Tiffany Greene, Your Kids

So you think you can dance?  That's the question some Pine Hills Elementary students are being asked and, as Tiffany Greene reports, they are letting their feet do the talking.

It is common to see stars performing a waltz, the jive or even the mambo, but it's not reserved for adults anymore. Kids are getting into the act.

Juan Rodriguez said he wouldn't quite call himself a dancer. The fifth grader just started picking the steps to the foxtrot and other ballroom dances just a couple weeks ago.

"The foxtrot is one of the harder dances because it has different timings. They're doing it," said Ed Russell, of Dance for Success.

"It's awesome, I think, because I get to learn some new dances," Rodriguez said.

"You guys wanna have a little fun and do a line dance now.  Everybody spread out on the floor," Russell instructed his young dancers.

A husband and wife team started the Dance for Success program. The couple meets with the kids twice a week for 10 weeks to teach them the fundamentals of ballroom dancing.

"It involves self-respect. It resolves spatial issues between the children. It resolves a lot of hitting," said Andrea Russell.

"I never liked to touch people, but now I got used to it. It's just dancing to me now," Rodriguez said.

Rodriguez's classmate, Jazmyne Cadet, said the class is helping her build her self-esteem, and even though Jazmyne is already a confident dancer, she says some of the moves can be deceiving.

"You see it on TV and you think it's real easy, then you come to do it and it's not that easy," Cadet said.

But as the weeks go by for these fifth graders, many of the dances become second nature. 

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