DANCING DYNASTY; SWAYZE'S MOM MOLDS NEW CROP OF HOOFERS.

Byline: Sylvia L. Oliande Daily News Staff Writer

Westin Mierop's story is not an uncommon tale among children who love to get up on stage or behind the camera.

It's a tale of sitting in front of a television screen at a tender age and wishing to be one of those children frolicking with Barney or Big Bird.

By age 5, Westin had already determined to make entertainment his life. And when he saw his older sister, Leah, taking dance lessons, he knew that was his ticket in.

Westin, now 10, is at the beginning of his budding career with a few musical theater parts on his resume and a commercial agent. He got his first taste of the footlights a few years ago and was hooked.

``I like how the audience claps,'' he said, taking a momentary break from tap dancing. ``They laugh and stuff. It's really nice.''

Westin is just one of the many young boys who are busting through long-held stereotypes that dancing is for girls and sissies.

His mother says that Westin plays ice hockey and is all boy. He just happens to like performing and knows in order to get where he wants to be he has to take dance lessons.

``He wants to be a triple threat - a singer, dancer and actor,'' Julie Mierop said. ``He has been into the rugged sports, but he enjoys this so much, and it's just as demanding. He comes home sweating like he would playing sports.''

During a recent dance lesson, Westin's teacher of two years, Patsy Swayze, corralled her students into a line along the ballet bar set up in front of a full-length wall mirror.

``We don't tell them it's ballet, we tell them it's exercise,'' Swayze said in a conspiratorial voice as the boys worked on stretching their legs while pointing their toes.

Her easy manner with students is evidence of many years teaching boys to dance. She brought up three boys in her first dance studio in Texas - including son Patrick, whose fancy stepping in the blockbuster movie ``Dirty Dancing'' helped make his career.

Photos of her famous son line the walls of her Simi Valley studio.

``The boys adore him,'' she said. ``Whenever they do something wrong, I tell them he's looking at them, and they straighten right up.''

Westin is not the only one of the 15 boys in Swayze's afternoon class to be bitten by the acting bug.

One performed with the Rockettes in their Christmas show at Universal Studios last year. Another played Buffalo Bill in a Young Artists Ensemble production of ``Annie Get Your Gun.''

Kim Clark said she began taking 10-year-old Cameron to dance lessons when he put on shows ``until he drove me crazy.''

``He's a showman at home, so I bring him to get all that energy out,'' she said.

After the ballet phase of the lesson is over, the boys moved on to their favorite activity, tumbling.

``I want you to land on your feet,'' Swayze teased one tow-headed boy as he performed a stunt but thumped his rump on the landing.

Swayze said there is a distinct difference between teaching boys and girls to dance.

First, the dancing styles have to be tailored to boys, strong and sweeping rather than graceful and slight. ``You have to convince boys that it's hard,'' she said, ``show them that sissies can't do it.''

``Boys need a lot of bragging on,'' she added. ``Little girls, they don't care. You can correct them. With the boys, you have to build a desire a little more. And when they grow up, they want to show off their prowess, how high they can jump, how fast they can turn.''

Many of the boys said that while they like their lessons, they don't often go around telling people that they dance.

Westin said he is often teased, especially because of the ballet lessons. But he said Swayze has taught him that the only ones who'll tease are those jealous that they can't do it.

``I just tell them that at least I can do gymnastics better than you can,'' he said.

His mother admits to some reservations when Westin first began to show interest in dance.

``But he's one of those kids that walks to his own drum,'' Julie said. ``He doesn't care what people think about him. I think it's a parent's thing to worry about that.''

Swayze said that she was surprised and annoyed to find that there was more of a stigma to boys dancing in California than there was in Texas. She moved to Simi Valley in the early 1980s, when she began getting job offers after choreographing ``Urban Cowboy.''

She says that whenever one of her students complains about teasing from their peers, she tells them a story about how her sons dealt with it.

She said Patrick came home one day asking how he should deal with his junior high school classmates who teased him for carrying his ballet shoes in his back pocket.

She first told him to ignore them. But when the teasing persisted, she advised her son to take the shoes out, face the boys and ``whip the living tar out of them.''

CAPTION(S):

3 photos

PHOTO (1 -- color in Conejo and Simi edition) Veteran dance instructor Patsy Swayze, mother of actor Patrick Swayze, leads a group of male students at her Simi Valley studio.

(2 -- Bulldog edition only) Above, Patsy Swayze observes while Lukas Ray, 9, soars during a leaping exercise at her dance studio in Simi Valley.

(3 -- also ran in Simi and Conejo edition) At right, 10-year-old Westin Mierop tap dances in front of a poster of ``Dirty Dancing'' star Patrick Swayze.

Tina Gerson/Daily News