You say you dance like American Idol reject William (She Bangs) Hung?
You say people pay you not to dance the Macarena?
You say you're about to be married and don't want to look like a fool at the reception?
Shawn Trautman thinks he can help. The Dunedin computer tech has launched a business of one-day dance classes (www.danceseminars.com) that promise to help the most rhythmically challenged.
For $300 a couple, Trautman and his team of red-shirted instructors take students through eight hours of instruction in everything from salsa to swing to the '70s hustle, which Trautman said is ideal for moving to techno music.
Though Trautman, 28, has a day job as a computer consultant, his heart is in the dance. He and his mom ran a dance studio in Clearwater for a few years before he headed to college. Knowing many people shied away from traditional dance programs, believing them to be too expensive, too insistent on long-term contracts and too difficult to schedule, Trautman came up with another idea: no studio, no contracts, a one-day commitment.
The seminars, called Dance Xpress, began in January at various rented venues. Trautman and his team bring lighting and a DJ booth, along with giant soccer balls and hula hoops used as teaching aids.
"We use the balls to get the rhythm of it and create a beat," he said. "Rhythm is intangible and a lot of men can't see it or conceptualize it, so they don't know they're missing it."
Trautman is diplomatic when asked if he's yet seen a hopeless case.
"Everybody learns at different levels," he said. "Sometimes if people don't get it, they just need it said another way."
