To live is to dance for John Young

Reporter KATHERINE HOBY and photographer PAUL ESTCOURT step on to the dance floor to meet a teacher whose name has been synonymous with dance in Auckland for 50 years - and who at 70 can still swoop and glide with the best of them.

"Esto es tango." This is tango. And for dance teacher John Young the simple statement on his billboard has become his life philosophy.

The tango is Mr Young's latest passion, although the charming 70-year-old has been teaching the people of Auckland to dance for 50 years - with no plans to leave the dance floor anytime soon.

More than 60,000 people have learned to dance everything from the waltz to the salsa under the tutelage of Mr Young and a select group of teachers.

The age of aspiring dancers ranges from 18 to 70-something and their reasons for learning are just as diverse. "I've even been rung at 9.30 or 10 on the night before a wedding. Now that was a dance emergency," says Mr Young.

John Young took his first dance lesson at the age of 16 in Belfast. He was hooked from the start. "My head was spinning. I was so elated," he recalls. "Then I found out I wasn't too bad at it, and it took hold of me from there."

He has dedicated his life to dancing and dancing has given him great satisfaction and pleasure in return.

Many of his past and present students gathered to throw their teacher a surprise 70th birthday party at the end of September. But for all the praise and affection from those in his life, he keeps his feet firmly on the ground.

"I feel they [the students] have done me an honour by coming to my class in the first place," he says.

His is still the voice callers to the studio will hear, and teaches five nights a week.

"If you stop working and moving you die," he says. "Even after all these years, I'm always trying to learn and improve. It keeps me young."

Life as a dance teacher was not always easy. In 1951, after he qualified as a teacher and set up on his own, the studio struggled to make its way in the face of stiff competition.

"I used to cart these old 78 records halfway across Auckland - boy, they were heavy. Not to mention the suitcase of cups and saucers," he says. Supper was provided after each dance lesson, which cost two shillings and sixpence.

The dances taught in the early days were essential social tools of the day - the waltz, the rhythm foxtrot, quickstep, square rhumba, Maxina and a dance that was quite the rage in the upper North Island at the time - the intriguingly named three-step polonaise.

Dancing was big business at the time, Mr Young says, and studios such as Miss Spencer's and Johnny's in Remuera taught hundreds of students during "the season".

Dances held at cabarets and ballrooms across the city were the social highlight of the week for most. "It was a great era in Auckland in the 1950s and early '60s. We looked forward all week to going out to dance on a Saturday night," he says.

"It makes me quite sad to think about it now but we had some great times."

Today the studio teaches dance styles such as the tango, salsa, rock'n'roll and sequence dancing.

When disco was at its Saturday Night Fever-pitch, teachers at his studio started to offer classes in it. They were overwhelmed by the response, and at the height of of the disco boom there were 25 classes in it each week.

"People just couldn't get enough of it," Mr Young says, shrugging his shoulders. "It wasn't my thing, but if there's one lesson of business I've learnt, it's that you have to give people what they want. I didn't like rock'n'roll when it first came along, either."

There are aspects of dancing which appeal to most people, Mr Young says - not least of which is the romance.

"It's about dancing, talking and moving with each other - what other activity can you do with someone you've just met and get that close?"

One of Mr Young's best qualities as a teacher is his patience, one of his students says. "He has about six ways of explaining one step, so if one doesn't work, he tries another."

Many romantic matches have been made at John Young's studio. One of his teachers made the point, only partly jokingly, that he took up dancing to meet girls.

In fact the dance maestro himself met wife Anne while entwined in the tango. Anne had taken classes for two years before the pair ever went to dinner, he says.

"It was a bit about the magic of the dance and a lot of about the magic of the man," Mrs Young says. The couple will celebrate their 20th wedding anniversary this Christmas.

Besides wishing he could spend more time with his wife, Mr Young wants for little in his life. He knows he is hooked on dancing and says he will keep on teaching "as long as they want me".

"It's a job where you make a lot of people happy. I like that about it best. I won't ever give it up entirely."

Esto es tango.