Advertisement

Dallas teacher leads class in viral 'Uptown Funk' video

"I told them, 'I am not a dancer, but I'd love to do this and go on this journey with you, and we can all learn from it and have a good time,'" teacher Scot Pankey said. "And they were all on board."

By Ben Hooper
Subscribe | UPI Odd Newsletter

DALLAS, Jan. 27 (UPI) -- A Dallas high school teacher and his students have gone viral with a dance video set to the tune of Mark Ronson and Bruno Mars' "Uptown Funk."

Scot Pankey, a theater teacher at A. Maceo Smith New Tech High School, directed the video and starred alongside students from all six of his theater classes.

Advertisement

The video, posted to YouTube Saturday by its editor, student Jonathan Vega, features the teacher traveling around the school and performing choreographed dance moves alongside different groups of his students. The five minute video is shot in a single take.

"I heard the song before Christmas and fell in love with it," Pankey told The Dallas Morning News. "We are a project-based school -- there are only two in the Metroplex -- and that means you give the students a project, put them in teams, and they have to come up with solutions. They had three weeks to work on it, then present as a group what they learned."

Pankey said the video was the first project of the new year.

"I told them, 'I am not a dancer, but I'd love to do this and go on this journey with you, and we can all learn from it and have a good time,'" he said. "And they were all on board."

Advertisement

"This is a great example of how a bunch of technology students let go of their fears, trusted their teacher and got down to Uptown Funk!!!" the video's YouTube description reads.

Latest Headlines