Grant Bowler Elementary 4th graders dance the disco favorite “Stayin’ Alive” during the school’s May Day celebration at the Logandale Fairgrounds on Friday night.

By Vernon Robison

Moapa Valley Progress

A crowd of fond parents, grandparents and relations assembled at the Logandale Fairgrounds on Friday May 6 for the annual Grant Bowler Elementary School May Day Dance festival. Preparations and practice for this year’s dances had been going on for the past several weeks and the students were excited to show the crowd what they had been working on.

The spring dance festival has been a tradition in Moapa Valley for as long as anyone can remember and few real changes have been made to it. But some of this year’s performances brought some fresh ideas and new twists to what had become a standard annual program.

In keeping with tradition, the outgoing fifth grade class appeared first on the program with the braiding of the May Pole. But this year’s time honored observance was carried out to a new tune. The old scratchy maypoll music was replaced by new folk dance-style music.

The new tune presented an added challenge as accelerations of tempo occurred at various points in the music adding speed to the dancers’ steps and, for some thankfully, to the maypole braiding process itself. After the kids danced solo, they were joined in the dance by a selected parent, or loved-one, who also took up the higher-octane challenge.

Bowler Kindergarten students put down the parachutes for a moment to perform a new hip dance to “We’re the Kids Of America”.

When the maypoles were cleared from the floor, the fifth graders then performed an entirely new dance at the festival. The new dance, to the music of Run DMC’s “Tricky” brought a hip-hop flavor to May Day that has never been there before. Some fifth graders complained that they had been deprived of doing their long awaited “tinikling” dance that has been the tradition. But the crowd seemed to give enthusiastic approval to the change in protocol.

Another change to the May Day norm was brought by the school’s Kindergarten class. The young students entered the floor with large colorful parachutes as expected ready to perform the parachute dance. But noticeably missing was the formal attire of years past. The children began the parachute dance as always. But the dance was interrupted in the middle by the students setting down the old parachute, donning sun glasses and performing a hip dance to “We’re The Kids In America”. Then, after a few moments, the gears changed just as suddenly and the students went back to the parachutes and finished the dance as always.

The other addition to the traditional May Day festivities was the school’s new Early Childhood program. This small, but enthusiastic, group of kids aged 3-5 came to the stage and performed to a large crowd; something that no doubt caused some gittery nerves in the youngsters and their teachers.

Other dance numbers went on as usual. First graders performed in jungle animal attire to the music “I like to move it”. Second grade performed their standard “Hawaiian Roller Coaster Ride”. Third graders kicked their heels in “Cotton-eyed Joe”. And the evening ended with the fourth graders dancing the crowd favorite disco flashback “Stayin’ Alive”.