Since 1993, the University of Massachusetts Ballroom Dance Team (UMBDT), a club sport, has fostered an environment for students to connect through dance and social events.
According to the UMBDT website, their two-fold mission is “to support and engage community participation and education through social dance events and to promote the sport of ballroom dance through competition participation and participation opportunities”
The team mainly focuses on four different types of dance: smooth, standard, rhythm and Latin. All four fall under both international and American styles of ballroom dancing. In total, the organization learns 19 dances together.
Tryouts for the team are held twice a year, during both fall and spring semesters. There is no experience necessary to join the team. Students learn two dances, the American Waltz and the Cha Cha, and the judges will mark them on performance and timing.
“It’s pretty low stakes, in general we try to take as many people as possible,” said captain Vivian Hayward, a junior art education major. Hayward has been a part of UMBDT for the past six semesters.
“I never danced before college and now I’m a captain,” she said.
There are four levels for students to reach as a member of the team: newcomer, bronze, silver and gold. These levels determine the amount of practices that students attend. As the dancers become more experienced, they move into a new level.
Newcomer dancers have practices once a week and then can also attend mentoring with an upper level dancer.
Social dances are another way that students can get involved with UMBDT. Through these social classes, taught by either the captains or experienced dancers, students can learn something new. These usually occur once a month and some of them are themed, like their Valentine’s Day Bachata social.
In addition to the social dances, practices and tryouts, they also attend competitions. Currently, the team is planning on attending seven competitions this semester held at Boston University, Holy Cross, Worcester Polytechnic Institute, UMass, Rochester Polytechnic Institute, Northeastern and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
“We basically will carpool to those competitions because it makes it a lot easier for everyone and most of the time it ensures that everyone gets there on time,” said competition coordinator Dorothy Barros, a junior political science major. “It’s a nice system that we have.”
Barros has been a part of the team for three semesters. Both Barros and Hayward had similar experiences when deciding to join UMBDT.
Barros recounts that she joined “on the biggest whim,” and decided to try out the day of. Without ever attending a social, she knew she wanted to join a club when she got to UMass. Being involved with performing arts in high school, she thought it sounded feasible.
“I looked at the list of all the clubs that were just doing stuff for the first or second week of spring semester and I was like ballroom dance? I really like dancing salsa, I think tango’s cool, waltz seems fun and I literally just showed up,” she said.
Hayward found out about the team through one of her art classes. After hearing about it, she came to the tryout late with two of her classmates.
“We got to the tryouts 40 minutes late because they start at 7:00 p.m. and we didn’t even get out of class until 7:25 p.m. and we did the dances and we all made it,” she said. “We made it a thing to go after our class, to go to practice and then go get food.”
“Very ‘college experience’ of just showing up and being like, I’ll stick with it I guess,” Barros added.
The team has many opportunities for students to get involved with leadership positions. There are 11 members that hold positions right now. Positions include a standard executive board: president, vice president, treasurer and secretary. Additional positions are publicist, costume closet coordinator, two competition coordinators, an event coordinator and two captains.
For both Barros and Hayward, one of the most enjoyable parts of being a member of the UMass Ballroom Team has been the people that are involved.
“It sounds extremely corny but I really like the people,” Barros said. “We get all different types of people and everyone’s shared thing is that they like ballroom dance. It’s a nice fresh breath when I’m at ballroom”.
Since Hayward is a captain, she teaches practices that are not run by the coaches.
“Getting that interaction with the team and getting to see people make astronomical progress through their dancing even if it’s just for fun and seeing them get excited learning new things is really awesome, ” Hayward said. “It’s a very good community experience.”
Sydney Warren can be reached at [email protected]
