Harvard Ballroom Dance Team Show its Colors

Ballroom dance is known for for its flashiness, but on Friday, more than just the ballroom dancers’ outfits will be in bright colors. The Harvard Ballroom Dance Team, a competitive ballroom dance team, will perform their annual showcase—this year entitled “Colorful”—in Lowell Lecture Hall.

The team, founded in 1991, comprises Harvard undergraduate and graduate students. It hosts two annual collegiate ballroom competitions and promotes the social aspect of ballroom dancing. While they compete as a team, the dancers typically perform as couples in competitions and shows.While their showcase has been an annual affair, this year’s event will bring a new twist to the annual tradition. According to Ivo B. Baca ’13, the current team captain, this year the team is expanding  their typical solo dance format to add formations with multiple dancers to the showcase.

“All performers have been given the rare opportunity to choreograph their own pieces, and this has really infused the process with a wonderful creative energy,” Baca says. Around 40 dancers will be performing in the show, which will feature six couples, each performing a full piece, from the team’s Rookie and Intermediate classes.

The showcase offers a twist on the standard ballroom and Latin dances, which include the waltz, tango, Viennese waltz, foxtrot, quickstep, cha cha, samba, rumba, jive, and paso doble. To reflect the group’s unique personality, the dances will each be centered around a specific color.

“This showcase is aiming to celebrate the vibrant and colorful nature of the Harvard Ballroom [Dance Team] through the lens of the art we all love—ballroom dance,” Baca says.Tickets are $7 and available at the Harvard Box Office or through members of the Harvard Ballroom Dance Team.