Perhaps Jenna Procise will ask for a flowing satin ball gown for her 10th birthday. Or a pair of tiny, strappy black heels. Or another dance lesson – perhaps merengue or salsa now that she’s got the cha-cha down.

After just six dance practices with Fairmount School teacher Karen McCall, the Bangor fourth-grader can hoof it to a bouncy Latin beat like an elfin Ginger Rogers.

With the other fourth- and fifth-graders in her dance class, Jenna will take the Bangor Opera House stage at 4 o’clock today and turn it into a lively dance hall. The recital precedes River City Cinema’s screening of the 2005 documentary “Mad Hot Ballroom,” which follows New York City public school pupils through dance lessons and a competition.

For Jenna, the spotlight on her first performance as a dancer is a paper tiger.

“It’s so much fun,” she said Tuesday in a Fairmount classroom, squirming in her chair. “I like it when we do the” – and then she lifts her arm to mimic an underarm twirl. “When I first started, I [made] a mistake. I hate that, but it’s practice.”

Jenna, who was born profoundly deaf, uses a cochlear implant – a surgically embedded device that transmits sound to the brain like the inner ear – to hear the dance rhythm.

To imagine how she hears sound, McCall said, turn on your favorite radio station and then turn the dial to a slightly lower frequency. The music will sound muffled and the trebles will be inaudible, but the bass will be clear enough to guide a dancer.

McCall, 58, said one objective of her dance programs is to help integrate hearing-impaired children into a wider social setting.

“If you can’t communicate as easily as the other kids, you’re kind of left out,” she said.

But the kids can communicate exquisitely when dancing through body movement, she said, and that helps bridge the gap.

On a recent afternoon at recess time, McCall looked out the window of her third-floor classroom. From there, she can see the length of the playground, and on that day, like many others, most of the children were laughing and playing on the swings, slides and jungle gyms. But one little boy – one of McCall’s hearing-impaired pupils who was in the dance class – stood alone, away from the group. McCall watched as a girl, also in the class, approached the boy and led him under a tree, where they began to practice their cha-cha steps.

McCall knew from experience that dance could be a link between the students. As a seventh-grader, she had taken ballroom dancing classes as part of the physical education program at her school in a coastal town in New Jersey.

“I was hooked,” she said. “I just loved it.”

Fairmount pupils are hooked, too. The first program held six years ago – McCall taught swing – drew 60 participants, 40 more than expected. This time, she limited the session to two classes and drew 20 who wanted to learn the cha cha.

“It’s not all about rap with these kids,” she said. “And those who don’t know it are being exposed to it.”

A cousin of the mambo, the cha cha originated in Cuba and is composed of small steps taken in 4/4 time. The count is slow, slow, quick, quick, slow, and dancers flourish their movements with spins and turns.

Each of McCall’s pupils could have told you that. As part of the session, she gives reading assignments on the cultural and historical facets of the dance, and she takes particular care to stress the social graces that accompany ballroom dancing.

“They escort their partner to the floor. They say ‘thank you’ after they dance, and then they escort their partner off the floor,” she said. “I call them ladies and gentlemen, and when you call them that, that’s what they act like.”

Jonathan Rios, certainly a gentleman, said he caught onto the steps very quickly. He likes karate and the Red Sox, too, but when he talks about ballroom dancing, the soft-spoken 11-year-old lights up. Jonathan, who is also hearing impaired, said he loves to learn “the different moves that you can do,” and he can’t wait for this afternoon’s recital.

McCall has planned another performance by the group at the school’s holiday recital and is already thinking about what step to teach the kids next.

“Maybe the foxtrot or the waltz,” she said. “Maybe the tango. … These kids, they’re gonna be glued.”

Tickets to the performance and film screening are $5, or $3 for children 14 years and younger. For information on ballroom dance classes for adults and children, call Thomas School of Dance at 945-3457 or Well Forms at 989-9730, or visit Karen McCall’s Web site, www.have2dance.com. Information on River City Cinemas is available at its Web site, www.rivercitycinemas.com. Tracy Collins can be contacted at collinstb@gmail.com.