The Ballroom Dance Club, a club sport at N.C. State, is offering free dance lessons to students to promote interest in competitive dancing. Members of the club’s competitive team are teaching lessons almost every Thursday in the Talley Ballroom.
Dancing with the Wolves, a nonprofit organization, is partnered with NCSU, committed to DanceSport, the official term for competitive ballroom competitions.
The types of dances generally taught include salsa, rhumba and hustle, but vary from semester to semester. The lessons are organized at various skill levels of dancing to help mediate the cost of coaching.
“We love dancing and we want to be able to share that with as many people as possible. It’s a great way to get people interested in competitive dancing,” Megan Woltz, president of NCSU DanceSport, said. “Most of our competitive members originally showed up for a social lesson and enjoyed it so much they subsequently joined the team.”
Social lessons are taught in three-week cycles, so each dance is taught once a week for three weeks. Aside from salsa, rhumba and hustle, the competitive members teach some of the dances that the club competes in, and other social dances like merengue and swing.
Experience is not necessary to participate in social lessons or the competitive teams. The social and newcomer competitive lessons start right away.
“None of our former national champions had any dancing experience prior to joining our club,” said Woltz. “People might find out that they love dancing and never knew that they were good at it. At the very least, people are bound to have a good time and meet some new people,” she said.
Free lessons for social members began last Thursday with salsa dancing.
“We often get nearly 100 people for the popular dances like swing. We actually had almost 200 people participate in our salsa lesson last Thursday,” said Woltz.
For other dances, about 30 people attend the free lessons.
Kimberley Thurston, a freshman in education, said, “It is a good opportunity to meet new people. The class is real easy to follow because the instructors are fun.”
The Ballroom Dance Club consists of both competitive and purely social members. While social members take lessons for the fun of it, competitive team members take lessons from a variety of professional ballroom dancers to advance their own dancing. Competitive members, usually consisting of 25 to 40 members, travel around the country competing in DanceSport. They dance at almost every level of competition: newcomer, bronze, silver, gold, novice and pre-champ.
Current competitive members hold former national champions in Gold Latin, Gold Standard, Silver and Bronze Latin. They take lessons and compete in International Latin, which consists of rhumba, cha cha, samba, jive and paso doble, and International Standard, which consists of waltz, foxtrot, quickstep, tango and Vienesse waltz.
Competitive members compete individually. Each partnership, a leader and a follower, is judged individually at a competition. The competitive team is only open to NCSU students, faculty and staff by club Sports policy. Social members are welcomed and encouraged to participate in the club’s social events and to dance with the competitive dancers in places around the Triangle. Social members don’t pay dues or participate in team practices and lessons.
“It is an incredibly culturally enriching experience,” Steven Burgess, a freshman in engineering, said.
To participate in social lessons, students must have their AllCampus cards. Nonstudents are welcome to lessons for a payment of $5. To join the competitive team, students must fill out a form at the social lessons. Forms are also available on the Web site.
“I would highly recommend that everyone try social dancing at least once. I had never danced ballroom in my life before attending one of the club’s free lessons, and now I dance five-to-seven days a week,” said Woltz. “I am absolutely addicted. You’ll never know how much fun you can have until you get on the dance floor and give it a try.”