ANAHEIM : Blind Students Take Positive Steps in Dance Class

Cay Cannon taps her feet to big band music as her students tango, fox trot and cha-cha.

Cannon must explain each movement in greater detail than other dance instructors do, because her students can’t see what they are learning.

The class, which meets on Tuesday afternoons, consists of 30 blind students at the Braille Institute, where they also have learned how to swing, glide and shake on the dance floor with confidence.

Cannon, a former champion ballroom dancer who owned several dance studios in the 1950s and 1960s, has been offering the dance lessons for 2 1/2 years for free in an effort to boost her students’ self-esteem and instill a love for ballroom dancing. The students range in age from 30 to 70.

The class recently performed in a national recital in San Juan Capistrano, where the audience shed tears, Cannon said.

“The performance just ripped the heart right out of my body, it was so wonderful,” said Cannon, 65, who publishes two nationwide publications--Jitterbug and Dance Action.

“This is the most peaceful sport in the world,” she added. “The whole thrust of my class is to have people indulge in ballroom dance because I think it promotes peace and harmony. No one gets hit with a hockey stick in this sport. There is nothing negative about dancing.”

Student Gary Parker, 49, said he loves to dance. He didn’t know how before Cannon taught him, and now he teaches a beginning dance class.

“Dancing gives a lot of us a little more energy, a little more self-confidence and something good to think about when we go home in the afternoon,” he said.

Cannon, of Laguna Beach, believes dancing can help anyone feel good about themselves.

“It’s exhilarating,” she said. “There’s no hostility to it at all. Everyone should try it. Even if they have a disability, you can do it. It’s a dynamite feeling.”