Dance Haddonfield’s June program was led by Gene LaPierre. Lessons for the blind began in 2023.
Dance Haddonfield has been an important part of the community since it was founded 25 years ago to bring borough residents together to experience and appreciate the art of dance.
Along with a schedule of nightly ballroom dance nights and lessons every Sunday night at the Grace Church Parish House, the organization hosts classes for the blind and visually impaired over several weeks in fall and spring, even offering volunteer drivers on evenings when the sun sets early. The most recent season came to end earlier this month.
Joe Murphy is the founder of Dance Haddonfield. He came up with the idea of lessons for the blind after joining the Haddonfield Lions Club.
“If you’re going to thrive, if you’re going to have a real life, you should have the option of being able to dance,” he said. “And I thought, I don’t know anything about the blind, but I know everything you need to know about dancing. So that’s what triggered the idea.”
The program began in 2023, when Murphy drew participants by using the connections of his friend Bill Brown, who works with Bestwork Industries for the Blind to provide training and employment opportunities.
“One of the things I’ve thought about, when they’re dancing, they’re with their peeps,” Murphy explained. “They never have to explain to somebody what it’s like to be blind, or what it’s like to be visually impaired. They’re all together, so it becomes a non-issue.”
Seven blind and visually impaired people were enrolled in Dance Haddonfield’s first season. Since then, the program has expanded both the number of participants and volunteers of all ages.
“If you ever have doubts about human nature and whether people are really good or not, you just watch the people working with the blind folks, and it just kind of builds your faith in human nature,” Murphy observed. “And the same thing about young people when you see the high-school students we’ve had here.”
Volunteers not only work with dancers but also provide safe transportation to Haddonfield, given that many students are from across the South Jersey and Philadelphia areas.
Grace Church Parish House offered Dance Haddonfield space at no cost. Instruction by Gene LaPierre – who works with the charity Ballroom Dancing for a Better U to teach dancing to special needs adults – is also free.
LaPierre’s style of teaching involves a lot of communication with his classes. He explains moves without music, describing which foot or arm to move and when, then goes through a dance before having the class join him. At the last lesson of the season, students learned the Waltz, Hustle and Foxtrot with songs from various genres and time periods.
“I’m being very verbal, because you’re working with the visually impaired …” LaPierre stated. “A lot of times teaching dance is a visual thing, because you’ll say point your foot like me, or do this, but you’re still visually seeing it.”
One of his favorite things about teaching is the sense of community fostered by lessons.
“Everybody knows that they’re all in the same space,” the instructor offered. “They’re making new friends. They’re learning something new that they haven’t done before, or if they have done it, they haven’t done it in a very long time.
“It’s really impressive how everybody came together.”
