Dancing Lessons

1995

A wooden console, reminiscent of a 1950’s television, contains two monitors, placed with their screens facing each other, playing two synchronized videos. These videos open with a group of 12 and 13 year olds – boys on one screen and girls on the other – waiting for their ballroom dancing class to begin. The teacher enters and tells the boys to choose their partners, who then get up and begin to walk across the room, disappearing from one monitor and then appearing on the other as they ask the girls to dance. As the screens fill with dancing couples, images of the students are intercut with brief excerpts from vintage films that include classic dance sequences and more overt sexual encounters.