Competition / Ballroom Dance
Stepping Out

By Mark Kendall

Alumni from long ago may get a lift out of learning they’re still very much in step with today’s students, at least when it comes to dancing. Tango, foxtrot, Viennese waltz—these are all big moves on campus nowadays.

And, no, you can’t pin it all on the popularity of ABC’s Dancing with the Stars. The Claremont Colleges Ballroom Dance Company was born a decade ago and took off long before the TV show debuted in 2005.

Devoting long hours to early-morning rehearsals in Edmunds Ballroom, some 80 students now are part of the company, with many more taking part in their alcohol-free weekend events. The company keeps winning, placing first in the formation event at the
National Collegiate Dancesport Championships for six of the last seven years. The latest victory came in November, as the Claremont dancers, clad in tailsuits and gowns, drew a standing ovation after performing their Harry Potter-themed standard medley at a competition in Columbus, Ohio.

“They kept complimenting us out the door,’’ says Paul Roach ’07, who is in his first year as director. “We had people from other colleges asking us how we run our program.”

So why are today’s busy, savvy students devoting so much time to old-fashioned dancing?

Kimberly Loo ’08, a member of the company, devoted her senior anthropology thesis to exploring ballroom dance culture at the 5-Cs. “There are the people who do it because they love to dance, the people who do it because they are awkward dancers and want to get better, the people who do it because their friends are doing it, the people who do it to make friends, the people who do it to win competitions …"

Mostly, though, she points to the “snowball effect” on campus, as one student after another gets drawn into the camaraderie of the dance company. “It’s about eating meals in Frary together after every rehearsal,’’ Loo says. “It’s about going to the Coop after a night of dancing salsa for hours, it’s about friends.”

Jay Daigle ’08, another of the dancers who performed in Ohio, took his first social dancing class through the company because he was simply tired of feeling silly when he danced at parties. He quickly “fell in love” with ballroom dance, and today he helps teach dance classes as he puts about 30 hours a week into rehearsals, social dancing and his work as vice president of the company.

“It’s provided a great social environment and made me a lot more comfortable and self-assured,” says Daigle, who adds that the program provides a great way to meet people for students, like himself, who don’t feel comfortable with traditional college party culture.

But what may start out as a social outlet can become “almost an obsession,” says company member Joshua Leavitt ’10, who spent a good chunk of his summer-job earnings on private lessons. His goal is to perfect his foxtrot—an incredibly classy dance, he says—by senior year. In the mean time, he finds there’s nothing quite like competing at a national level, decked out in a tailsuit before a big crowd. “Everyone is cheering and it just feels so good and you realize, ‘Yes, I can dance.’”