"What about here, how many of these do I do?"

"Six."

"No, it's seven," prompts Peck. She prances around the room to the music. The children watch her, some doing the steps with her, others listening intently.

"I thought it was kind of weird for a guy to dance at first," said a tough sixth-grader from Longfellow School. "But our teacher showed us some dancing from West Side Story. And I do break-dance. This is really like street-dancing."

"Alexis had a dentist appointment today, but he came in after lunch especially for this class," said Longfellow teacher Pauls A. Falloni. "He wouldn't do that for anything else."

Alexis is participating in a dance about three boys who get into a fight on the way to school.

"Now, let's work on this. It's step, hop, step, hop, step behind, bum, bum," says Peck in measured time, hopping around Alexis with her hands clasped behind her back. The rest of the class watches, singing along with the music and dancing Alexis' part themselves to the side of the room.

"The greatest thing about the program is that the kids are working together," said one mother who is working on costumes for the show. "Even kids who normally wouldn't participate in a group activity--excluded for one reason or another--are interacting."

Backed this year by close to $3000 in loans and grants from various University offices, the Undergraduate Council, and a grant from Stride-Rite, Citystep hopes at least to recover the approximate $6000 cost of the performance itself. "The future of the program will depend on the shows," said Executive Producer Catherine T. Davidson '85. "If we get a good response, hopefully it will go on. Sabrina's proven that absolutely anyone can dance. She took these fifth and sixth graders who had no experience and taught them how."

"If we get some money. I would love to do this for a salary," said Peck. "You don't know how many kids there are, what kind of impact we can make."