Dancing by the Peddie Lake

Turn two left feet into toe-tapping swing

By: CHRISTIAN KIRKPATRICK

"Anyone


can learn to dance," says Candace Woodward-Clough, dance instructor and
founder of the social dancing class, Dancing by Peddie Lake.

Please


visit our

Education 2001 sponsors:

Chapin


School

Chesterbrook


Academy

Comcast
DelVal’s


Graduate Program

DeVry
Health


Choices

The


Hun School of Princeton

Huntington


Learning Center

The


Jewish Center

Kiddie


Academy

Laser


Park

Lawrence


Presbyterian CO-OP NURSERY SCHOOL

The


Lewis Clinic

Mercer


County Community College

Mercer


County Technical

Middlesex


County College

Music


Together

New


Horizons Montessori

Notre


Dame High School

Our


Lady of Sorrows PRESCHOOL & CHILD CARE

Princeton


Day School

The


Peddie School

The


Pennington School

Pinecone


Academy

Princeton


Montessori School

Princeton


Eye & Laser Center

Princeton


Latin Academy

Princeton


Academy of the Sacred Heart

Princeton


Friends School

Princeton


Junior School

Roberts & deMarsche Orthodonics
St.


Ann School – Lawrenceville

Stuart


Country Day School

Sylvan


Learning Center

Sylvan


Learning Center – "Success"

Toy


King

United


Way – Help For Young People

Villa


Victoria Academy

The


Waldorf School of Princeton

Yoga & Tai Chi Center   

   CANDACE Woodward-Clough sounds a little wistful as she thinks of the old days, long before she was born. Then, according to her 84-year-old mother, "everywhere you went, there was a band." "Not so, anymore," sighs the dance instructor.
   Few hotels offer tea dances. Ballrooms are just about extinct. Restaurants no longer have dance floors. And when clubs do offer live music, it is rarely the kind that would set Ginger Rogers’ or Carmen Miranda’s toes tapping.
   These days, people who want to waltz, tango or fox-trot must search for places where they can, and people who want to learn how to perform these dances usually must find an instructor.
   Ms. Woodward-Clough not only teaches ballroom and Latin dancing. She brings people together, throws parties and organizes field trips so her students can get out on the floor!
   The Hightstown resident began teaching locally soon after she moved to town 11 years ago. At the Peddie School, which is just across the street from her bungalow on Etra Road, she began offering a social dancing class once a week in a large room in its arts building. The Masland Room must have been a ballroom teacher’s dream. It held 200-300 couples, had the requisite wooden floor and looked out over the still waters of Peddie Lake. Naturally, she called her eight-week classes Dancing by the Peddie Lake.
   Since this bright beginning, Ms. Woodward-Clough has also taught at many other local institutions. She currently offers classes at the Princeton YWCA, Princeton University, the Institute for Advanced Study and Montgomery Township’s dance studio, which is off of Route 206 in the Montgomery Professional Building.
   About a year ago, the Peddie School subdivided her glorious Masland Room into little music rooms. A large new multipurpose room would one day take her ballroom’s place, but what could she use until then?
   Her home, she decided, with its light and airy basement, where she had been teaching private lessons to individuals and small groups for 11 years. The arrangement works surprisingly well, Ms. Woodward-Clough says. On her beige and white checkerboard linoleum floor, she can coach six couples. They can adjust their movements by watching their reflections in a long wall of mirrors, and they can take inspiration from the photographs and prints of swirling couples that surround them.
   She recently found some inspiration of her own in this room. A year ago, several of her Peddie Lake students said they would like to learn and perform a dance routine. Ms. Woodward-Clough says that if she had not moved Dancing by Peddie Lake to her house, she probably would not have agreed to coach them. Instead, with the help of two dear friends and associates, Ellen Tattenbaum and Allen Lepore, she began the class. The first class did a cha-cha to Carlos Santana’s "Smooth"; the spring class performed a swing dance to Van Morrison’s "Moon Dance." In August, her class performed the rumba, and the current class is working on a hustle to "Lady Marmalade" which was recently heard in "Moulin Rouge."
   Members of this class probably do not expect to take their act on the road. Periodically, however, they do perform for a friendly audience at the parties that cap her Dancing by Peddie Lake classes. Lately, the parties have been held at The Brother’s Moon in Hopewell, which Mr. Lepore helped to build. About once a month, Ms. Woodward-Clough leads a field trip to a nearby spot where her students can dance. Beginning students, she explains, are often afraid to dance in public. Going out in a large group gives them courage.
   Her favorite local dance place is the Paso Doble Ballroom in Levittown, Pa. "The owners are fantastic," she says, the ambiance is wonderful, and "it is bigger than Roseland!"
   Many of the people who come to her for instruction are couples. One member might play tennis; the other, golf. This is something they can do together.
   Sometimes her students are young people engaged to be married; sometimes they are the parents. Professionals who must attend charity balls also come to her, hoping to avoid feeling like a 15-year-old at his first prom.
   And speaking of proms, the students of Peddie come each spring to prepare for theirs. The first spring she taught at the school, she remembers with a laugh, she was eight months pregnant, and the faculty came for instruction, too!
   Many of her students remain with her. After taking her beginner’s class, which usually covers swing, the waltz and fox-trot, they go on to her intermediate classes, in which they can learn more advanced versions of these dances, as well as Latin dances. They also go on her field trips.
   One of her students has organized his own unique field trip. This farmer from Cream Ridge regularly lays a wooden floor out on one of his fields, and he and his wife dance on it, along with friends from ballroom class.Other couples from her classes dance at places she recommends. Though ballroom and Latin dancing is not as popular as it was in her mother’s day, an increasing number of clubs and organizations offer it. She keeps a running list of them for her students.
   "Anyone can learn to dance," she says. No one is too old or too clumsy. In fact, she seems to specialize in shy guys with two left feet.
   Dancing is also wholesome and non-caloric, she jokes. It certainly will not add inches to the waistline. If practiced with Ms. Woodward-Clough, however, it just may add engagements to the calendar and friends to the rolodex!
   Dancing by Peddie Lake is held at Ms. Woodward-Clough’s home at 112 Etra Road in Hightstown. Beginning classes are at 7:30; intermediate ones are at 8:30. The next 8-week session will begin in January. Call (609) 443-8990 to register.