PORT ANGELES — Oh, no, not me. I’ve got two left feet.
Social-dance teacher Carol Hathaway hears that from her students. She doesn’t believe it.
Many of us just haven’t had the chance to learn, Hathaway says — yet.
She and her fellow teachers offer dance classes in fall, winter and early spring around Port Angeles and Sequim; a couple of times a year, they host a community dance for past, present and future students.
The last dance of this season is set for Saturday at the Vern Burton Community Center, 308 E. Fourth St., with a band whose repertoire ranges from swing to cha-cha to country two step.
Haywire, founded 26 years ago by Denny Secord, will aim to keep the dance floor full from 6:30 p.m. till 10 p.m. The admission charge is slim: $5.
Secord, who’s been known to sit down beside a couple and ask, “What do you want to dance to?,” said Haywire covers a good six decades of music, from Hank Williams Sr. to the Zac Brown Band.
The community dance is open to all ages, as are the classes Hathaway and the North Olympic Dance Consortium offer.
That name of that group, which also includes veteran instructors Michael and Darlene Clemens of Port Angeles, sounds pretty serious.
Not so much, said Darlene.
She and her husband have been teaching for eight years — “we’ve mellowed,” Michael says — and they’re not training people for “Dancing with the Stars.”
Instead, they want to share some steps and dance etiquette, so local residents can get out there and enjoy themselves.
The Clemenses’ friends Ann and Steve Johnson have a name for their dance lessons, one that sums up their mission: the Just for Fun classes.
Still, “I’ve seen people struggle, big time,” said Steve.
Sometimes, Ann said, beginners cannot hear the music at all. They’re too busy with their footwork.
So she and Steve take it easy, going back to basics and encouraging students to stick around long enough to break through.
Then they get to watch as this dancing thing changes from work into play.
They see those former strugglers out on the dance floor, doing the East Coast or West Coast swing, the cha cha, the fox trot, the country two for all they’re worth.
“We have to have fun,” said Darlene, adding that the fees for dance classes cover the hall rental and no more.
Hathaway teaches dance lessons in the evenings; by day she’s a nurse practitioner. When she steps onto the dance floor, workaday stresses melt away.
Dancing, she said, “is my happy place.”
