DanceSport at OSU team members at their annual home competition in October 2023. Credit: Courtesy of Pam Wagner
DanceSport at OSU, Ohio State’s premier ballroom dance club, is gearing up to send 22 of its dancers to the USA Dance National Collegiate DanceSport Championships.
The competition — set to take place Friday through Sunday in Pittsburgh — celebrates ballroom dancing at a college level by awarding national titles and team rankings, its website states. Ren Hentz, the current president of DanceSport at OSU and a third-year in psychology, said she will participate alongside her dance partner Kylie Hicks, also a third-year in psychology, this weekend.
“It’s our biggest competition that we go to, and everything that we’ve been doing since the beginning of the school year has been leading up to this moment,” Hicks said.
The championships are organized in accordance with skill, Hentz said; once dancers compete within a handful of “syllabus levels” — newcomer, bronze, silver and gold — they can “graduate” to perform in the novice, pre-champ and champ categories.
Before joining the club, Hentz had four years of high school color guard experience, while Hicks had no dance experience. Having danced with the club for three years, the duo is excited to compete in the silver and gold tiers.
“You basically dance all day, and when you’re not dancing, you cheer for your teammates,” Hicks said. “Dancing for [the] collegiate level is like a sporting event — everyone is cheering you on and yelling, and it’s really fun.”
As a unit, the team has spent seven months rehearsing 15 different competition dances that range in style and difficulty, Hicks said.
Notably, some team members have decided to compete in Bolero, a style that has not previously been taught by the club. According to a July 2019 USA Dance blog post, Bolero has Latin roots and is defined by a slow, sophisticated tempo.
“We’ve been scrambling as a club, trying to prep Bolero to compete at Nationals,” Hicks said. “I’m really excited to see everyone’s progress and what they put on the floor.”
Hentz said DanceSport’s free classes are open to all Ohio State students, regardless of their preexisting relationship with dance. There are two beginner-friendly lessons offered by student leaders every week, while an upper-level lesson is taught by professional ballroom dancer and well-known competition judge Dana Edwards once per week, she said.
“She teaches above and beyond what we as student teachers can teach,” Hentz said. “She has dance degrees that we don’t have, she has a lot of experience dancing in the professional world, and she also judges, so she knows what moves are allowed in what levels.”
During classes, Hertz said partners are rotated so every person can dance with other members of the club. There are also no rules for who leads or follows or which genders partner pairings consist of, she said.
“Historically, ballroom was very gendered, so men would usually lead and women would usually follow, but that’s not the case in our club,” Hicks said.
Members don’t necessarily have to compete, but the club aims to foster an ambitious and confident mindset among all its participants, Hentz said. As long as paired dancers are college students, they can automatically qualify for nationals, regardless of skill level or years spent dancing.
“We are both building up new dancers and going out and competing, so we have both the social dance aspect and that competitive dance aspect,” Hentz said.
Despite the fact a majority of students who have engaged with DanceSport have little to no previous dance experience, Hentz and Hicks said many of them have sustained a passion for ballroom dancing after graduation, even going on to dance professionally. Still, they said simply spreading joy via dance has always been the club’s main priority.
“Our club is about bringing together a community through a shared passion of dance and also introducing dance to other people,” Hicks said.
More information about DanceSport at OSU can be found on its website.
