Princeton Weekly Bulletin May 10, 1999
Ballroom dance: A club sport
No previous experience is necessary and progress is "very satisfying"
By Caroline Moseley
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Mary Yang '98 and Patrick Lee '99 doing the jive at
the Clover Ball (top l); Christina Brown '01 and Rutgers
student Tommy Kang doing the rumba at Communiversity; and
Natalia Lisitza, graduate student in chemistry, and
Thomas Hewitt, lecturer in mathematics, doing the cha cha
at the Clover Ball (photos by Ron Carter and Michael
Buchanan) |
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The club currently boasts about 80 members, according to Eleanor Aversa '01, president of the group. "We have two beginning classes, intermediate and advanced classes, and a team that competes with other colleges," she says. Aversa and Yuliy Sannikov '00 generally instruct the beginners, while profes sional instructors are hired for the intermediate, advanced and team lessons, she says.
All classes are held in the Dillon Gym dance studio or multipurpose room. The curriculum includes tried and true ballroom favorites such as the foxtrot, quickstep, tango and waltz, as well as a potpourri of exotic Latin dances, such as the rumba, cha cha, samba, paso doble and jive.
A club sport, the Ballroom Dance Club recruits campus members at the September activities fair and holds open houses at the beginning of both semesters. Dancers and would-be dancers from the Princeton community join classes along with students. According to social chair Christina Brown '01, there are 20 to 40 people in each beginning class. "With two classes each week, there are a total of about 60 beginners in the club." The ages of dancers vary from 18 to -- well, quite a lot older. "It's surprising how many retirees take up ballroom dancing," says Aversa.
Often, she says, people begin dancing because they have a particular event on the horizon at which they want to be able to take to the dance floor -- such as a wedding, their own or a child's. Graduate student Mike Buchanan, the club's information manager, says with a laugh that he took up the sport because "I needed to acquire some culture."
No previous experience is necessary, he notes, and progress is "very satisfying."
In addition to offering classes, the PBDC sponsors an annual Fall Ball, as well as the Clover Ball, which was held this year on April 23 in Dillon. More than 150 people attended the event, which honors the late dancer and volunteer Princeton instructor Neil Clover, says Jeanne Woon '01, PBDC treasurer.
20 competitive dancers
The PBDC fields a team of 20 competitive dancers who have traveled to Harvard, MIT, Brown, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and elsewhere to strut their stuff. Their most recent triumph was at the April NYU Dancesport Festival, at which several Princetonians won ribbons: Patrick Lee '99 and Mary Yang '98 took first place in Advanced International Foxtrot/Tango; Sannikov and Emi Terasawa '00 won the Beginner American Waltz; and Terasawa and Philip Nikolov '99, won the Newcomer International Quickstep.
For those who prefer to think about ballroom dancing before taking the first swirl, the PBDC has a 800-person e-mail list of dance enthusiasts, accessible from the club website (www.princeton.edu/~pbdc/). Buchanan is webmaster for the site, which offers links to dance events in the area and dance clubs around the country and at other universities.
It also provides an intriguing guide to dance etiquette, reminding the uninitiated that ballroom dancing is a contact sport. Gentlemen are urged to carry keys or change in the left trouser pocket, because "This makes it less likely to bruise your partner." Ladies are reminded that "Long hair should be put up or tied in a ponytail ... It is not fun to be hit in the face with flying hair during turns and spins."
Now that ballroom dancing is an Olympic sport, the Princeton dancers expect even greater interest in their activity. And, they say, where better to start than with the PBDC in Dillon Gym?
For information about the PBDC, check out the website or call Brown or Woon at 258-9079.