Dance Floor

The idea of dancing with a boy sent several fifth-grade girls at Gunpowder Elementary into a tailspin. Jen Holland even gathered 25 signatures on a petition to curtail the lessons, but ultimately she left the paper at home. Four days into the week of lessons, the petitioners were swinging, swaying and mastering all manner of intricate steps with boys in the lead. "It was a lot better than I thought," Jen said. About 90 fifth graders donned their best dancing duds for a recital Friday, capping off a week of lessons in cha-cha, merengue, tango and swing at the Perry Hall school.

They start the show with a ridiculous graphic of Gavin in his rowboat on the dance floor, getting overwhelmed by a giant wave. Oh, silly dancing show, it's fun when you have a little bit of a big budget. It's Motown night and one can only hope that they've managed to rescue 71-year-old Fontella Bass for a performance on Motown night. That song is absolutely on my "Desert Island Jukebox. " Oh, cool - they've got a  spotlight replica of the Motown logo on the dance floor. And we start off with a performance from Smokey Robinson, "Tracks of My Tears" while the troupe dances.

At the post-position draw for the 117th Preakness yesterday, everything that could go wrong went wrong -- especially for Dance Floor.The speed horses, Alydeed and Speakerphone, drew outside, instead of inside, posts.But it was Dance Floor, the horse owned by the family of rap star Hammer, who took the heaviest dose of bad luck. The colt drew the poorest gate -- 14 out of 14 in the first full field to start in the race since 1970."It isn't funny," Hammer said. "Four races and four bad spots.

If Chaz Bono and Bristol Palin can dance - well then, so can you. Maybe not like a pro, maybe not well enough to make a living at it - it's a rare gift to be able to moonwalk like Michael Jackson or to twirl and shimmy like Stacy Keibler. But dancing is supposed to be fun, not something only the elite can do. Everybody does it, whether at a high school mixer, a cousin's wedding reception or a high-class society ball. Becoming a really good dancer takes serious resolve and tons of hard work.

HALLANDALE, Fla. -- Dance Floor and Pistols And Roses, the 1-2 finishers in the Fountain of Youth Stakes, will switch places in the starting gate for tomorrow's Florida Derby.Dance Floor, which had the rail in the earlier event, drew the 11 hole yesterday, when 12 horses were entered for the $500,000 race. Pistols And Roses, which had the 10 post position in the Fountain of Youth, moved inside to No. 5.Gulfstream Park oddsmaker Chuck Streva still made Dance Floor a strong 7-5 favorite.Streva likened the 3-year-old colt to the older Sea Cadet, who won the Donn Handicap decisively, then reaffirmed that win about a month later with a 7 1/2 -length victory in the Gulfstream Park Handicap.

By day, Christina Marshall, Bryn Mawr kindergarten teacher, dresses in leggings and sweaters. By night, though, watch out. She becomes a tulled, sequined, spaghetti-strapped diva of the dance floor. For the last three years, she has spent her spare time perfecting her Lindy and jitterbug in Baltimore and at swing dances along the East Coast.All those moves have changed her wardrobe."When I first started, I wore a long skirt and turtleneck," says Ms. Marshall, 34, who lives in North Baltimore.

With a different post position for yesterday's Preakness, Dance Floor might well have been too legit to quit.But starting out of the 14th slot, the horse, owned by the family of rap star Hammer, got bogged down with a distance that it couldn't make up."It was too much to overcome," said Lewis Burrell, Hammer's father and a co-owner of Dance Floor."We knew the gate was going to be a big factor. No horse has ever won the Preakness coming out of the 14th slot."Common wisdom held that Dance Floor, a speed horse, would have too much ground to make up to run an effective race.

It only took a few minutes of observation at last night's "Club MTV" concert at the Arena to realize that something was definitely out of kilter.With six of the networks' hottest acts together for what was little more than a glorified dance party with a bunch of set changes, the building was missing a dance floor.Consider the lack of a crowd -- just 3,000 showed in the cavernous 12,000 seat hall -- and it almost becomes obscene that someone associated with this tour didn't think to give the overzealous throng of mostly teens a place to shake it loose to the sounds of Tara Kemp, Color Me Badd, Gerardo, C&C Music Factory, Tony Toni Tone and Bell Biv Devoe.

No sooner did Shirley Duncan complete a lengthy stint of hand dancing than her old friend Reggie Goodman asked to be the next man to escort her back to the dance floor. The woman credited with helping revive this once popular pastime in the Baltimore area obliges, and the two 57-year-olds step and spin and saunter with a grace and dexterity that upstages the thirtysomethings at Sista's Place in Randallstown. "It brings people of all walks of life together," Duncan said, "whether you're the garbage man, the firefighter, doctor or lawyer."

Baltimore police have arrested a second person in connection with a March shooting outside a nightclub in Mount Vernon that authorities say was sparked when women bumped into one another on the dance floor. Kimberly Moody, 22, of Gwynn Oak was arrested Monday and charged with assault, conspiracy to commit assault, a handgun violation and accessory after the fact in the March 7 fatal shooting of Sctario Tia Edwards outside of Coconuts Cafe, in the 300 block of W. Madison St. Moody's role in the shooting was not immediately clear.

The idea of dancing with a boy sent several fifth-grade girls at Gunpowder Elementary into a tailspin. Jen Holland even gathered 25 signatures on a petition to curtail the lessons, but ultimately she left the paper at home. Four days into the week of lessons, the petitioners were swinging, swaying and mastering all manner of intricate steps with boys in the lead. "It was a lot better than I thought," Jen said. About 90 fifth graders donned their best dancing duds for a recital Friday, capping off a week of lessons in cha-cha, merengue, tango and swing at the Perry Hall school.

The best part of this results show was Julianne Hough! She's one of my favorite pros on the show, although she hasn't been a cast member recently. She's been too busy, I guess, recording country music, dating Ryan Seacrest and cutting loose in the remake of "Footloose. " Her first dance sequence was to promote the movie and later in the show she danced with her brother, fellow-pro Derek.  At least it wasn't a rumba or samba -- that would just be creepy! Landing in the bottom three this week were Rob Kardashian, Chynna Phillips and Nancy Grace.

A young man who was severely beaten on a dance floor packed with drunken patrons at a now-closed Baltimore nightclub can sue the owners and allege negligence, the state's second highest court has ruled. The court unanimously overturned a decision by a city Circuit Court judge who threw out the suit against the Iguana Cantina before it got to trial. The judge had ruled that the club's owners could not have predicted the fight that occurred in September 2008 and could not have "controlled this dangerous condition or situation.

At 10 p.m. on a recent Thursday night, Red Maple, the lounge in Mount Vernon, was as quiet as an Old West movie town before a gunfight. Even the tumbleweeds were away, possibly pre-gaming somewhere else. Then, at 10:30 p.m. on the dot, like Daniel Craig in "Cowboys & Aliens," the crowds materialized as if out of nowhere, looking just as surprised to be there. The reason for the sudden change was the lounge's special that night: an open bar until 11 p.m. Yuengling and rail vodkas flew from the behind the bar as an overburdened bartender struggled to keep up with demand.

Five way-cool dudes, fedoras lowered to their eyebrows, shuffle in sync onto the dance floor as the theme from "Mission: Impossible" blares. After several impressive leaps and splits, they step dance and clap with military precision, then file into a straight line. Marching in place, they form the letters B-A-S-A-C with their arms and finish their dance with a thunderous cheer. "Diagnosis: Dance Abilities!" the quintet yells in unison. These guys, all participants in The League for People with Disabilities Career Services program, have often heard much different assessments of their abilities.

With just five weeks until wedding bells ring, there are seating charts to be made, flowers to be ordered and playlists to be finalized. But Bri Fletcher and Matt Terry put all that aside to spend their Friday evenings following the directions “slow, slow, quick-quick” over and over ... and over. They, like a growing number of couples, want their first dance as husband and wife to rise above the hug and sway. They want a dance floor debut that sparkles (not to mention twirls, turns and dips)

HALLANDALE, Fla. -- There was no rappin' yesterday on Hammer's Dance Floor.The 4-5 favorite in the Florida Derby might be legit, but he quit in a head-to-head stretch duel with 12-1 long shot Technology and ended up second, a head in front of Pistols And Roses.The lightly raced Technology graduated from allowance to Grade I company with a gutsy 4 1/2 -length win in only his fifth career start.It was announced later that Dance Floor had bled.Rap star Hammer, who owns Dance Floor, was dressed for the occasion in a red suit with red suspenders.

HALLANDALE, Fla. -- Dance Floor and Pistols And Roses, the 1-2 finishers in the Fountain of Youth Stakes, will switch places in the starting gate for tomorrow's Florida Derby.Dance Floor, which had the rail in the earlier event, drew the 11 hole yesterday, when 12 horses were entered for the $500,000 race. Pistols And Roses, which had the 10 post position in the Fountain of Youth, moved inside to No. 5.Gulfstream Park oddsmaker Chuck Streva still made Dance Floor a strong 7-5 favorite.Streva likened the 3-year-old colt to the older Sea Cadet, who won the Donn Handicap decisively, then reaffirmed that win about a month later with a 7 1/2 -length victory in the Gulfstream Park Handicap.