STEPPIN' OUT

A classy & graceful way for couples to hit the dance floor

VANDY MAJOR/ FLORIDA WEEKLY Student Cindy Kavey and teacher Brian Akioka dance at Aki's Dance Studio in Fort Myers.

IT'S A THING SMALL CHILDREN DO EFFORTLESSLY and artlessly — but then, they can love effortlessly, too.

They dance.

But children dance without the "grammar." They lack the discipline and form that adults can employ to find the ageless joy of a shared movement. Along with movement comes something else, too: a graceful etiquette of opportunity that encourages both touching and communing between the sexes, say celebrants of dance.

 

South and north along the Gulf coast, in ballrooms and dance studios seemingly sprung from a vibrant bouquet of European and Latin cultures, formal dance is once again a cultural star in its own right.

"You do it particularly for your significant other," suggests Steve Marino, who heads the employee-owned Home- Tech in Fort Myers, a prosaic-sounding company that services appliances, air conditioning and plumbing or electrical systems.

But there is nothing prosaic about Mr. Marino, an expert dancer who speaks from the man's point of view.

VANDY MAJOR/ FLORIDA WEEKLY Bruce Akioka and student Marge Kirby at Aki's Dance Studio in Fort Myers.

"It's one of the best gifts you can ever give to your wife or fiancé or partner. It's an activity you both can enjoy or have fun with your entire life," he explains.

And the pleasure it brings individuals has been coupled, fashionably of late, with the notion of good deeds and good works in high-profile charitable fundraisers based on the ABC television show "Dancing with the Stars."

Mr. Marino knows this first hand: He won a very competitive fundraiser for the Red Cross in Lee County in 2007, dancing with

a professional partner against other contestants who had trained for months.

Returning as a judge the following year, he even met his fiancé, Tamarra Surrat — which is not surprising, given that formal dancing requires both intimacy and strong communication between partners.

"Dancing is probably not something that comes natural to me, or to most men," Mr. Marino says. "Beginning when we're young, women and girls twirl in the mirror. You don't find guys twirling in the mirror. We're out throwing baseballs or running in the woods or fighting each other."

MARINO

But once dance becomes part of your existence (which takes discipline and some effort, Mr. Marino warns), "it fits into your life as a separate activity, and it fits socially. Probably 90 percent of the women love dance, and love the formal dancing. To go out and really know how, and to look good — to give her that — that to me is the main reason men should learn."

The phenomenon has provided a healthy injection of money for organizations, too, says Elaine Mayrides, the executive director of Literacy Volunteers of Collier County, which is now preparing its third annual gala fundraiser modeled on the show, "Dance with the Stars."

"There's such a new enthusiasm for dance, and for dancing with the stars," she explains. "And in Naples, fundraising is so competitive for the shrinking dollar that if we come up with something (compelling), we'll do very well."

In the dance gala set for mid-November, nine prominent Neapolitans will appear with their partners on the floor at the Naples Hilton to compete — both for the judges and for the crowd, whose votes are counted in dollars.

VANDY MAJOR/ FLORIDA WEEKLY Aki Akioka and student Vicki Shankland at Aki's Dance Studio in Fort Myers.

Among the many dance forms that may be seen — waltz, foxtrot, tango, or salsa, to name only a few — one approach that will be decidedly absent is slapdash.

Already the "stars" have begun dancing and training with their professionals at Fred Astaire Naples, which provides instruction to these men and women at no charge.

In this case, the joy of a pure and disciplined expression is the reward, says Jeffrey Hajko, an owner and manager at Fred Astaire.

"For me, dancing is a different way of expression," he explains. "You can write a poem, you can tell a story, or you can do the same thing with dance. And once people start dancing, they begin to realize that there's more to it — there are benefits. Exercise, making new friends, that sense of achievement that comes with moving so well."

Moving so well, together.

"You can't dance and be a fish — you can't not connect with the person you're dancing with," says Marvilla Marzan, an instructor and dance partner with Bruce Akioka, owner of Aki's Dance Studio in Fort Myers.

Her comment offers both a response and a rebuttal to a famous feminist mantra of the 1970s, often attributed to Gloria Steinem: "A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle."

In dance, interdependence is the glory, not independence.

Steppin' out and about

On a recent Sunday afternoon, artfully attired men and women who appeared to need each other like a left foot needs a right, spun, stepped, swayed and sashayed across the dance floor at the Aki Studios. The six-hour affair showcased the talent and teaching of students and instructors representing schools in both Naples and Fort Myers.

Togetherness was a given, which is one of the great lessons of dance, insists Helaine Treitman, an American who teaches Argentine tango in Naples, where she arrived last year after a 20- year sojourn in Italy.

"Men can often be frustrated because they can't meet women — maybe they feel like jerks, they don't know what to do or say — and in some ways we've become a desexualized society," she observes.

"I think of tango as 'Permission Seduction,' (after Seth Godin's 'Permission Marketing')," Ms. Treitman explains on her Web Site, www.helainetreitmantango.com.

"The rules of the game are that you walk into a room filled with romantic music, and find intelligent, attractive, beautifully dressed women, who, simply on accepting a glance and a nod from you, will wrap their arms around you and snuggle up to your check and your chest, excited to discover the intimate things your body's about to tell them."

That is, if you're clean and wellpresented, and if you can dance — not necessarily as an expert, or as a master of tricks and embellishments, but as a communicator, she adds.

Then, "the same woman who might not look twice at you at Starbucks or a happy hour, is actually hoping that you'll vanquish her with your tango."

And perhaps vice versa, since in tango, the woman is not merely following, says Ms. Treitman; with a great communicator, her following can result in the "propagation" of new movements, a stylish form of leading that may not occur in the waltz, for example.

Perhaps that worked for Bruce Akioka and "star" Pam Cronin, a past president of the Greater Fort Myers Chamber of Commerce and co-owner of the Shell Factory, when they danced a charity event after months of training in Fort Myers last year, and won.

Was the pressure on, as a large and perhaps sophisticated crowd studied the dancers, and television cameras rolled?

"It doesn't put any pressure on me, because I know what I can do," says Mr. Akioka, who opened his studio in Fort Myers in 1995, but has danced competitively and professionally for 30 years.

"If there was pressure, it was mostly because I wanted Pam to look good. And she did. She had great animation, she worked really hard in preparation, and she took the characteristics of this dance seriously — and she sold it. We did the tango and she was all hot — dressed beautifully in a red dress."

Men: the hard sell

As lovely as all that sounds, for some reason formal dancing isn't an easy sell to many men, say dancers and dance promoters.

Often, classes and studios and even clubs have a preponderance of women hoping for partners of the opposite sex.

"That becomes the problem, to get the guys," admits Jerry Alajajian, the spirited owner of Handsome Harry's on Third Street South in Naples, who decided to offer and pay for lessons and the resulting fun, for any who visit his restaurant on Thursday nights.

They dance outside, which is why he calls it, Dancing Under the Stars.

"In the summertime and with only the locals, there are more than enough restaurant seats in Naples, so I thought, with all the promotions, What's everybody missing? What is fun?"

Dance, of course — in this case Latin dances such as the salsa or the merengue, taught by Kuper Banush, a master.

"I interviewed him, he was very fit, he looked the part, and I decided to go with the Latin dances because they're so much fun," Mr. Alajajian explains.

Not only that, but since the men were few and far between, "I threw myself on the company sword." And he danced, which at roughly 6 feet 4 inches tall and 270 pounds, may require unusual ability.

"Wonderful," he says of the experience. But he may have been talking about his father, a superb dancer and amateur lounge singer in the Boston of his youth.

Back in Fort Myers, Mr. Marino could offer the voice of experience for men who see dancing as a fall-on-yoursword sacrifice — a voice that might also reflect the opinion of Helaine Treitman, the Argentine tango master.

"For a single guy, dance is nothing but power," Mr. Marino observes. "If you know how, you can dance with anybody. You can talk to every woman in a club or a social setting."

Many people who take up dance in their adulthoods have either seen it or learned to appreciate it on some level in their youths.

Ms. Marzan at the Aki Studio, for example, was born in Puerto Rico where her mother was a folk dancer, before moving to Jacksonville when she was six.

Part of the splendor of dance, she says, is the elegance and immediacy of its etiquette.

"You learn how to approach people, how to be more comfortable socially. It opens you up, because you're really exposing yourself," she explains.

"If you're going to dance, you have to find somebody to dance with. You have to find somebody and say, 'How about a dance, my name is so-and-so,' or, 'Do you swing? Do you care to dance?' It's a big step."

But a step that anyone can take — that's a universal theme among these dance instructors.

"I have never seen anyone who couldn't dance," says Ms. Treitman. "There is no such thing as 'two left feet.' If you can breath, you can dance."

All of them say that. "I've taught for eight years, and I've seen just about everything, and every level of athletic ability," says Jeffrey Hajko at Fred Astaire Naples. "I've seen someone who couldn't see, who was blind, dance beautifully. I've seen a woman in a wheelchair dance. Anyone can dance."

And many will — but not Elaine Mayrides of the Literacy Volunteers, not on the gala night at the Hilton, when her stars come stepping out.

Why the heck not?

"I would dance in a heartbeat — but I have to organize the whole thing," she says.

Is that a convenient excuse? Could Ms. Mayrides be shy? "My gosh, no. It's so much fun. I love to dance," she insists.

But what if she were shy — or what if you were shy, for example?

"Shyness will go away," advises Ms. Marzan. "But it has to happen in its own time. An art like dance is very generous in lending you a way to get over it quickly."