Contempt in Four Easy Steps: Illegal Cha-Cha Lessons Leads Arthur Murray Dance Instructor

Dance instructor Eric Rush is now sitting in jail for criminal cha-cha lessons. This might be hard to explain to fellow inmates who can boast manslaughter or car-jacking for their earning their bones, but Rush literally danced his way into jail by violating an order not to teach dance under an agreement with his former employer Arthur Murray. Judge Roach in Texas did not like Rush’s stomping around on a dance floor and sent him to jail where he is now desperately trying to look like a psycho gang banger.

Rush, whose dancing name is Eric Romero (you can’t teach dance it appears without a Latin name), worked at Arthur Murray in Plano until December. He signed a non-compete clause, which seems pretty restrictive in effectively blocking his ability to stay within his chosen profession. Indeed, he states that that without Tangos, he is nothing — even suggesting that it is a sin. It is like asking a doctor not to practice medicine. . . . [If i stopped] it would be like blasphemous.”

District court Judge John Roach Jr. stopped the music. Roach appears to see contempt in Rush’s dance moves when he taught dance (before the 2009 deadline) at the Tango & Cha Cha’s dance studio in Dallas. A client signed the incriminating affidavit, identifying Rush as the man who took her through the unlawful dance moves.

For the full story, click here
For a video interview, click here.

Thanks to my wonderful colleague Susan Karamanian for sending me this gem of a story. For those interested in Gene Kelly’s view, see below:

Don’t bring a frown to old Broadway
Ah, you got a clown on Broadway
Your troubles there, they’re out of style
‘Cause Broadway always wears a smile.
A million lights, they flicker there
A million hearts beat quicker there
No skies are gray on that great white way,
That’s the Broadway Melody!

[BROADWAY BALLET]

Don:
Gotta dance!
Gotta dance!
Gotta dance!

Don and Chorus:
Gotta dance!
Gotta dance!
Gotta dance!

Don:
Broadway rhythm’s got me, ev’rybody dance.
Broadway rhythm’s got me, ev’rybody dance.
Out on the gay white way and each merry café
Orchestras play taking our breath away,
Broadway rhythm’s got me, ev’rybody sing and dance.
Oh, that Broadway rhythm…
Oh, that Broadway rhythm.
When I hear that happy beat
I feel like dancin’ down the street
In that Broadway rhythm writhing, beating rhythm…

Chorus:
Gotta dance!

Don:
Gotta dance!

Chorus:
Gotta dance!

Don:
Gotta dance!

[BALLET]

Boy:
Gotta dance!
Gotta dance!

Don:
Gotta dance!
Gotta dance!
Gotta dance!

[BALLET]

Don:
That’s the Broadway Melody!