Watch Your Steps

Quick: What's something you did often and exuberantly in high school--college, too--definitely on your wedding day, and then over the years at the random company holiday party?

Be serious. I'm talking about dancing. So exhilarating, so romantic, so just plain fun. So what happened? For most of us, life simply gets in the way. Then one day we are called upon to be the father of the bride or mother of the groom, and you know the drill. Imagine, if you will, you and your precious one on the most important day of his life, alone on the dance floor, in the spotlight. The heart overflows with love ... and panic. Time for a professional brush-up.

Local dance studios say that, besides wedding customers, they're now also getting a lot of the newly single; the newly retired (great for rekindling romance, they say); and those who would rather rumba than sweat it out on a treadmill.

Enter a hot new phenomenon mesmerizing the country-reality TV-and there's a spicy new component in the mix. If FOX-TV's So You Think You Can Dance doesn't stir up your dance fever, then ABC's Dancing with the Stars will. The result: Not since Patrick Swayze seduced Jennifer Grey with his sultry mambo moves in Dirty Dancing have so many respectable Southwest Florida housewives, bankers, professors and clergy started practicing their slow-quick-quicks on the way to the mailbox. Or the pulpit.

Case in point is the Rev. Pat Boyhan, rector of San Marco Catholic Church on Marco Island. He was spotted quite often last summer at Modern Steps Dance Studio, refining his waltz form. Actually, he says, there was no refining about it-it was his first venture onto the dance floor.

Along with six other prominent islanders and their teachers from Modern Steps, Boyhan was preparing for a Marco-style Dancing with the Stars gala for charity. He had graciously offered to provide the venue, in San Marco's parish hall, and the next thing he knew he was on the program.

"We've seen a growth spurt in new students in the past several months, and clearly the national interest [in these reality shows] has been a big part of it," says Modern Steps owner Jim Clemens. To meet the demand he's building a bigger studio and plans to offer more dances and social events for the public this season.

America truly is in the midst of a ballroom dance renaissance, says dance guru Anna Christine Smart, co-founder of World Promotions and producer of some of the world's most glittering dance showcases. Through her World Dance Arts Foundation, she also supports a dance curriculum in Florida's public schools. According to a recent study by America's Research Group, a staggering one in four Americans tuned in to Dancing with the Stars during its first season two years ago. Since then, she says, there has been a 400 percent increase in consumer requests for a ballroom-dance curriculum in the schools.

"Three years ago we said the future of ballroom dancing looks bright," Smart's brochure says. "Right now it is dazzling!"

Gulfshore Life takes a peek behind the studio doors, and even slips on our own dancing shoes to see for ourselves. Here are some of the people we met.

Chris and Rosie

For that poignant moment of their first dance together at their Oct. 8 wedding reception, Chris Hatwell, 32, and his 22-year-old bride, Rosie Kokkinos, wanted to focus all their attention on each other and not on their footwork. So they brought a CD of their special song, Frank Sinatra's The Way You Look Tonight, to dance teacher Racheal Garay at the Absolute Ballroom Dance Company.

"I choreographed a fox trot to create a sweet dance just for the newlyweds," says Garay.

All summer long the tall, dark and handsome Chris and his stunning, blonde bride-to-be worked on their style and form in private lessons, then used the studio's weekly group lessons to brush up on the basic social dances, fox trot, waltz, rumba and cha-cha, for the rest of their reception. By summer's end, one couldn't help noticing, the studio was positively charged with romance.

Nicholas and Rochelle

They waltz across the dance floor in impeccable Viennese style, heads at a royal tilt and feet on gossamer wings. She, so lyrical and beautiful; his strength tempered with a gracefulness that brings a tear to the eye. The prince and princess of fairy tales, they glide and dip to a breathtaking finish.

Once out of sight of the rapt audience, he casts a killing glare at his partner for some unseen slight. She makes a face and stomps into the wings like an 11-year-old. But nobody backstage is particularly surprised. Rochelle, in fact, is 11 years old, and Nicholas-her brother-is 12. The niece and nephew of a well-known Russian-born dancer, the siblings already have been dancing together for nearly five years. If their waltz is breathtaking, their hustle is spine-tingling and their rumba divine. And despite that proof of brother-sister normalcy, they are gracious and refined well beyond their years. The bright Community School students practice-to the enchantment of all-several times a week at Modern Steps Dance Studio. Remember the names: Nicholas and Rochelle Kharlamov. Some believe these hard-working prodigies well may bring home the gold if DanceSport is added, as hoped, to the 2012 Olympics.

Miranda

Dr. Miranda Perelman (she has two doctorates-in art history and Italian literature) embodies the soul of dance. After her husband, renowned goldsmith Ruven Perelman, her 24-year-old daughter, Tiffany, and her two Pembroke-Welsh corgi puppies, Kaif and Jezebel, dancing is her one true love. Every morning for two hours, then again each night, five days a week the diminutive lady with the panther-like grace (she's barely five-feet tall and couldn't possibly claim more than 98 pounds) works out at Modern Steps Dance Studio with her personal coach and dance partner, Max Maleshko. The intensity in her exotic eyes and the joyful flush on her face confirm both her passion for the dance and her commitment to the perfection of it. She dances like a professional, and Maleshko, a world dance champion, treats her as one.

"He's nice but he's very strict, and I appreciate that," she says. The pair look as though they're training for a Broadway show or an international competition, and in fact they have won top prizes for their command of dance floors from New York to Las Vegas to Los Angeles. Viennese waltz, international rumba, jive-they do it all with sensuous fire and amazing grace. Most recently, the pair won top gold-level pro-am prizes at the 17th Annual World Promotions showcase in the ballroom of the Naples Grande.

What drives Perelman's passion for the dance, we wondered.

"Dance is a complex experience. It's physical, of course-good for circulation, blood pressure, your personal fitness. But it's also philosophical. If you're nervous, tense or preoccupied, you're not in tune, and it will throw you off balance. On the dance floor, you must come into touch with where you are spiritually and emotionally. For me, dance is a thousand times better than going to a therapist."

"Here in the dance studio," she adds, "there are no socio-economic boundaries. I see the same people all the time, and I don't have any idea what they do outside of the studio. You can be rich; you can be poor, prominent in town or not; only dance counts here.

"I dance every single day. I am not giving up my lesson time for anything in the world."

Jacob

Before he reported for basic training with the U.S. Air Force last August, 19-year-old Jacob Spell saw his mother, Laura, a professional dance teacher, enlist him to help out with her beginners' East Coast swing class. But he had to excuse himself from the final session when his easy theatrical style and accomplished footwork landed him not one but three dancing roles in the Sugden Community Theatre's summer production of Fame. The Broadway musical, with its cast of young people ranging from 13 to 18, was one of the most popular productions of KidzAct Youth Theatre to date. Another example that not only is it cool for young people to dance, dance theater is hot, hot, hot. Coming up this season, among others, is the rollicking dance musical Sweet Charity at the Phil in Naples, and both The Producers and A Dancer's Life are slated for the Barbara B. Mann in Fort Myers.

Gulfshore Life Reporter

She grew up somewhere in the Deep South, where the Carolina shag, a variation of the East Coast swing, was the sock-hop staple. Fast forward through some decades (never mind the exact number), with no opportunities to practice this fine art, and a high school reunion looms ahead. She wants to go, and yes, she wants to be able to do those triple hooks, grapevines and kick turns.