The name Harris Rosedale spread terror among the city’s seventh-graders, especially its boys.
Harris drove from auditorium to lunch room to assembly hall, bringing a library of recorded music with him.
He offered a program of dance lessons targeted toward mothers concerned about the social graces of their children. He priced his product shrewdly — nearly every kid would be trapped. As many as a hundred left feet might walk into one of Harris’ classes.
He devised a method to match partners randomly, but the prettiest and the most athletic among them cheated and would end up together. The tallest girl invariably was paired with the shortest boy.
The first principle Harris impressed on the girls and boys is that the male needs to take charge. He taught the boys to lead by placing a hand on the small of his partner’s back. By holding a girl’s right hand he could telegraph which moves she should anticipate.
No one questioned that idea that only one partner could lead.
Neither Harris nor the children had any way of knowing that their generation would usher in profound changes on the dance floor — and in every part of the lives women and men shared together.
Soon there would be fewer hard-and-fast rules about who should lead and who should follow. Each couple would decide which moves, how much contact and what kind of coordination, were right for them.
It never occurred to the old-time, song-and-dance man that he should to spent an evening teaching his students how to dance alone. It didn’t matter. They would learn to do that on their own.
