Evan Guffey takes his turn under the parachute during a Baby Ballroom class. Dancers use the parachute for games like ring-around-the-rosey.

By Kara McGuire

Ted’s signature move looks something like a one-armed chicken dance. He waves one arm back and forth, bends his knees, and shakes his diaper-clad booty to any available beat.

So when I heard about Meghan Gordon’s Baby Ballroom class, I thought Ted, my almost-2-year-old son, might like to dance the afternoon away with his mommy.

In Baby Ballroom, parents learn popular ballroom dances like the tango and swing while snuggling with their child. The idea came to Gordon, 31, about two years ago. The St. Paul native and mother of two could not get her youngest son Ian to sleep. “I started doing a little rumba with him in the middle of the night and he conked right out.”

She figured there must be parents out there who would like to learn a few moves while bonding with baby. As a mom who’s been teaching ballroom dancing since graduating from high school, Gordon had the unique skills to try out the Baby Ballroom concept, which caught on faster than she anticipated. Perhaps she has “Dancing With the Stars” to thank for the level of interest in ballroom dancing not seen since the Australian movie Strictly Ballroom was released in 1992.

This year, Gordon hired another teacher to keep up with demand and may add additional staff as she brings Baby Ballroom to community education programs in Hastings and Edina. The classes, which she’s been teaching for two years now with her daughter Lily, 5, and 3-year-old son Ian by her side, are profitable.

They are also unique. Gordon has not come across any other class like Baby Ballroom in the country. Down the road, she may franchise the concept to dance studios nationwide. But for now, she’s teaching, offering Baby Ballroom birthday parties, and working on a line of DVDs to be released next year.

“[Baby Ballroom] is combining my two great passions — babies and ballroom dancing.”

You just need to attend an event to see how much Gordon loves what she’s doing.

On a beautiful Sunday afternoon in August, about a dozen parents and their young children munched on cupcakes and carrot sticks at a movie theater-turned dance studio in St. Paul. Some girls wearing flowy ballerina skirts twirled in circles, while other partygoers sprinted barefoot across the room, stopping only to examine themselves in the floor-length mirrors. Ted headed to the stairs for what was to be the first of many climbs.

Gordon throws Baby Ballroom parties a few times a year to introduce the concept to new parents and give veteran attendants a chance to snack and chat away from the dance floor. A typical hour-long class includes learning basic steps to dances such as the waltz, tango, and foxtrot with singing and creative movement exercises mixed in.

Ted enjoyed singing and doing the “freeze dance” (although without the freeze). But he spent mere seconds dancing in my arms.

This is common, said Gordon. “Once they start walking, you get them to do the movement on their own.” Teaching a toddler to do a perfect box step is not the goal. It’s about “exploring their own movement to the music,” she explained.

The infants on the other hand, seemed like the perfect dance partners. Emma Samuels, now 2 1/2, still lets mom Ellen Berkelhamer hold her for half of the class, then dances the rest on her own. Outside of class, Emma dances everywhere she goes. “We’ll be walking through a store or at the park and Emma will start saying ‘slow, slow, quick, quick, slow,’” the steps of the Tango, said Berkelhamer, 40. The Minneapolis mom was looking for some socializing and exercise when she learned about Baby Ballroom two years ago. One class and she was hooked.

Brad Koland, of Roseville, on the other hand, wasn’t so sure about a ballroom dance class. But two years ago when his daughter, also named Emma, was 10-months-old, he was looking for a father-daughter activity and gave Gordon’s class a try. Koland, 37, is glad he did. “When I see a picture of Emma and me dancing, it just warms my heart. I hope I’ll be able to dance with her like that for a good, long time.”

Kara McGuire is a Minneapolis writer.

Baby Ballroom
BabyBallroom.com
651-468-9763, babyballroom@yahoo.com
Baby Ballroom’s Halloween party will be Oct. 28.