Bethel Pi­lots Learn and Teach Dance Styles

MISHAWAKA—Danc­ing can be a con­tro­ver­sial sub­ject at Bethel. How­ever, there’s one class where stu­dents not only have the op­por­tu­nity to learn cer­tain dance styles, but also how to teach them to their class­mates. 

The class is called Con­di­tion­ing and In­di­vid­ual Sports (KINE169), and is taught by Pro­fes­sor Larry Mc­Clements, as­sis­tant pro­fes­sor of phys­i­cal  ed­u­ca­tion.

“It is a class that is geared to­ward... the [phys­i­cal-ed­u­ca­tion] stu­dents and then also for the sports-stud­ies stu­dents,” said Mc­Clements. 

Mc­Clements ex­plained that one of the found­ing pil­lars of ki­ne­si­ol­ogy is the Amer­i­can Al­liance for Health, Phys­i­cal Ed­u­ca­tion, Recre­ation and Dance.

“Dance has al­ways been a com­po­nent of [phys­i­cal ed­u­ca­tion],” said Mc­Clements. “For teach­ers -- el­e­men­tary, mid­dle school, high school, even col­lege -- [dance] has al­ways played a big role his­tor­i­cally.”  

The class is di­vided into groups of three stu­dents and each group must pick a dif­fer­ent style to teach; how­ever, Mc­Clements said that stu­dents are not re­quired to specif­i­cally choose dance.

“It’s sort of like chore­o­graphed move­ment, so it could be mar­tial arts, it could be for the army, you know, they do their drills, that kind of thing,” said Mc­Clements.  

Ex­am­ples of past styles cho­sen by stu­dents in­clude the capoeira from Brazil, hula danc­ing from Hawaii, hip-hop, line dance and ball­room dance, among  oth­ers.

How­ever, dance is only a small part of the class. 

“We just do a va­ri­ety of things,” said Mc­Clements. “Any­thing that’s a sport or an ac­tiv­ity, es­pe­cially move­ment-ori­ented... that’s what we do.”

Re­cently the class did cir­cuits for track team. 

“[There were] five sta­tions, and they ro­tated and went through it twice,” said Mc­Clements. 

There is also a plan­ning as­pect that comes with the class as stu­dents pre­pare to teach var­i­ous dances to their class­mates. There are six groups of stu­dents this year: they will be teach­ing square dance, line dance, jump-style dance, two-step dance, Zumba-style dance and dance for chil­dren. 

You do not have to be en­rolled in the class to at­tend these par­tic­u­lar ses­sions. 

“If you want to come and be a part of it, you can come and be taught some of these things,” said Mc­Clements. 

If you are in­ter­ested in at­tend­ing, the classes are on Tues­days and Thurs­days at 12:30 p.m., in the Weikamp Ath­letic Cen­ter, Room 101; the first group was sched­uled to teach the Tues­day af­ter Spring Break.