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So you think you can dance

May 9, 2008
By Natalie Everett





		Jason Essween, one of the instructors at Memories Dance Palace, dances the waltz with Carmen Morales, from Redwood City. Also dancing are partners Ken Alfson and Rosemary Rossell, left, and dance instructor Chuck Braswell and Chris Means, from San Martin. For more photos of locals enjoying themselves on the dance floor, check out our photo gallery.
		Photo by: Lora Schraft








		Seen through a window, people enjoy a dance class.
		Photo by: Lora Schraft








		Chuck Braswell, one of the dance instructors at Memories Dance Palace, dances a salsa with Sharon Miceli.
		Photo by: Lora Schraft

Larry Dumlao's got the bug. He swayed his hips, moving back and forth, almost synchronized with the beat of the salsa music playing.

"The rhythm is great," Dumlao, retired Morgan Hill resident, said "I just want the feet to go with it."

Dumlao is one of a small group of regulars at Morgan Hill's Memories Dance Palace on Monterey Road.

The 2,500 square-foot ballroom dancing venue opened about 10 weeks ago and is the only one like it in Morgan Hill.

For $12, a person can enter Memories on 16375 Monterey Road at 8 p.m. on Thursday, Friday or Saturday and enjoy a free lesson in rumba, cha-cha, salsa, waltz or other ballroom or Latin dances.

Several older adults from Morgan Hill, who eight-stepped the salsa at the club on Friday night, said they were grateful for its opening.

Marilynn Dumlao said many people like her might plan to drive to San Jose to ballroom dance but after a work week, might not be up for the drive.

The Dumlaos, who are in their early 60s, suspected there were a lot of people their age who wanted to learn the traditional dances now, since they never learned how as youngsters.

"It was the '60s, and everyone just did whatever (on the dance floor)," Larry Dumlao said.

Now, they're learning all they can from Memories and have high aspirations for their new pastime.

"It's a non-threatening environment," Dumlao's wife, Marilynn, said. "You're not on the floor with Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers."

Owner Barry Swan wouldn't mind dancing next to this legendary two. A longtime ballroom dancer, he met wife Sandra in 1993 at a dance competition she competed in.

"It was something I enjoyed, and that she enjoyed," Swan, 59, said. For years, they wished there were somewhere in Morgan Hill for them to dance it up. They drove to San Jose, to Sunnyvale even, just to dance, especially the nightclub two-step, a flowing, soft-rhythmed ballroom dance. "I thought, there must be other people that feel the way I do."

The dance floor is a modest 800 square feet, which Swan said would accommodate about 30 ballroom dancers. So far, Swan has quite a few regulars.

"One thing about dancing is, you meet a lot of nice people - people who wouldn't normally associate with each other," he said. "Some people who would probably never hang, become friends - lawyers and doctors and teachers. It's a safe environment."

Susie Smith is glad to have a place to go where she feels comfortable learning. She and husband T.J. thought it would be something fun to do.

"It keeps me young," Smith said. She said T.J. has bought "actual dancing shoes" after more than twenty years of having no interest in dancing whatsoever. She's always loved to dance, though.

"We would go to weddings, and he knew that he had to give me at least one slow dance," she said. "Now, it's just something he's into."

But a Friday night at Memories Dance Club is no place to be for discussing life's peculiarities - not if you're T.J., that is.

T.J. smiled and said he was going "semipro." Then he swept his wife off the sidelines and back onto the dance floor.

Gilroy resident Brian Haug said people might watch Dancing With the Stars and get the impression that what they're doing is dancing, but it's really just choreographed steps they run through over and over.

"Most of that is unrecognizable as dancing," he said, adding that basic dance is much easier than what they do on the popular network show.

"You don't have to learn too much to impress people."

Haug and his girlfriend, Gale Kraft, started an informal dance club called South County Dance, based in Gilroy, for people who wanted to learn and practice the craft.

"It's something couples can do together," Kraft said. "We just laugh most of the way through it. You can't stay mad and dance."

Programs like "Dancing With the Stars" and the upcoming summer show "So You Think You Can Dance" which appeals to a younger audience highlight an aspect of dance that adults seem to have forgotten until now: it's a workout.

"Watching these shows, people see how physical (dance) is," Jackie Butkivich, director of Dance Unlimited, a Morgan Hill dance studio, said.

Butkivich said using dance as a form of exercise is a loophole for adults who might not otherwise indulge in their own hobbies. Many people only took dance classes as youngsters, and now with exercise as their excuse, they get to enjoy the activity again.

"It's hard to find time for yourself when you're an adult," she said.

Alora Bell was a ballerina for many years, until she gave it up to raise her children. Now, she's started up again at Morgan Hill Dance Studio.

"It's something to do with my daughter," Bell said. "It's a really good workout, and good for the bones. I feel very challenged."

Rosemary Rossell said she's been attending Memories twice a week for about two months, for aerobic exercise. She said she would really like to see the studio succeed.

A longtime dancer, she said there's an adrenaline high associated with the activity.

"When you have a dance, there's such an exhilaration about moving on the dance floor," she said. "It's pure pleasure."

Rossell's not the only one who feels this way. Some regulars say they wouldn't be dancing at all if Memories wasn't around.

"When we dance, we'd like to somehow arrive at how we glide together," Marilynn Dumlao said.

"But right now, it's just destruction derby," Larry Dumlao quipped.

Memories Dance Palace

What: Ballroom dancing club

When: 8 p.m. to whenever, Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays

Where: 16375 Monterey Road

Natalie Everett
Natalie Everett covers education and city issues for The Times. Reach her at (408) 779-4106, ext. 201, or neverett@morganhilltimes.com.