ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, March 13, 1997 TAG: 9703130023
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: LEXINGTON
SOURCE: KEVIN KITTREDGE THE ROANOKE TIMES
Half a century ago, this might have been a rite of passage.
In 1947, maybe, or '37. Or '17.
Back when learning something called the fox trot or the mambo taught you something about men and women, too. That is, about life.
Half a century ago, this would have been a snapshot of innocence: the young cadets in uniform, the young women in skirts - and everywhere sweaty palms and clumsy feet and music in the air.
But things are a little bit different now.
For one thing this is no ornate hotel ballroom, but a utility room in Lejeune Hall, on the campus of Virginia Military Institute.
The music is from a very modern-looking tape machine.
And then this is 1997, not 1947. Long ago, humanity invented rock 'n' roll and hydrogen bombs. It recently cloned a sheep.
It has practically forgotten ballroom dancing.
So there is something slightly jarring here in the sight of all these young people learning, the way their grandparents did, or maybe their great-grandparents, to glide across a ballroom floor.
A little jarring and a little sweet, too. Ballroom dancing was once the language of romance, after all - a lovely ritual of face to face and cheek to cheek and whispered nothings in the ear.
So maybe it's no surprise that here at VMI, a place where men are men and women are ladies - and ritual is everything - it is coming back to life.
It was Jim Joyner, director of cadet affairs, who felt the young men might like to know a little bit about the civilized life.
Joyner even said it might come in handy for the cadets someday. "They're learning something they see might be useful to them in the future."
Maybe so. The world is large. There are probably places in it where a couple can still dance a tango, or a rhumba, or a cha-cha.
But for some of these student dancers, the charm of ballroom dancing is clearly rooted in the past.
"It's a different kind of dancing than people would normally do," said cadet Kwabena Gyimah. "This is more of a gentlemanly or ladylike
dancing than you find in society today."
"It's harkening back to the time when things were genteel," said Jennifer Lloyd, who came down from Staunton's Mary Baldwin College for a recent lesson. "When there were rules and people followed them. You knew what was proper, what was improper."
Didn't men and women used to do it like this?
Working their way into adulthood step by step, under the watchful eyes of teachers. Knowing the steps were difficult - but that everything would work out if they only learned the rules.
|--| Remember rules?
Ballroom dancing is all about rules - rules of courtesy, of movement, of time and place. The broader rules of etiquette - which the students are learning as well - can be confusing, but the basic rules of ballroom dancing are these: Gentlemen ask; ladies say "yes" or "no." Gentlemen lead; ladies follow.
And no funny stuff.
"The guy's hand is at the proper spot," said Lloyd. "The woman's hand is at the proper spot. There's no in-between."
Or as Juliette Gulbrandsen, also of Mary Baldwin College, put it:
"I think in this, the ladies feel more like ladies and the gentlemen feel more like gentlemen."
Several of the ladies, who are bused here in groups from area women's colleges to dance with the cadets, clearly liked the ritual. "This is more attractive than any line we have ever heard," said Lloyd. "A good partner is really great."
The cadets, meanwhile, had their own reasons for learning the kind of dancing most of us only know from old movies.
"I like dancing," said Tuananh "Andy" Nguyen, a VMI senior and a competitive boxer, "but I know I can't go clubbing all my life. Ballroom dancing, you learn for a lifetime."
"Me, personally, I'm here because I think it's a good thing to learn. I'm trying to get cultured," said another cadet, Aaron Hamilton. "Plus, you get to be around some chicks once a month.
"You'd better not put that word 'chicks' in there," said Hamilton on second thought. "Say `ladies.'''
Joyner would, certainly.
A retired U.S. Army colonel who has been all over the world, Joyner hit upon the idea of ballroom dancing and etiquette classes while helping to update the school's "rat bible" - that handbook of VMI lore and customs first-year cadets, or "rats," must memorize or suffer.
Joyner discovered that the handbook was light on etiquette. He decided to make amends, both by writing an expanded chapter on "customs and courtesies"' and teaching anyone who was interested a little bit about what once was called "polite society."
"We're interested not only in having fun but learning something," Joyner said.
The twice-monthly lessons on dancing and etiquette, begun in January 1996, are strictly voluntary.
They are also popular. From a start-up list of a few cadets the classes have grown to include some 80 students, both male and female. The women are from Mary Baldwin and from Sweet Briar College in Amherst County.
In addition to ballroom dancing, the students are learning such all-but-forgotten arts as letter-writing, addressing people properly, business manners, making introductions, conversation and - sociology students take note - "New manners for the 90s," to be taught in a session at Mary Baldwin on April 2.
On one recent evening the topic of the etiquette lesson was "Formal Dining."
Thus, as one group of students struggled with the fox trot in Lejeune Hall, another was two buildings away, in the antebellum dining room of VMI superintendent Josiah Bunting.
There they stood respectfully as Peggy Riethmiller, wife of VMI chemistry department head Steven Riethmiller, talked of forks and spoons, of tempo (the polite diner paces himself to match the speed of the other diners present), and of tact.
"When your hostess takes her napkin and puts it in her lap, that's the signal for you to put yours in your lap," she said. "Do NOT unfold the napkin and flap it in the air."
Opinion among the students was mixed as to the value of the etiquette lessons.
Cyndi Early, from Mary Baldwin College, thought such things were good to know, but added "I don't think it should get to the point where someone just spazzes" when you do something wrong.
Said Nguyen:
"I'd rather be dancing."
|--| Lurking beneath all this, meanwhile, is another question:
What are these cadets - learning about gentlemen and ladies and forks and fox trots and the rest - supposed to make of females in the barracks when VMI admits women cadets next fall for the first time in its 157-year history?
Consider these soon to be contradictory truths, each of them rooted deeply in the VMI ethos:
A cadet is always a gentleman.
A gentleman always tips his hat to a lady.
And a rat is a rat is a rat.
Next year, for the first time ever, ladies will be rats.
VMI spokesman Col. Mike Strickler said he expects the ballroom dancing and etiquette lessons to continue, and female cadets will have every right to participate.
Even so, the irony was not lost on all.
"This class and etiquette class teach that men have a role and women have a different role," cadet Nguyen said, taking a breather from the fox trot. "Women are women and men are men."
And isn't that the opposite of what the cadets must learn this fall, when the women are no longer guests, but peers?
"Exactly," Nguyen said.
Still, give the students a little credit. They live in a strange new world - and they're dancing anyway.
Fox trotting, actually. The way their grandparents did it. Hands in their proper places. Their faces eager.
Reveling in the past.
LENGTH: Long : 160 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: ERIC BRADY/THE ROANOKE TIMES. 1. Ballroom dancingby CNBharkens ``back to the time when things were genteel," said a
visiting Mary Baldwin student. 2. Dance instructor Sherri Ludt of
Lexington takes a line of cadets through their paces in Lejeune Hall
on the VMI campus. 3. Dance instructor Sherri Ludt of Lexington
takes a line of cadets through their paces in Lejeune Hall on the
VMI campus. 4. Cadets and visiting students listen during a lesson
about the proper use of utensils at a formal dinner. VMI senior
Steven Jones and Mary Baldwin College freshman Carrie Warren (below)
appear to have their steps down right.