Dance to fitness this summer

McALLEN — Dance your way to health and social grace this summer.

That’s what Orlando Perez, director of Salsa Dance and Fitness, invites the area’s young people to do at this summer’s “Teen Latin Dancing.” Perez said he has these summer camps for children and adults each year.

Instead of just congregating around the TV, pounding away at your Wii or PS3, or frying your skin under that penetrating sun, learn how to dance hip-hop, salsa, merengue, cha-cha-cha, and numerous other exhilarating dance moves.

Perez said the class, which began Monday, is open to children age 10 through 18. Perez said he doesn’t require anyone to sign up ahead of time or to make a formalized contract with the school.

“Everyone comes and goes as they want,” he said. “We are going to be teaching them belly dancing, ballroom dancing, bachata.”

Perez has taught dance in the Rio Grande Valley for 10 years; the response to his school has been “wonderful.”

People have taken dance lessons from him for a number of reasons. Some were looking for exercise and lost 30 or 40 pounds in the process; they’ve turned problems hearts, he said, into healthy hearts. Children who were socially awkward suddenly found a way to fit in with their peers.

“If you go to a party, can you tell your girlfriend or your wife, ‘Hey honey, let’s get up and do the treadmill dance’”? he asked. “You cannot do the treadmill, you cannot do the kickboxing dance, you cannot do the step aerobics, because there is no such thing as the step aerobics dance. There is no such thing as any of those.”

He also contracts with the McAllen school district, where children get an alternative to regular physical education classes.

“They have been given the opportunity to do something beautiful,” he said. “They just love it.”

What are some of the more difficult dances he teaches?

“I would say the dance that has the most difficulty is ballroom and belly dancing,” he said. “The ballroom dancing is more spiff. Belly dancing, you have a lot of abdominal muscles to control independently.”

Perez said people who start out dancing at a young age have a much greater likelihood of a long, healthy life, as well as an active mind.

“The brain does not go to sleep on a dancer,” he said. “A dancer is obligated to be multi-tasking and multi-functioning, because you are having to work your feet, you are having to work your body, and you are having to work your brain to respond to the beat, or to count the beat.”

Dancing carries over into other aspects of a person’s life.

“A young dancer has grown up to be a very good professional and educated person,” he said. “It carries over, not only into a socially positive person, but it can result into a smarter individual, especially if they start from young, because you are forcing their brains to function. It is not by way of a video game, the video game does the same thing every time you get kicked out of the video game, you go back to playing the same level. This is different.”

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Travis Whitehead covers features and entertainment for The Monitor. You can reach him at (956) 683-4452. For this and more local stories, visit www.themonitor.com.

WHAT: Salsa Dance and Fitness summer dance camp

WHERE: 400 Nolana, Suite N2, McAllen

PHONE: (956) 566-9555

EMAIL: salsamcallen@rgv.rr.com

WEBSITE: www.salsamcallen.com