Girls in white gloves and frilly party dresses curtsy to boys in suits and ties. The boys, in turn, bow to their partners.
It reads like a scene straight out of the 1950s, but these are ’90s kids, more used to soccer balls than formal balls.
Still, there’s a time in their lives when they’ll need to know the social graces — for job interviews and business dinners, for wedding parties and proms — so their parents have dutifully enrolled them in the Broadmoor Cotillion, the granddaddy of the Jon D. Williams Cotillions enterprise.
For 50 years, Vivian and Jon D. Williams have been teaching boys and girls about bowing and curtsying, ballroom dancing, table manners and table settings. They started out in Colorado Springs with the Broadmoor Cotillion back in 1949 and since have graduated 250,000 students. Though the Williamses still live in Colorado Springs, their business is headquartered in Denver and has grown to include 60 cotillions in 50 U.S. cities. They also offer classes for college students, including a program for Air Force Academy sophomores, and an Executive Social Presentation course for large companies and international businesses.
While it may seem a bit archaic to some, there is still a good reason to put your best foot forward, Jon Williams said. “You only get one chance to make a first impression. If you blow it, it’s over.”
Teaching social skills to elementary and middle-school children is the ideal time to begin, he said. It’s harder to retrain someone who has spent years doing things the wrong way.
“This is the best age. There are no inhibitions, no complexes, no bad habits,” he said.
On a recent Wednesday evening at The Broadmoor, a nervous and somewhat excited group of 100 3rd and 4th graders arrived for the first of their seven-week cotillion class. Becky Poremba and Aleka Woods, both 9, tugged at their gloves and skirts in a line of girls, while Evan O’Neal and Austin Hinkle, also 9, adjusted their ties and tried to remember to keep their hands out of their pockets as they stood in the boys line.
Their first task: negotiating a receiving line of parents. The youngsters are expected to step up, extend their hands and introduce themselves with firm handshakes and clear voices.
Once that was done, the boys and girls were paired off, awkwardly and somewhat reluctantly joining hands as the boys were told to escort their partners to seats. The second lesson: learning to properly curtsy and bow, followed by the first dance lesson. Right hands clasped, the girl’s left hand on his shoulder, boy’s at her waist, they slowly step, together, back, together — the old box step of their parents’ and grandparents’ generations. The youngsters in grades 5-8 who will be in class later that evening will be learning the more advanced steps of swing, the polka and tango.
“I didn’t tell him anything about what they would be doing in advance, especially about the dancing,” said Cecelia Roesch, as she watched her son, Bennet, 9, negotiate the dance routine. He wasn’t too keen on the idea of dancing, she said.
But four weeks later, the students have mastered the routine of introductions, bowing and curtsying, serving punch, and basic dance steps — skills they would put to use at their graduation.
Better yet, Bennet is enthusiastic about the whole shebang. “I just like it. I like everything about it,” he said.
But the cotillion goes beyond basic boy-girl interaction and dancing. Here, the children learn etiquette, poise, respect, self-confidence — skills they’ll need in the real world, said Katherine Mason, 25, a former cotillion student turned instructor.
“You make a better impression if you are confident in who you are,” Mason said.
Even some adults don’t know the dining rules Mason is about impart to the 3rd graders. Using several students as models, Mason has them make circles on each hand with their thumbs and index fingers. She tells her pupils the left hand forms a “b” and the right a “d.” Translation: the bread plate is on the left and drinking glasses on the right.
“Wow; that always confused me,” whispered a parent.
At the next table, Jon D. Williams III, the founder’s son who now runs the business, teaches the boys about standing when a female approaches or leaves the table. “It doesn’t matter if it’s your mother, grandmother, aunt or even, yuck, your sister,” he said.
Surely, some parents know some of this, so why do they pay someone to teach their children manners?
“Sometimes they listen more when it’s coming from someone other than their parents,” said Amy Tracy, who enrolled her 9-year-old son, Daniel.
“He plays hockey. I wanted to expose him to the other side of things.”
