By Gabrielle Martin, Staff Reporter.
John Morgan Cone, 19, has danced all of his life; but to him, dancing is more than just a hobby. For Cone, a Marketing and Sales major at Delta, it’s something that he feels incredibly passionate about and takes great pride in.
“Dad told me when I was little,” says Cone, “that if you want to do amazing things, you gotta learn how to dance.”
He says he isn’t sure his dad meant for him to take it quite to the level that he has; but John has developed his own style of dancing that he calls “motivational dancing” and it has become a way for him to connect to the world.
“Dancing is my way of communicating myself in a different way. It’s a way to put away the normalities of life,” Cone says.
The climax, as Cone puts it, was at his first motivational dancing performance this past summer at the Bay City fireworks.
He took his stereo and just started dancing. Cone says he had many thoughts going through his head when he set the stereo down; however, the decision to not walk away was one of the best decisions of his life.
Smiling, Cone says that he had many different reactions from people walking past him – people smiled, stared, took photos or videos, and just watched. It seems fitting that Cone’s first performance of his motivational dancing would be at the Bay City fireworks considering how he describes his dancing.
“Sometimes I feel like it’s human fireworks or a human roller coaster.” Fireworks seem like an accurate description of John’s spontaneous, energetic, and unpredictable dancing which includes everything from the splits to toe touches to mixed martial arts moves. He is currently working on mastering flips so that he can include those in his repertoire of dance moves as well. Cone dances to various types of music including pop hits, electronic dance music, and indie rock and is thinking about including screamo and country in the future.
After his performance at the Bay City fireworks, Cone took his stereo and his dancing to various fairs and festivals in the area. He also performed at the Saginaw Meijer store for Meijer Mania in August. At Meijer Mania, a back-to-school sale for college students, John says that there was a dance floor and a DJ from the 102.5 radio station. During a dance-off, he won five tickets to Cedar Point.
On Oct. 18, Cone spoke and performed at a benefit dinner for Michael Stevens, a freshman at Pinconning High School who incurred a spinal cord injury when jumping into a pool. The fundraiser was to help pay for some basic expenses such as a wheelchair and physical therapy for Stevens.
Cone gave students at Delta an impromptu performance on Nov. 4. Onlookers had varying reactions to the performance.
“The word eclectic comes to mind,” says Jacob (Max) Schofield, a Delta College Art student and friend of Cone’s, “Whatever he does is his own style…it makes me want to dance.”
“Interesting,” says Morgan Gould, a student in Exercise Science at Delta, who happened to be sitting nearby when Cone broke out his dancing, “You don’t see that many Delta students dancing on campus because most people aren’t excited to be here.”
Jennifer Gillings, a Delta student, was also present when Cone performed.
“That’s like the twelfth time I’ve seen him dancing around campus,” says Gillings.
According to Jeanne Tlace, Cone’s mom, Cone is always dancing, “He dances around the house constantly- first thing in the morning.”
Cone has two prospective events that he is eyeing up to perform at, both of which are at Delta College. One event is the PBJam in which different student organizations on campus sell sandwiches to students to fundraise. Cone says that his fellow Honors Leadership Board friends would like to see him perform in a sandwich costume.
The other is a potential dance at Delta College. If the school dance goes through, Cone and another student would have a dance-off and invite students to challenge them.
If you would like John Cone to perform at your event or if you would just like to find out more about him and his motivational dancing, visit John Cone Motivation on Facebook, find him on Twitter @DArealJohnCone, or follow him on Instagram at kaoratke.