From confidence to collaboration, one high school elective in Guam is doing more than just teaching students how to dance. At Tiyan High, ballroom dance is helping teens navigate trust, teamwork and self-expression. KPRG’s Naina Rao takes us inside the classroom to learn how performing arts are shaping young lives, one step at a time.
TRANSCRIPT
BYLINE/NAINA RAO: In a classroom at Guam’s Tiyan High School, students aren’t just learning how to dance. They’re practicing how to work together, face fears, and build trust, all through salsa and cha-cha's. Ballroom dance has been offered here for nine years now. It’s one of several fine arts electives. But for some students, it’s turned out to be a life lesson in disguise.
ROSALIA CRUZ: It helps with you memorization, especially if you’re learning routine. It would help with recognition over a long period of time.
RAO: Rosalia Cruz took the class as a student. She says it taught her how to collaborate, even with people who weren’t easy to dance with.
CRUZ: I had more trouble with people who were less extroverted than I was. So learning to not overstep my boundaries was really important.
RAO: Senior Alina Nauta says she’s learned to let go of control, and lean into trust.
ALINA NAUTA: Ballroom dancing, especially with a partner, you have to trust them. Once you learn to trust yourself and your partner, it’s really easy to apply that to real life and learn how to trust in general. It definitely teaches you to just be more okay with things not being okay.
RAO: For parent Renee Cepeda, the changes she sees in her daughter go beyond the dance floor.
RENEE CEPEDA: It’s made her open up better. She’s able to communicate with others better, and she’s more confident in telling others how she feels about things.
RAO: The man behind the class is Ron Labrador. While he’s been teaching it for nine years, Labrador has been dancing even longer.
RON LABRADOR: We could put aside our differences and work together. That’s what ballroom dancing does. But more importantly, the respect, the dignity. I tell them that before you engage in actual contact, we got to respect each other’s space.
RAO: He says something special happens when students are working toward a common goal.
LABRADOR: There's 99 things that tell us we're different, and it's so hard to tell that one thing that makes us alike. When we participate in an activity that makes us work together, that become the one thing that draws us together. And then they become close friends.
RAO: Labrador says teamwork through dance gives students a skill set that other electives may not.
LABRADOR: When you're responsible with somebody, with a partner, it creates this scaffolding feature where you both have to always work together, even though you don't want to. And then it makes it better.
RAO: Sophia Duenas, principal at Tiyan High, says ballroom dance has especially helped students who’ve struggled elsewhere.
SOPHIA DUENAS: We’ve had some high, at-risk students who didn't want to do anything else, but when they went into the ballroom dance class, it really just changed their behavior. And it gave them something to do. It made them feel important.
RAO: She says school staff take student safety seriously – and are ready to intervene when needed.
DUENAS: Once the person claims sexual harassment, it is sexual harassment.
RAO: Support doesn’t stop there. Counseling is available for anyone who needs it.
DUENAS: We do have counselors if you want to continue to talk to someone about what had happened.
RAO: Still, Duenas stands firmly behind the important role of the arts in this classroom.
DUENAS: You always want to send students out being a well-rounded person.
RAO: And for these students, the next step on that dance floor might be their first step toward a brighter future.
KPRG News transcripts are created on a rush deadline by a KPRG contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of KPRG's programming is the audio record.
