KELOWNA / WEST KELOWNA / PEACHLAND, BRITISH COLUMBIA

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Update for Spring/Summer, 2012

We’re excited to announce that we plan to start operation of a revitalized youth dance club in the Fall of 2012. Fabulous caller and college student, Dustin McGifford, is interested in instructing the group on a weeknight. The month of October is likely to be the startup period.

A dance location in West Kelowna will probably be sought and we’ll try to make registration most economical and include liability insurance.

It would be appreciated, please, to hear of your interest in our planned startup. It will help us organize and meet your needs. Please contact us at the contacts seen below.

The Westside Youth Team Dance Club is a non-profit youth group that was originally formed in February, 2003. Our club is all about helping pre-teens and teens discover Team Dancing!

Team Dancing involves working in teams of two or more. It's social dancing that features a high energy form of modern square dancing that requires a team of eight. It presents lively music to which the children relate. We'll also introduce some 2-person dances.

It's awesome laughs, cool music and new friends that make our dance club great. We've added special effects lights that include a disco-style show with coloured beams that move to the music.  We’ve introduced our light show every day of our school program. See our "School Program" category on this web site for more information. 

No previous dance experience is necessary. The suggested minimum age is 8 years old because we go for about two hours and that requires a good attention span. Newcomers are very welcome, both boys and girls, and parents are invited to step onto the dance floor and learn too. It's family-style dance fun -- and fitness too. We encourage you to car pool with your friends to make it fun to travel to the dance and save on gas too.

Just come as you are in comfortable clothing and shoes that will not leave marks on the floor.  The dancing that we do requires that you listen carefully to the instructions.

Kids like this kind of dancing just for the fun of it but parents like how it benefits a child's physical and mental health and social interactivity. The instruction improves listening skills, cognitive skills, laterality and general socialization in young people. Also of benefit is the aerobic fitness element where a couple hours of team dancing can equal a walk of several kilometres.

Mental health benefits exist too by the fact that the fun experienced by moving to music and concentrating on the calls helps relieve stress, tension and the worries of the day. Success on the dance floor contributes to a young person's self-esteem and builds a positive outlook.

Today's kind of square dancing fits perfectly under the "Team Dancing" title because you have to co-operate with seven other dancers in order to be successful--it's teamwork!  Of interest to parents is that team dancing is ideal to introduce young people to social graces and the values that go along with them including courtesy, respect and tolerance. It's particularly good to develop wholesome boy/girl relationships.

The dance program that we offer serves an ever increasing need for active living among children.  It's a problem that the majority of kids remain sedentary during the after-school hours. The research reveals "a troubling association between sedentary behaviours and increased reports of anxiety, depression and low self-esteem among adolescents."  This information was released in a 2007 report card on physical activity for children and youth.  It was published by the non-profit group Active Healthy Kids Canada.

We also feature basic choreographed ballroom dancing which is called round dancing. In that kind of team dancing, the direction you'll move and the steps you'll take has been planned ahead to a particular piece of music. It’s similar to what you see on the tv show "Dancing With the Stars." We enjoy circle mixers as well, where everybody dances at once in a big circle and changes partners. We also learn some special dances, like the Salty Dog Rag.

At our club, our dancers have enjoyed special cool parties! We’ve had a Halloween party with scary decorations complete with a toy bat that flies down from the ceiling. We closed the dance with cake and ice cream. At one of our Christmas parties we all danced in Santa hats, all registered dancers got a gift and the treats included Christmas punch, Christmas cookies and Christmas Ice Cream Floats topped with red and green candies and whipped cream. In February we’ve also held a Valentines Party, complete with decorations, a ring toss and prizes.

2007 was an exciting year for us because, for the first time ever, we brought the 58th Annual Pacific Northwest Teen Square Dance Festival to the Mount Boucherie Complex in late April. It was an international dance competition that attracted hundreds of pre-teen and teen competitors from Washington and B.C. Several Central Okanagan schools competed in the schools category.

Our group owes much to retiring caller Glen Bailie who taught square dancing in the elementary schools of the Central Okanagan for many, many years. He taught literally thousands of students to dance. At many schools he taught every student, including those in Kindergarten. Long time co-ordinator, Brian Elmer, assisted and handled all the bookings. Donations from the various schools met out-of-pocket expenses and helped build the non-profit dance club’s treasury.

At this time, Brian has assumed calling duties to introduce our dance form in the schools and is inviting those students to the club. Sometimes, dancers from the Central Okanagan area volunteer to assist with the instruction.

It’s been great fun to introduce team dancing most recently to the students at A.S. Matheson Elementary and Black Mountain Elementary in Kelowna. Great dancing students!

Thanks to several other elementary schools for having us provide instruction in recent times, including: Watson Road, Bankhead, Rutland, Belgo, Shannon Lake and Chief Tomat.

Our club is operated by volunteers from the adult square dance community in the District of Westside. These volunteers give their time to support the young dancers because they believe this type of dancing is a valuable social recreation for kids. The volunteers have assisted with dance instruction in local schools and all passed the required criminal record checks.

We'd be interested in establishing a dance session just for teens and could consider extending our lessons to include such a session to follow the pre-teens.

The Dance Club is a safe, well-supervised environment for children where they can have fun and learn an excellent dance form at the same time. Please support your child in their interest in our group and their discovery of the fun, fitness and friendship found in team dancing.

We look forward to meeting you on the dance floor!

For more information about our club, contact Brian and Rosalyn at 250-768-2694

Or e-mail our club's inbox at: Click Here

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