{"id":106174,"date":"2017-03-03T12:35:27","date_gmt":"2017-03-03T17:35:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/?p=106174"},"modified":"2023-11-21T11:08:17","modified_gmt":"2023-11-21T16:08:17","slug":"bates-at-night-ballroom-society","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/2017\/03\/03\/bates-at-night-ballroom-society\/","title":{"rendered":"Bates at Night: Ballroom Society, a ‘contact sport’"},"content":{"rendered":"

As a dense fog drifted through campus Wednesday night, members of the Bates Ballroom Society glided across the hardwood floors of Muskie Archives.<\/p>\n

Practice began with the fast-paced and intricate Viennese waltz. Precision is key, as one wrong step can lead to a collision. \u201cBallroom, believe it or not, is a contact sport,\u201d says lead instructor John Blanchette \u201987. \u201cIt\u2019s physically demanding. When you finish with a Viennese waltz, I don\u2019t care what kind of shape you\u2019re in \u2014 you\u2019re huffing and puffing.\u201d<\/p>\n\t\n\t

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Christina Lang '18 of Novato, Calif., dances with Erin Fuller '18 of Reno, Nev. <\/p><\/div>\n\t\t

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Lead instructor John Blanchette '87 demonstrates with guest instructor Kayla Larrivee.<\/p><\/div>\n\t\t

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Lead instructor John Blanchette '87 reviews proper technique. <\/p><\/div>\n\t\t

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Ballroom Society rehearsals feature a mix of casual and formal.<\/p><\/div>\n\t\t

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Co-president Sara Hoye '17 of Sturbridge, Mass., practices with guest instructor Nathan Leonard.<\/p><\/div>\n\t\t

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Many of the current BBS members started by taking a physical education course in ballroom. There, students get an introduction to the different dance styles. BBS co-president Sara Hoye \u201917 of Sturbridge, Mass., describes that course as getting students to the point of \u201cdoing this at a wedding and you won\u2019t look stupid.\u201d If they show more interest, they move on to Ballroom Society.<\/p>\n

Members are encouraged to attend competitions taking place throughout the year, where couples are judged in short dance numbers of differing styles.<\/p>\n

Hoye has been dancing since age 5, though before joining BBS last year she had no ballroom experience. As Blanchette and guest instructors introduce new movements, she knows that success will not come immediately. \u201cYou\u2019ll understand it intellectually, but making your body do those moves is sometimes just really hard,\u201d Hoye said. \u201cThe moment you accomplish it is a really big thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Blanchette, an accomplished ballroom dancer and performer, has been the lead instructor since the 2012-13 academic year. \u201cThere will never be a building named after me,\u201d he joked, \u201cbut I can bring something back to my alma mater.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Student members of the Bates Ballroom Society make all the right moves on Wednesday night.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":148,"featured_media":106197,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_hide_ai_chatbot":false,"_ai_chatbot_style":"","associated_faculty":[],"_Page_Specific_Css":"","_bates_restrict_mod":false,"_table_of_contents_display":false,"_table_of_contents_location":"","_table_of_contents_disableSticky":false,"_is_featured":false,"footnotes":"","_bates_seo_meta_description":"","_bates_seo_block_robots":false,"_bates_seo_sharing_image_id":0,"_bates_seo_sharing_image_twitter_id":0,"_bates_seo_share_title":"","_bates_seo_canonical_overwrite":"","_bates_seo_twitter_template":""},"categories":[7,11010,31,223,11012],"tags":[11217,60,6889],"class_list":["post-106174","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-alumni","category-arts","category-lewiston-auburn","category-slideshow","category-student-life","tag-bates-at-night","tag-dance","tag-performing-and-visual-arts"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106174","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/148"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=106174"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106174\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":106207,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106174\/revisions\/106207"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/106197"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=106174"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=106174"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=106174"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}