenagers are too self conscious for this to function in secondary schools. And most secondary schools do not have dance programs. There are some special schools for the arts wjich do have dance programs. Here children without financial resources can get dance instruction in ballet and other dance forms. Sone states have given more attention to dance than others. Maryland for example has an Office of Dance Education whicas a mission sttement mintains that "The dance education curriculum recognizes that all students have the right to an arts education as a fundamental part of basic education. Dance has been recognized as one of the four fine arts, a core subject in Maryland Public Schools. Dance education enables students to discover their own innate capacity for the communication of ideas, thoughts, and feelings through the medium of dance."

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Created: 7:57 AM 1/2/2016
Last updated: 8:01 PM 1/3/2019