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Local Teachers » June Kranenburg
June Kranenburg
INSTEP WITH....JUNE KRANENBURG by K Ashcraft (April 2003)
Two weeks after she started as a trainee at the local Arthur Murray studio, they pressed her into service as an instructor and she's been teaching ever since. "I lied about my age...I was right out of high school." June says, "but I'd already been teaching tap and jazz since Jr. High.
June sold her dance studio in California in 1991 and moved back to Medford, where she has continued teaching both private and group lessons.
I ask June if she could say just one thing to people taking lessons, what would it be? "For women, trust your partner. You really need to trust him in order to follow. And for men, you must really know the steps and be able to dance them alone...you can't lead what you don't know!"
June has studied with the best in California and New York including Bob Powers, Julia Gorchakova, Buddy Schwimmer, Mario Robau Jr, Victor Veyrasset and heather Smith at Dancesport. She says that it's important for dance instructors to be able to teach the latest styling because dance steps are always evolving.
"When interest in ballroom dancing sort of dried up in the 1970's, I taught country dance and belly dance." When I asked June to tell me about something crazy that happened to her on the dance floor, she sait "If it could happen on the dance floor, it has happen to me! I once had a partner that tipped me upside down and stood on my hair as he tried to flip me back up! OWWW! I've lost skirts (don't ask), kicked off a shoe to get a guy off the floor because he was so awful, caught my heel in somebody's fishnets and got dragged across the floor...."
Currently, June is teaching ballroom and belly dance at Evergreen Ballroom, choregraphs the SOU Dance Team and "It's About Dance" at the Craterian. She is putting the word out to dedicated ballroom dancers that she's starting a dance team at Evergreen with the Ambassador performance program.
Two new classes beginning in January were Ladies Styling, a women's technique class and the Guy's Class, all about body movement for men.
We are lucky to have a professional instructor of June's experience right here at Evergreen Ballroom. See you in her classes!!
