ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, January 7, 1996 TAG: 9601050021
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MATT CHITTUM / Staff writer
KEITH GRAHAM/Staff. 1. At the close of the second Cotillion class (left) the
boys practiced escorting the grils through the refershmnet line, getting them
refreshments and then seating them properly. Assistant Julie Ann Sgroi informs
Michael Mull, 6th-grader at Cave Spring, that he should have seated Beth
Drewry, a student at Community School, on his right side. 3. Joseph Harwell,
escorting Kelli Eagle (below), gets some last minute instructions from Sgroi
before entering the Roanoke Ballroom at the Hotel Roanoke and Convention
Center for the Holly Ball. Behind them is Kelli's twin sister, Jessi. 4.
Joseph Harwell strains to make eye contact with his dance partner, Michele
Wilmer. He's shortest in the class; she's tallest. 5. Candles and poinsettias
graced the refreshment table at the Holly Ball. Andy Bauman (center) asked
Megan Robertson (left) if she wanted some punch. She said, "Yes, please," and
Andy got her a glass. 6. During the third class (right), cotillion director
Donna Dilley asked what do you do if you come upon a revolving door that is in
motion. The gentleman allows the lady to go first and he follows. Jessi Eagle
goes through the revolving door, portrayed by Dilley, as Andy Holder watches.
7. The students were having fun dancing as the night passed at the Holly Ball.
Showing great form (above) are Megan Robertson and Lowell Watkins. 8. Learning
to do the Box-Step (right) during theNovember class, which was held at the
Arthur Murray Dance Studio, are Adam Batchler, 6th-grader at Cave Spring, and
Emily Seamon, 6th garder at Cave Spring. 9. At the Holly Ball the grils were
given boutonnieres to pin on the boys' lapels. Getting the flowers from Leslie
terry and Margaret Beazley are Trent Currin (left), a 6th-grade student at
Cave Spring Jr. High, and Jeni Banning (right), a student at Hidden Valley Jr.
High. color.
Question: How many foxtrotting, punch-sloshing, corsage-wearing 6th-graders can fit into a ballroom?
Answer: A cotillion.
In Roanoke, that amounts to about 100 of them.
At least that's how many 6th graders showed up at this year's Holly Ball, the winter dance of the local Junior Cotillion. Now two years old, it's one of about 150 chapters in 25 states in the 16-year-old National League of Junior Cotillions.
The Roanoke Valley has two groups serving mostly Southwest Roanoke County and Salem. At the ball, the first-year students of both groups came together for the first time.
It's 6:30 p.m., three days before Christmas, and about 50 suited-and-tied boys, their right arms cocked like teapot handles, are escorting a like number of girls with done-up hair and dazzling dresses to seats in a vast circle of chairs in a ballroom at Hotel Roanoke.
This is a group on the cusp of the most dreadful of all ages: adolescence. These are the seemingly endless years of David-and-Goliath height disparities and near unbearable self-consciousness. Yet they've been studying ballroom dance steps and good manners for four months, and they're here to put what they've learned into practice.
As they sit in the huge circle, the kids eye the room for friends, familiar faces, someone to dance with - or to avoid.
Chaperones come around with a silver tray of dance cards. Dangling from red ribbons, the cards set the agenda for the night.
Joseph Harwell, a diminutive but good-humored 11-year-old from Cave Spring Junior High School, scans his card nervously.
``I don't think we know any of these,'' he says to the girls on either side of him.
If the names of the dances seem unfamiliar - Jingle Bell Rock, Holly Ball Swing, Christmas Cha Cha - the steps will not be. They are the same ones Joseph and the rest of his cotillion have been practicing since September at Hunting Hills Country Club.
The kids may not realize it yet, but they have come along way since that first Tuesday evening, if not in skill, then certainly in confidence.
Sitting strong and pretty
Night one. September 19.
Regardless of any prior offenses, when these 50 kids enter the ballroom at Hunting Hills Country Club, they automatically become ladies and gentlemen.
After greeting Donna Dilley, director of the Roanoke area cotillion and their etiquette and dancing teacher for the next year, each participant takes a seat on the perimeter of the room.
``Gentlemen sit strong, ladies sit pretty,'' Dilley tells them.
Translation: boys sit up straight, feet flat on the floor in front of them, shoulders square. Girls sit up straight with legs crossed at the ankles.
It's an extremely orderly business. Nothing like the rave parties Dilley read about in The Roanoke Times last summer. The ones that prompted her to write a letter to the editor extolling the virtues of cotillion as an alternative to the throbbing techno music and drug-induced fervor of the raves.
``At Rave, as your article states, `anything goes and everything rips,''' Dilley wrote. ``At [cotillion], young ladies and gentlemen are required to attend properly dressed...and learn ways of treating others with honor, dignity and respect.
``While at Rave, youth only snap, bounce and sway to music blasting as loud as technically possible. At our monthly dances, ladies and gentlemen learn how to be graceful dancing together. They learn the waltz, fox trot, cha cha, shag and the latest line dances.''
Cotillion isn't exactly an alternative to the raves, because the average raver is several years older than the average cotillion-goer. But, while Dilley admits the letter was something of a sales pitch, she could not have been more on target about the contrasts she describes.
The monthly dances are really highly structured classes, with Dilley functioning as a drill sergeant with manners.
She stands in the middle of the circle speaking softly into a cordless microphone that is linked to a karaoke machine manned by her husband, John Dilley.
``Properly dressed'' is clearly a subjective matter. The girls are almost all in dresses or skirts. The boys are another story. A few wear ties, mostly with oversized shirts probably bought with pubescent growth spurts in mind. And rarely has there been such a gathering of brand new suede buck shoes outside a shoe store. Not a scuff to be found.
At this first meeting, basics are the order of the evening.
``All name tags should be on your right side,'' Dilley says, launching a mass shifting of tags from left to right. Even a few chaparones are caught off guard.
Next up: handshaking.
The students stand, greet and shake hands with the person on each side of themselves.
Cailan Garvin, 11, a student at Roanoke Catholic, sheepishly takes his right hand out of his pants pocket, shakes two hands and plunges it back in.
When it's time to dance, Dilley starts on the ground floor: rhythm.
With husband John spinning the music, she gets the kids tapping a foot and clapping hands in time with the music.
Next they move to closed position, which begins with the dreaded act of actually touching each other. Across a gulf of discomfort, each couple grasps hands tentatively, the way man probably approached fire the first time he saw it.
Anne Hagan is a volunteer chaperone tonight. Her son is Tom.
"That's him with the shirt that's too big," she said. A lanky redhead, Tom is slumping around like his tie weighs 100 pounds. "I know [he's] having a good time. He won't admit it."
Before the night is over, they are boxstepping, sometimes right on each other's toes, to the music of Hootie and the Blowfish and Journey.
``It's not really fair, ladies,'' Dilley explains. ``But in ballroom dancing, you have to do everything the man does, but backwards and in heels.''
Later, while waiting to leave, Melanie Blanding sums up her first night of cotillion:
"The boys are too short."
Practice for grown-up life
Donna Dilley founded the Roanoke area chapter of the National League of Junior Cotillions in 1994 after reading a magazine article called ``Can Business Use Better Manners?''
Before she knew it, she was at the organization's headquarters in Charlotte, N.C., going through four days of training to become a director.
Dilley, 34, grew up in rural Millers Creek, N.C., daughter of a veterinarian's assistant and a teacher's aide.
``I definitely know how it feels to go into a room and not feel comfortable not knowing what to do,'' she says.
She recalls a time in college when she was invited to a posh cocktail party.
``I was almost ready to throw up in the bathroom, I was so intimidated.''
That intimidation is at the heart of Dilley's - and the league's - mission. Dilley calls the cotillion ``practice for grown up life.''
``I don't want to be this Miss Etiquette,'' she says. She only wants to help these kids feel more comfortable in certain situations than she ever did.
But would sixth- and seventh-graders want to participate? It is, after all, an age group dominated by what psychologists have called the "imaginary audience" - the sensation that no matter where you are or what you are doing, someone is watching. Would they be willing to learn to dance in front of each other?
No problem.
The first year, Dilley had 90 students. This year, she has 210 and could have more, but the extra applicants are all girls and there must be an equal number of each gender. Dilley also works with a group of 40 high school students.
Each of her two main groups, which meet at Hunting Hills and Hidden Valley country clubs, are broken into first- and second-year classes. Students who missed the first year can attend both classes until they are caught up enough to attend only the second-year class.
Fees, which include eight months of activities, are $225 per first year student, $250 for second year. The difference covers a five-course instructional dinner for the second-year students.
Dilley says she has yet to make a dime on her venture, though she hopes to break even this year. She lost money last year after one-time expenses like the karaoke machine.
Then there's renting space and providing snacks for the monthly classes, and keeping up with the latest music. The national headquarters screens lyrics of Top 40 songs and sends out lists of approved music to area directors in 25 states, but the directors have to buy the recordings.
Most of the kids are enrolled at their parents' bidding. Only a few have dropped out. Dilley says that's because parents have committed the kids to it. Parents tell her they try to teach etiquette at home, but it means more when it comes from someone else.
``They don't think Mom is so crazy for telling them to write thank-you notes,'' says Anne Currin, whose daughter, Trent, is in the Hunting Hills group.
Dilley sometimes fears, though, that she is creating little monsters.
``The kids go home and say, `Mrs. Dilley told me that you're supposed to blah, blah, blah.' And the parents are like, `Oh, really.'''
``I love cotillion,'' says Kelli Eagle, perching her hands on her hips. She and her twin sister, Jessi, are both enrolled. ``I think it's a wonderful chance for young adolescents to learn proper manners and dancing.''
``It teaches me so when I get older I won't embarrass myself,'' says Megan Robertson. ``Also, I think it is important for gentlemen to know etiquette and to know how to dance. I don't want them stepping on my feet every time I move.''
For all the specific dance steps and rules of etiquette, the chief benefit of cotillion seems to be the confidence it inspires.
Glenn McQuate says he's already noticed a change in his son, William.
``He's been approaching people and shaking their hands,'' he says. ``He's real into that, and he gets a lot of compliments on it.''
Some girls - and even a few boys, like Cailan Garvin - actually wanted to join the cotillion.
``I didn't know how to dance,'' he said.
What about the etiquette stuff?
``Uh, I didn't know that was coming.''
Step on my feet and die
It's October 2, class number two for the Hunting Hills group, and if the low roar of voices is any indication, the comfort level has increased significantly since the first meeting.
The kids are paired off to learn a dangerous-looking dance called the "foot-slap slide." One of the steps requires the partners to slap the bottoms of each other's feet together. Some dancers are kicking wildly. Cries of ``ouch'' rise above the laughter.
``Be gentle, don't kick too hard,'' admonishes Dilley.
Most kids though, are enjoying themselves.
Kathy Batchler isn't surprised. Her son Adam actually recruited a girl from his neighborhood to go to cotillion with him so he would have a dance partner he liked. She admits Adam might tell a different story, though.
``With boys it's not cool to say you had a good time,'' she says. ``I mean, who you gonna confess that to?''
Dilley keeps partners together for only a few minutes. The girls stay in place, while the boys rotate around the circle.
Megan Robertson, a tiny, blue-eyed, blonde in a floral print skirt, isn't taking any chances on all this switching.
Lookng sternly at her new partner, she lays out the ground rules:
``Step on my feet and die.''
Later, Dilley moves on to points of etiquette. She explains how gentlemen should rise with the ladies, and the ladies should say ``excuse me'' when they rise.
``How do you ask someone to dance?'' Dilley asks the class.
Eric Weissbart's hand shoots up.
``Would you like to dance?'' he says into the microphone.
``Try using the word `may'?'' Dilley advises.
``May you like to dance?'' he says quizically. ``Can you dance?''
Sitting strong and gracefully
Of the 250 kids in cotillion this year, only three are black. That does little to overcome the cotillion's image.
It's an image Dilley is fully aware of: overwhelmingly white, wealthy, elitist, sexist. She thinks the makeup of her classes is due to the makeup of the schools she serves. Most of the students come from Cave Spring Junior High, Hidden Valley Junior High and Andrew Lewis Middle School. They find out about cotillion by word of mouth, since Dilley has no advertising budget.
``It's not that I want to exclude anyone,'' she says. ``If any parent calls and says they want their child in, I can usually work something out.''
Regardless of perceptions, Dilley says, the kids in cotillion are not all rich. Many are middle-class, many are raised by single parents. She says she does what she can to correct cotillion's image and involve all kinds of kids.
The league's national office provides her with two full scholarships per 50 students, and Dilley is seeking grant money and corporate sponsorship for the league's Assemblies Program, which provides free instruction in etiquette for 9- through 12-year-old socio-economically disadvantaged kids.
She has approached the Salem Kiwanis Club and other civic groups about sponsoring scholarships. All have turned her down.
Another ambitious plan is to set up cotillion groups in Roanoke's black and working-class neighborhoods. She says she's found a church in the Williamson Road area that will lend its fellowship hall so she can set up a group for students of Breckenridge and William Ruffner middle schools.
Even if Dilley does get a more diverse group of kids into cotillion, feminists may be on her back for re-enforcing what could be called outdated gender roles.
Alarm bells ring when Dilley says, ``Gentleman sit strong, ladies sit pretty,'' and when she teaches that gentlemen seat ladies and open doors for them.
These are courtesies, Dilley says, not put-downs.
``Most women I know aren't accustomed to it,'' she says, ``but they appreciate it.''
Courtesy, she says, has nothing to do with gender. Thinking of other people first is what's at the heart of good manners.
The parents don't seem too concerned, anyway.
``There are some things that have to last forever,'' says Tom Blanding, whose daughter Melanie is in the Hunting Hills group.
``I don't think there's anything wrong with that,'' says Teresa Lanahan, whose daughter, Lauren, is in the same group. ``My son opens the door for me!"
Dilley, who worked as a radiation therapist for several years before her daughters, Ursula, 6, and Natalie, 5, were born, says she doesn't want to hold any woman down from doing anything she wants.
``I don't want them sitting at home baking cookies their whole lives,'' she says. And she's not above making a few concessions to her critics.
Dilley has stopped saying ladies should sit ``pretty.'' As of November, ladies should sit ``gracefully.''
Little swords
After a few minutes at the Holly Ball, Joseph Harwell admits he's actually having a pretty good time.
``It's better than last time,'' he says, referring to the November class.
``First I was the shortest and she was the tallest and we had to dance,'' he rants, pointing to Michele Wilmer, ``and then we had to do that four-door sedan thing and my feet wouldn't touch the floor.''
The ``four door sedan thing'' is Dilley's demonstration of how a gentleman should help a lady into a car - in this case a car made up of four chairs in the middle of the dance floor.
Much of that third class was devoted to finer points of etiquette. At one point, Dilley held out her arms and posed as a revolving door.
``OK, who knows what the gentleman should do at a revolving door,'' she asked.
Daniel Payne's hand shot up the way it had every other time Dilley asked a question. Dilley didn't call on him, but he had been studying, and it showed.
``If the door isn't moving,'' he said to the girl next to him, ``the gentleman enters first to set it in motion.''
Bingo.
Back at the Holly Ball, it's corsage time: 50 boys with shaky hands trying to attach the flowers to uneasy girls with pins that Cailan Garvin calls ``little swords.''
Eric Weissbart makes several awkward passes at pinning the flowers to Kelli Eagle's dress, but to no avail. He looks around helplessly, even asking a newspaper photographer for assistance. Finally, after Kelli calls out for help, a chaperone comes to the rescue.
Ten scary minutes later, the corsages are on - and with no bloodshed.
Unlike at the monthly classes, members at the Holly Ball are allowed to dance in a group on a dance floor, instead of only in a line around the circle.
Here in the ballroom, they hide among themselves, seeking anonymity in the crowd, taking comfort in the fact that the person next to them can't cha-cha or shag any better than they can.
They collide like bumper cars, laugh, and keep on going.
There's the ladies' favor dance, the gentlemen's favor dance, and finally the dreaded snowball elimination dance.
This awkward concoction requires partners to hold a styrofoam ball between their foreheads while doing the box step. Whoever holds out longest is the winner.
Several styrofoam balls had hit the floor before Joseph Harwell and his partner, Kassie Bohn, could get a chaperone's attention.
"But look," Joseph said. His partner's forehead was a full foot higher than his. They were matched with other partners.
In the end, the winner's circle is shared by two couples: Lisa Parr and Justin Creasy with Miles Hopkins and Quincy Martin. Trent Currin and A.J. Nazemi took third.
At 9 p.m., Dilley dismisses the troops to make room for the second-year students. As he heads off the dance floor, Joseph Harwell looks a little relieved to be done with it all, at least for now. He has three more classes and a spring dance to go.
Is he a lighter on his feet than he was in September?
``A little,'' he says.
Better manners?
He looks off to one side and ponders the question.
``Maybe.''
LENGTH: Long : 347 linesby CNB