By EMMA BARTLETT

On Tuesday afternoons, Cranston East physics teacher Ann Walkup can be found in the senior cafeteria with up to a dozen students and a multi-colored loudspeaker playing music that will keep your feet tapping. As a physics teacher by day, Walkup helps run the school’s ballroom dance club and participates in dance competitions around New England.

Walkup’s extensive dancing history began at age four when she started ballet. Growing up in Connecticut, she started Latin and ballroom while attending Connecticut College in New London. Taking a break from ballet, Walkup resumed the dance genre in 2013 and went on to learn west coast swing in 2015. Overall, she competes in West Coast Swing, Ballroom, Latin and Country dance

While Walkup primarily studies with Jennifer Bloch, owner and director of Twirl the Girl studio, Walkup’s passion for dance takes her to competitions around New England. Over New Year’s she competed in Boston and took eighth place in Novice West Coast Swing. She took seventh place in Delaware and took seventh place in Sophisticated West Coast Swing, which was a new personal best. At a recent competition in Virginia, Walkup said while competitive dancing occurred during the day, social dancing took place at night – lasting from midnight until 6 a.m.

“I made it to 3 a.m.,” said Walkup.

Her experience led to helping run Cranston East’s ballroom dance club which started in the fall of 2019. Assistant Principal Isa Tejada connected Walkup with Emily Cortez, the co-owner of Fred Astaire Dance Studios and sister company to IChooseDance. IChooseDance seeks to foster a healthy lifestyle, creative expression and well-being through ballroom dance instruction. Cortez said it started with the vision of teaching middle and high schoolers and giving them the gift of ballroom dance. When covid hit, the club was put on pause.

“It’s not a good socially-distanced sport,” Walkup said.

The club resumed in October 2021 and will meet once a week until June. Practices are between 45 minutes and an hour each, consisting of new steps and rehearsing what they’ve already learned. Students started working on tango at the beginning of the year, with current focuses on salsa, samba and bachata.

While the club has had students come and go due to sports and other commitments, the dedicated group of four students who show up each week are starting to put the finishing touches on their three-minute dance number. Cortez is trying to get them in a Fred Astaire Dance Studios performance and Cranston East’s multicultural week since the school has a large Latinx population; they will perform at the end of March/early April.

Cortez has two Fred Astaire Dance Studios dancers to assist her: Steven Volante and Cheryl Johnson. The two have many years of dancing and teaching under their belts.

“I love it,” said Volante. “It’s so much fun to see them pick up stuff so quickly – they’re really good.”

Djuvens Belaire also attends the weekly practices and when asked if he had a favorite dance, Belaire said he liked them all, with each having different types of moves and emotions with it.

Walkup said ballroom dance is a great opportunity for kids to meet each other and helps with social and interpersonal skills – especially after the pandemic which has isolated so many. She will show students videos of her competitions, talking about how individuals are randomly paired. At a competition in Virginia, Walkup met and danced with people from other countries.

When she isn’t dancing, Walkup teaches science and physics in all grade levels. In June, Walkup will have been at Cranston East for 18 years. She has also been the recipient of several science awards. In 2008, she was given the AMGEN award for science teaching excellence. In 2020, the American Association of Physics Teachers honored Walkup with the Paul W. Zitzewitz Award for Excellence in K-12 Physics Teaching. Currently, Walkup is pursuing a graduate gemologist degree at the Gemological Institute of America.