Mani
09-07-2014, 09:16 PM
Do you like how the UPI article includes a picture of Miley touching her crotch?
Yes. The best way to solve the twearking problem on the dance floor....Ban the school dance...
http://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2014/09/04/This-is-nothing-like-Footloose-says-principal-who-cancelled-dance-and-banned-twerking/1521409835183/
BENNINGTON, Vt., Sept. 4 (UPI) -- A small town principal has cancelled her school's homecoming dance and is considering cancelling all school dances as a means of keeping students from twerking.
"This is nothing like Footloose," wrote Mount Anthony Union High School principal Sue Maguire in a letter to the editor published in the Bennington Banner.
The comparison to the classic Kevin Bacon film came up repeatedly on Facebook after the school announced the homecoming dance was cancelled. Rather than consider the implications of the criticism, Maguire addressed it literally, failing to understand or choosing to the ignore the film's use of dance as a metaphor for each generations' fear of the next.
"If you look at the dancing in Footloose, and the dancing we're seeing, they're not the same at all."
Despite twerking's nationwide popularity, one local newspaper feared residents of the town of less than 16,000 may be unfamiliar with common form of dance, and consulted a college professor to academically explain the dance move to unaware Vermonters.
"It's very much a hip-thrusting, kind of with-your-legs-bent move so it's very graphic-looking," Terry Creach, a choreographer at Bennington College, explained to the Times Argus.
"However, when you see it as a solo, it looks like it's right out of West African dancing ... It's just a hip action which American culture has never been very comfortable with ever. I think the big difference here is when two people are doing it together, it looks like graphic sex. When it's a solo, it doesn't ... Some of the religions in the U.S. think of dancing as being sinful and sexual as opposed to an art form or being sensual ... For those of us in the dance world, we feel very limited by that perspective."
Maguire does not agree with Creach's distinction between sexual and sensual in regard to twerking, and feels it's her duty as an educator to protect students from influences that do.
"I don't blame the students," Maguire wrote.
"This is what they're exposed to, this is what they think is okay ... Unfortunately, our young people are continuously exposed to a culture filled with sexualized images and messages, but this should not and cannot be permitted at our school."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2014/09/04/principal-cancels-dance-to-stop-students-from-twerking-and-blames-miley-cyrus/
The principal and dean of students at a high school in Vermont cancelled the fall homecoming dance in an effort to stop students from “twerking” and blamed Miley Cyrus for starting the dance trend with her provocative appearance at the 2103 MTV Video Music Awards.
A letter signed by Mount Anthony Union High School’s Principal Sue Maguire and Dean of Students David Beriau, and published in the Bennington Banner, explains why they decided to cancel the homecoming dance and try to engage the students in a discussion about how to “find the balance between free expression and appropriate school behavior at dances.”
This is not the first school event to be called off because of what adults say is inappropriate dancing — back in 2011, for example, Skaneateles High School in New York cancelled a winter dance because of sexually charged dancing. This may, though, be the first dance of the new school year cancelled to stop twerking.
The letter said in part:
Over the past couple of years, since Miley Cyrus took the stage “twerking” at the 2013 MTV Video Music Awards, our students’ dancing behavior has crossed the line of what we can condone as appropriate behavior at a school. Twerking is dancing to popular music in a sexually provocative manner involving a low squatting stance and thrusting movements. Students do not face one another or remain with the same person for the length of the song….
As a school we are responsible to keep students safe and teach them how to interact with others appropriately. One of the issues that emerges with this highly sexualized form of dancing is consent.
When faculty spoke with some of our students about how the dancing starts between two people, we were told by students that someone just comes up behind you and starts. One female described being uncomfortable when a male student she didn’t know started “grinding” with her from behind. Other students in the discussion agreed with her and said it is not uncommon. They explained to us no one asks permission before “grinding” nor do they ask the other person if they want to dance.
We need to engage in conversations with our students about how to be respectful of each other.
We have been asked why we don’t just stop it. Try to picture our cafeteria, with 400 to 500 students in tight clusters of about 80 students. It is very difficult to get into the middle of the clusters to monitor every student who is dancing inappropriately.”
You can read the whole letter here.
Yes. The best way to solve the twearking problem on the dance floor....Ban the school dance...
http://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2014/09/04/This-is-nothing-like-Footloose-says-principal-who-cancelled-dance-and-banned-twerking/1521409835183/
BENNINGTON, Vt., Sept. 4 (UPI) -- A small town principal has cancelled her school's homecoming dance and is considering cancelling all school dances as a means of keeping students from twerking.
"This is nothing like Footloose," wrote Mount Anthony Union High School principal Sue Maguire in a letter to the editor published in the Bennington Banner.
The comparison to the classic Kevin Bacon film came up repeatedly on Facebook after the school announced the homecoming dance was cancelled. Rather than consider the implications of the criticism, Maguire addressed it literally, failing to understand or choosing to the ignore the film's use of dance as a metaphor for each generations' fear of the next.
"If you look at the dancing in Footloose, and the dancing we're seeing, they're not the same at all."
Despite twerking's nationwide popularity, one local newspaper feared residents of the town of less than 16,000 may be unfamiliar with common form of dance, and consulted a college professor to academically explain the dance move to unaware Vermonters.
"It's very much a hip-thrusting, kind of with-your-legs-bent move so it's very graphic-looking," Terry Creach, a choreographer at Bennington College, explained to the Times Argus.
"However, when you see it as a solo, it looks like it's right out of West African dancing ... It's just a hip action which American culture has never been very comfortable with ever. I think the big difference here is when two people are doing it together, it looks like graphic sex. When it's a solo, it doesn't ... Some of the religions in the U.S. think of dancing as being sinful and sexual as opposed to an art form or being sensual ... For those of us in the dance world, we feel very limited by that perspective."
Maguire does not agree with Creach's distinction between sexual and sensual in regard to twerking, and feels it's her duty as an educator to protect students from influences that do.
"I don't blame the students," Maguire wrote.
"This is what they're exposed to, this is what they think is okay ... Unfortunately, our young people are continuously exposed to a culture filled with sexualized images and messages, but this should not and cannot be permitted at our school."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2014/09/04/principal-cancels-dance-to-stop-students-from-twerking-and-blames-miley-cyrus/
The principal and dean of students at a high school in Vermont cancelled the fall homecoming dance in an effort to stop students from “twerking” and blamed Miley Cyrus for starting the dance trend with her provocative appearance at the 2103 MTV Video Music Awards.
A letter signed by Mount Anthony Union High School’s Principal Sue Maguire and Dean of Students David Beriau, and published in the Bennington Banner, explains why they decided to cancel the homecoming dance and try to engage the students in a discussion about how to “find the balance between free expression and appropriate school behavior at dances.”
This is not the first school event to be called off because of what adults say is inappropriate dancing — back in 2011, for example, Skaneateles High School in New York cancelled a winter dance because of sexually charged dancing. This may, though, be the first dance of the new school year cancelled to stop twerking.
The letter said in part:
Over the past couple of years, since Miley Cyrus took the stage “twerking” at the 2013 MTV Video Music Awards, our students’ dancing behavior has crossed the line of what we can condone as appropriate behavior at a school. Twerking is dancing to popular music in a sexually provocative manner involving a low squatting stance and thrusting movements. Students do not face one another or remain with the same person for the length of the song….
As a school we are responsible to keep students safe and teach them how to interact with others appropriately. One of the issues that emerges with this highly sexualized form of dancing is consent.
When faculty spoke with some of our students about how the dancing starts between two people, we were told by students that someone just comes up behind you and starts. One female described being uncomfortable when a male student she didn’t know started “grinding” with her from behind. Other students in the discussion agreed with her and said it is not uncommon. They explained to us no one asks permission before “grinding” nor do they ask the other person if they want to dance.
We need to engage in conversations with our students about how to be respectful of each other.
We have been asked why we don’t just stop it. Try to picture our cafeteria, with 400 to 500 students in tight clusters of about 80 students. It is very difficult to get into the middle of the clusters to monitor every student who is dancing inappropriately.”
You can read the whole letter here.