by Eva Dameron
Daily Lobo
If you're a good dancer, you're good in relationships, said to Millie Leahy, a UNM dance instructor.
"The skills it takes to partnership dance are the same skills it takes to have a relationship," she said. "At any given moment, you can only have a leader and a follower. You can't have two leaders at the same moment, for the same reason they don't have two steering wheels in the car."
She's holding a dance show today at 6 p.m. in Johnson Gym, with more than 300 participants, including an elementary school jump rope team and a high school dance group from Los Alamos.
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For some UNM dancers, this performance counts as their final exam.
Everyone is invited to the free show.
"Students should come to support their friends," she said. "And we love to be entertained, and this is entertaining. It's a circus here."
She said dance shows are interactive.
"You're supposed to have fun," Leahy said. "You can shout at people, yell how wonderful they are. If it's a slow dance or a waltz, you don't want to yell. But it should be like a circus."
Some teachers will invite audience members to participate. The show spans all dance forms and includes a Pilates and step aerobics number set to music.
She said a good dance show has connected patterns and a flow.
"The objective for the student is to take singular patterns and create long amalgamations, like a continuous string of patterns," Leahy said. "It's critical to the dance itself. If you have no connection to your partner, you cannot do lead and follow."
She said the show should inspire people to take dance classes.
"Everybody and anybody can do it," she said. "You need lessons to social dancing. You can't partnership dance with no information."
Leahy, 54, said she's been dancing since she was 11.
"I'm completely dumb - I can't stop," she said.
She's organized more than 4,000 dance performances and is a world-champion country western dancer.
"I tried to get that championship for three years," she said of the annual Nashville, Tenn., country western worldwide dance competition. "My partner was already a country western champion."
She said teaching UNM students is a rewarding experience.
"It's my most fun thing in all the teaching I do because my students are like sponges," Leahy said. "This year, I've had the best group of kids I've had, group-wise. Sometimes a bad apple can suck the energy and bring down the whole, but no bad apples this year."
UNM Dance Show
Today
Johnson Center-South Gym
6 p.m.
Free
