It has been four years since the late choreographer, dancer and instructor Larry Payne of Michigan City organized a community street dance.
Now Lakeshore Performing Arts, where he taught from 2018 until his death in March, presents a communitywide street dance on Oct. 29 on Franklin Street in downtown Michigan City to pay tribute to Payne, who was born in Gary and attended Portage High School.
“He was one of our main instructors and a close friend,” said Jessica Hughes, owner of Lakeshore Performing Arts in Trail Creek.
“Before he got sick it was his dream to put this on and do this at least one more time. We wanted to get the community involved in doing something fun in his honor.”
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Lakeshore Performing Arts students lead the communitywide street dance to the Michael Jackson song “Thriller,” which builds on the legacy started by Payne and local business owner Johnny Stimley more than 10 years ago.
“It brings the community together and I love that,” said Hughes, one of the event’s sponsors and organizers.
“One thing that we try to instill in our students at the school is that sense of family and community. Our kids are great for each other. There is no bullying, animosity or jealousy. They are very united. I love to bring that out even farther.”
Payne, who Hughes said danced with the Russian ballet and had a leading dance role in the “Super Mario Bros.” movie, trained her oldest daughter, Alexis McFarrin, and youngest daughter, Katey Hughes, in dance.
“He was a great person and far beyond a dance teacher. He was selfless,” Hughes said.
McFarrin, the main instructor at Lakeshore Performing Arts, is putting together the choreography for the Communitywide street dance, which has more than 40 students signed up to take part.
“I appreciate their willingness to participate, their enthusiasm and their fun spirit,” said Hughes about the students, who range from ages 4 to 17 and include La Porte and Michigan City residents.
The free event features Lakeshore Performing Arts dancer Torey Morris, a Michigan City High School freshman, as Michael Jackson and Carson Gallas as mini Michael Jackson.
“The nostalgia of Michael Jackson transcends age groups. I know young kids that love Michael Jackson to grandparents that love Michael Jackson. It bridges that age gap,” said Hughes of Michigan City.
Children and adults from the community may participate in the Communitywide street dance whether or not they attended practices at the school.
“They don’t have to know the choreography necessarily to participate,” said Hughes about performing in the event, which also includes Jackson’s song “Billie Jean.”
“We encourage everybody to come out and have fun. You don’t have to be a perfect dancer. You don’t have to know how to dance at all. Join in with the kids and dance.
“It’s like a flash mob. The front rows will be doing more of a performance and others behind them can dance along if they want.”
Jessica Hughes began dancing at a young age.
“I did a lot of dance as a child. Then, as an adult, I did teach ballroom and Latin dance, but then I got more involved with teaching music. The whole thing started with me teaching music out of my home. We were definitely a music studio first,” she said.
“During that time my daughter Alexis was heavily involved in dance. She did competitive dance and she started teaching dance at another studio at age 11 and has taught all the way since. When I decided to open a building for music, we combined our skills.
“That’s where we found Larry and grew so much from there.”
Opened in 2018, Lakeshore Performing Arts has a total of seven instructors and offers dance and music lessons for ages 3 to adults.
“We do recreational through competitive. That goes for music and dance so we have had a lot of competition winners,” Jessica Hughes said.
“We teach piano, violin, voice, ukulele and guitar. Then for dance we do ballet, tap, jazz, contemporary, hip-hop and acrobatic. We’re extremely diverse.
“It’s just building that confidence. Alexis and Larry especially really instilled a lot of confidence in those kids. They both worked with a lot of those kids that were hiding in the bathroom on the first day and went on to win first-place trophies.”
Communitywide street dance
When: 5 p.m. Oct. 29
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Where: on Franklin Street at 7th Street, Michigan City
Tickets: Free
Information: 219-688-7982; facebook.com/lakeshoreperformingarts
Jessi Virtusio is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.