SIMSBURY, Conn.—High school students in this affluent Hartford suburb are sending a clear message to administrators: If they can't dance dirty, they won't dance at all.
Ever since Simsbury High School banned "booty dancing" last year, students have been boycotting previously popular dances or leaving early, with the junior and senior proms being the only exceptions.
After Principal Neil Sullivan informed students of the prohibition last January, the next dance sold only three tickets and was canceled. School officials and other adult chaperones at the events say the students' dance moves were essentially simulated sex maneuvers.
But students say that's just how their generation dances.
"I felt it was a little ridiculous that teachers weren't up with the times," said Chris Meyer, this year's senior class president.
But Meyer got a fresh take on booty dancing when he chaperoned an event for seventh- and eight-graders.
"After watching it, I thought they had a point," Meyer said. "It was the first time I witnessed it from an outside perspective."
Despite the boycotts, Simsbury school officials have no plans to allow booty dancing, also known as freaking, grinding or back-to-front dancing. Many schools across the country have also banned the dance style.
Sullivan wrote to parents last year describing how students were dancing, and asked for forgiveness for the details. He said parents needed to know exactly what was happening at the school dances.
"In the kind of dancing that we are seeing, the male student stands directly behind the female student," Sullivan wrote. "He then places his hands either on his partner's hips or around her midsection. At the same time, he presses his pelvic region against his partner's buttocks."
"As the music plays, the students then thrust or grind to the beat of the music," he continued. "Sometimes, girls will even bend over as they dance, placing their hands on the floor while their male partner grinds against their backside."
Administrators hoped students would change their minds about staying away from school dances when they scheduled one after a bonfire event that has traditionally kicked off the new school year in the fall.
"They came to the bonfire, then left," Sullivan said recently.
This school year's homecoming dance drew about 1,000 students, and officials said the dancing was "appropriate" for the most part. But many students left after about an hour.
School officials have organized non-dancing events as alternatives. But only 50 students showed up at a recent "Beach Boardwalk" event that featured various games.
Meyer said he still booty dances at parties, and after seeing the younger students dance that way he thinks that maybe school isn't the place for it. That has led him to one conclusion about school events.
"I don't see dances coming back," he said.
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Information from: The Hartford Courant, http://www.courant.com
