The simplest way to tell the returning members of the Georgia Tech Ballroom Dance Club from those attending their first meeting was to look at their feet.
As the two dozen dancers walked through the steps of the waltz in a studio in the Campus Recreation Center, the experienced ones wore dancing shoes and moved gracefully. The first-time attendees moved unsteadily and wore tennis shoes or just socks.
It was the semester’s first meeting for the club, which has grown in recent years through the efforts of club members and by bringing in a celebrity coach. Irina Nikiforova, a PhD candidate in history, technology and society, kick-started the club when she came to Georgia Tech five years ago.
Nikiforova had grown up dancing in her native Russia and met countryman Olga Kormanovskaya during professional competitions. Kormanovskaya is a champion Latin dancer and partner of Louis van Amstel, who has appeared on several seasons of Dancing With the Stars.
“When I came to Tech, there wasn’t really any ballroom dancing,” Nikiforova said. “I was so sad because I had been training with such a good team.”
While watching the new members struggle with the waltz, Nikiforova said one of the best parts of starting the club has been watching members come in with little or no experience and quickly growing into talented dancers. She pointed to outgoing club president Amy Elliott, a fourth-year science, technology and culture major.
“Amy went from nothing to a championship-level dancer,” Nikiforova said. “It shows what you can do in three or four years.”
Elliott explained, “I came in as a ballerina and knew nothing about ballroom dance. Then they made me president and I had to learn everything.”
The club offers weekend lessons in Latin dances taught by Kormanovskaya, Tuesday night lessons in ballroom dances and practice sessions on Thursday nights. Elliott said the central mission of the club is dance education, both through classes and outreach.
Members also travel to several competitions a year. At the Gamecock DanceSport Challenge, held in December at the University of South Carolina, the Tech team earned several medals.
The club, which has members from at least six countries, also performs on campus at student events and Culture Fest. They’re hoping to start a dance challenge that would partner professors with club members.
“It’s a way to show the world what we’ve got,” Elliott said.
As the semester kicked off, the task at hand was to get new members up to speed on the waltz, with local professionals David and Shelley DuVal serving as instructors. As the dancers formed three neat lines, a mannequin for self-defense classes lurked in the corner.
They began with the reverse step, moving in a square pattern as the instructors counted off steps. David DuVal noted the dearth of males in attendance as students began pairing up.
“It looks like we have a few girls who can lead,” he said.
Elliott said the club initially had a struggle finding enough female members. She wondered if Tech’s recent success at recruiting female students had an impact on the club’s gender breakdown. Meanwhile, the dancers struggled to master the embrace.
“Gentlemen, hold your left hand out and let her walk to you,” DuVal said. “You’ll touch later, but for now we’re going to make sure you don’t hurt each other.”
Later, the dancers continued bumping into each other.
“A good guy is always making space for the lady, and a good lady is always moving in that space,” DuVal noted.
As the partners tried spinning together, the instructors kept pointing out minute things to fix: the speed of steps, the position of hands and the angle of hips. The faces of new members were locked in concentration, and they stepped timidly.
Knowing his audience, DuVal gave mathematical tips, dividing the dance floor into diagonal sections.
“The waltz happens to be one of the most geometry-intensive dances,” he said.
As the two-hour practice moved along, gradually the movements became more and more polished. By the end of class, they were twirling across the floor, combining a variety of steps and turns.
“We did it!” one dancer shouted after finishing the routine by giving her partner a high five.
Several of the seasoned club members stood at the side and cheered on the new dancers. Nikiforova smiled, thinking of the fun ahead.
“The best part is the memories,” she said. “These are my best memories from my time at Georgia Tech.”
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The article might also have mentioned one particular Tech alum, Arthur Murray. Murray entered Tech in 1919 and helped to pay for his education by teaching ballroom dancing in Atlanta. He had already been working as a draftsman, and later he used what he had learned in Georgia Tech mechanical drawing classes to develop his famous diagrams that showed the foot positions for the dance figures his studios taught.
Ballroom dancing is lots of fun. Maybe the club can attract more male members by publicizing Gene Kelly’s famous quotation, “I got started dancing because I knew it was one way to meet girls.” I wish this club had been at Tech when I was a student there.
To master Ballroom, a dance lesson is a good idea. I’am joining a dance lesson in a Dance school in singapore and it helps. I’am now attending many competition.