Bertha Mae Coleman filmed on her phone as kids at Farring Baybrook Recreation Center moved passionately to Tony Richman’s “Million Dollar Baby”: a pop of the hip, a triumphant fist pump, a body roll. Their expertise has been honed from watching dances and other short-form videos on TikTok.

With school closed, Baltimore’s rec centers are hubs of summer youth activity and engagement. As Coleman brainstormed the season’s events with the kids, “they were so excited by the idea of a TikTok party.”

While unconventional, she thought, why not?

“It’s our way of meeting them where they are at and allowing them to be themselves,” said Coleman, Farring Baybrook’s director.

She imagined the TikTok party would be a great way to kick off the Brooklyn rec center’s reopening after six months of maintenance work.

While you might think your kid is disappearing into an online void on the popular app, 9-year-old Jakyra Herring said TikTok showed her a world of dance.

“I see people like me dancing, expressing themselves,” Herring said. TikToks taught her how to dance and taught her what she aspires to be — a majorette dancer.

Majorette is a high-energy form of dance popularized by the marching units of historically Black colleges and universities. It’s widespread on TikTok.

Baltimore hosts a number of award-winning and competitive teams that Herring, thanks to TikTok, hopes to be a part of.

By now, kids who had started on the party’s sidelines had taken to the center stage, whether they knew a TikTok dance or not. A young boy shuffled his feet and shimmied his shoulders to Beyoncé’s “Get Me Bodied,” and the entire room burst into applause and cheers.

“He doesn’t often do that, but he’d been practicing his dancing for the party,” Coleman said with a loving chuckle.

The kids moved as a group, from the dance floor to the snack room and back. They munched on chips, Flamin’ Hot Cheetos and Nerds. They wore light-up rings and glasses, and a clip that fanned multi-hued lights like flower petals when added to a T-shirt or a baseball cap.

Even though organizers put a trendy spin on the party, they were still competing for attention with Baltimore classics.

Nine-year-old Brailyn Knight wondered where the snow cone truck was? It’s summer, right?

“Can we go play outside all together? I’d like to swim in the pool and get a snowball,” Knight said. She lives close to Farring Baybrook but hadn’t been as often since joining a cheer team. Her friend Kennedy Young, 9, convinced Knight to come because of the TikTok theme.

Once Young and Knight’s favorite artists came on in the gym, they busted out cartwheels, shuffling and middle splits to a remix of “It’s the Hard-Knock Life” from “Annie” like it was second nature.

TikTok brought the Farring Baybrook kids closer together, not further apart. And, even if the adults didn’t know all the trending dances, they weren’t afraid to join in.

Tony McKoy, a 20-year veteran at the rec center, showed the kids a move or two before locking arms with them to form a jumbled kick line.

Part of the kick line was Amaira Small, who works in teen engagement for the Recreation & Parks Department. Small grew up down the street but had heard about the center only two weeks ago. She was inspired by everything it offered her community.

“I’ll be honest, I never thought there could be a place this nice in the projects,” Small said with a bright smile. “I want to come back and work here permanently.”