Richard Powers’ 31-year waltz on the Farm

Decades have come and gone, but Stanford’s Social Dance classes are as popular as ever. The classes frequently see a 200-person long waitlist, and in the pre-internet era, long lines of students camped outside of Roble Arts Gym to sign up for the classes each quarter. 

Richard Powers M.S. ’70 has taught social dance at Stanford since 1992, after turning down two previous offers from the University. The first offer came when he was working on a miniseries for Warner Bros. The second time...