Beginning early Saturday morning and continuing late into the night, college dancers from around the Northeast moved their feet all day long in the Binghamton Dancesport Revolution.
Dancers from BU and five other colleges, including Cornell University, Pennsylvania State University and Yale University, attended the competition in the Mandela Room in the Old University Union. Participants competed in four different dance styles: rhythm, smooth, Latin and standard, which included the waltz, tango and foxtrot.
Divided into seven different skill levels for each type of dance, competitors performed to a variety of music, from classical to pop. Once the music began, each couple would make eye contact and silently count out the rhythm of the song. From there, each couple followed a specific pattern of steps while incorporating special moves like unique hand gestures and twirls.
The most experienced dancers competed in open matches, where every member of the six teams lined up around the dance floor without knowledge of which dance would be called. The judge picked a dance and each team would spontaneously send out a couple to compete.
For each dance category, pairs would compete in a series of rounds, with the best couples moving on until only one was left.
After taking a break last year from the competition due to what they said were unfortunate circumstances, BU Ballroom competition coordinators Emma Dondero and Katherine Leon-Molina began planning the ballroom competition six months ago.
According to Leon-Molina, a junior triple-majoring in political science, economics and Spanish, the event was hard to plan because last year’s seniors left no precedent to follow and the club wanted to incorporate new members into the contests.
“It took a lot of thinking ahead,” she said. “We have the ‘bible’ [which] pretty much lists suggestions from past competitions the team has hosted. But some of the ideas were outdated.”
According to Dondero, a junior double-majoring in French and sociology, the BU Ballroom Team raised almost $1,000 to put on this competition through a speed-friending event and donations from local businesses like USA Dance Inc. and Buffet Star.
Irina Frampolsky, a junior majoring in psychology and a silver-ranked dancer for the BU Ballroom Team, said that her favorite dances were the Samba and the Viennese Waltz.
“Samba has a lot of fun hip movements and the Viennese Waltz is faster than a normal waltz,” Frampolsky said. “At these competitions, you can get to dance to really cool songs, like, there’s a Harry Potter waltz too.”
BU’s Ballroom Team had first-place winners in nine categories and placed in the top six in every event.
Helar Aricaya, a senior majoring in biochemistry, won second place with his partner in the open Latin portion of the competition. He said that dance was about passion.
“Ballroom’s not about showing off, it’s about expressing yourself,” Aricaya said. “It’s not about having all the talent in the world, as long as you can get your emotions out there.”