Shall we dance?: Ballroom Dance Club at Pitt waltzes into 2024 competition season

Whether it’s from popular media or from a background in the art, many are familiar with ballroom dancing. But did students know Pitt has its very own ballroom dance club?

Open to both beginners and seasoned performers, Ballroom Dance Club at Pitt “believe[s] that everybody can dance, and [their] plan is to help everyone learn.” 

On Sept. 7, the Ballroom Dance Club hosted its first boot camp of the semester. Vice president of the club Abigail Burgess, a junior studying literature and linguistics, described Ballroom Dance Club as an organization that is both a social club and a competition team where different styles are taught during a boot camp.

“We’re doing the international styles, which would be Standard and Latin. There’s also an American counterpart that’s called ‘Smooth and Rhythm’. A lot of them are the same dances but a couple things are different,” Burgess said. “We teach everything in our social club, and as a competition team, we typically focus on American, but a lot of this stuff translates, so we like to teach everything.”

The goal of the boot camp was to teach newcomers and refresh returning members on these styles of dance. 

John Dauria, a music and digital narrative and interaction design major, was completely new to ballroom dancing when they first joined as a first-year student. As a current junior, Dauria now serves as secretary of the club.

“My first experience ballroom dancing was actually our Welcome Week event my first year, and I had never encountered it before, other than like, Dancing with the Stars and some other movies,” Dauria said. “My closest approximation of dance experience is marching band, and it’s surprisingly applicable, which is endlessly funny to me.”

Lydia Gintner, a sophomore marketing major who serves as the competition team chair, joined the club with experience in ballroom dancing.

“I did it a little bit in high school, but I was very excited to continue it at Pitt and find the community here — people who are also interested in ballroom [dancing],” Gintner said.

The competition team is preparing for its first collegiate competition at the Ohio State University in Columbus. 

“We go to typically five or six a year, so we have four this semester and then two in the spring,” Burgess said. “But this will be our first competition. We compete with colleges from all around the Midwest to the East Coast. It’ll be people from everywhere at the competition that we’re competing against, but it’s really fun, and it’s a great way to get to know other schools.”

In 2019, the National Dance Council of America changed the definition of a couple in its rule book. Originally, there were male and female roles that made up the couple that danced together in competitions. Now, the NDCA rulebook states the definition of a couple is, “a leader and follower without regard to the sex or gender of the dancer.” The rule is applicable to every level of dance competition. 

This has altered the sport in multiple ways. For one, same-sex couples can compete in dance competitions. It also allows dancers to master both the leader and follower roles. 

The Ballroom Dance Club at Pitt teaches both roles to whoever is interested.

“We don’t do the male-female roles anymore … so a lot of us learn both roles and I like to compete [in] both roles, but I’m going to get better at leading because it’s really cool,” Burgess said.

Community is an important part of the Ballroom Dance Club, and Gintner and Dauria said this element is important to them. 

“[The community is] amazing. Everyone here is so nice, uplifting. It’s a lot of fun,” Gintner said. “Every Thursday we all get together and we dance. It’s very chill, nothing serious, and it’s always nice to see everyone.”

“The community is the strongest part of the club, and the reason we just keep growing every year,” Dauria said. “Before I joined, there were a lot of first-years my year that joined, but they were, like, consistently worried that it might be the last year of the club. And since then, we’ve grown to having 100 people show up to our Welcome Week event … so far there have only been two weekly lessons, but like over 40 people [have come] each time, and everyone seems to enjoy it.” 

Dauria wants newcomers to know that any and all are welcome to come to the Ballroom Dance Club.

“We have a website, and we’re always welcoming to new people. We try to do some more advanced things in the spring semester, but it is always a priority for us to be approachable for newcomers and try to make a safe and welcoming space for everyone,” Dauria said. “So if anyone reading wants to come, they should.”