By Lytle Wurtzel
Cavalier Daily Associate Editor
Last weekend, the Ballroom Dancing Club took center stage at the Harvard Invitational and waltzed its way through the both bronze and silver levels. The club, founded by a group of students in October 2000, made the 12-hour drive to Boston last Friday to compete with 31 other universities.
"Everyone at the competition was impressed that we drove 12 hours to be there," said second-year College student Mariam Hayes, who placed second in a "Fun Dance" that required her to find a partner from another school to swing dance with her.
"Most people didn't even know that the University had a ballroom dance club," Hayes continued. "It was our first competition as a school, so it was a very high pressure experience dancing in front of hundreds of people. But everyone looked really confident, and just being there opened up a lot of doors for us."
Melissa Kahn, president of the Ballroom Dancing Club, was "extremely impressed" with the dancers who traveled to Harvard for their first competition.
"All of our couples got call-backs for at least one event," she said. "We went up there and beat other dancers, which was exciting."
The club's success at the Harvard Invitational involved much more preparation than slipping on a pair of dancing shoes. The Ballroom Dancing Club meets every Tuesday night under the instruction of Peter Collins, a professional dance instructor from Manhattan. Collins, who holds a Ph.D. in physics from the University, commutes from New York each week to teach approximately 30 to 70 students for three hours.
The classes, which fill Slaughter Recreational Facility, include a social dance workshop - which teaches everything from the foxtrot to the waltz - and a special Latin dance class geared toward students who wish to advance to competitions.
Although the Ballroom Dance Club is open to any students or faculty members, its instruction comes at a price: to take both classes, dancers pay $75 a semester, or $45 to enroll only in the social dance class.
With Collins' instruction, in addition to student-led dance practice Thursday nights, the team entered the Harvard Invitational at the bronze level, with the exception of Hayes and Ren who entered at the silver level. The swing dance category in which Hayes competed required dancers to take the stage without knowing which song would play while they danced.
"Because we wouldn't know what song would be played, we depended on our ability to hear the song and make up a dance to it," Hayes explained.
Ballroom dance students were not the only ones cutting a rug at Harvard this weekend. Dancing celebrities, including James and Jaana Kunitz, who starred in the Vanessa Williams movie "Dance with Me," performed a showcase event.
Competitors showed off their cha-cha, waltz, rumba and swing steps during the two-day invitational. The 17 University students present competed in a range of those events, including the tango.
"It was like a dog show," explained Hayes. "You danced, waited to see if you made the cuts, danced again, then waited some more. But it was worth it because organizations who didn't even know we existed are now inviting us to compete in their competitions"
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