No experience.
No partner.
No audition.
Come to a beginners’ lesson and by the end of two hours you will know a waltz box step. Nothing else is asked of you.
Come to a practiceDanced before? Start further down — the Bronze (Google Calendar, opens in a new tab) and Silver (Google Calendar, opens in a new tab) lessons and the open floor (Google Calendar, opens in a new tab) are yours from the first week.
Practices
Sundays
Mondays
Come to as much or as little as you like. Plenty of members only make one session a week.
Dues
- Brown and RISD students
- $60
- Community, after a year with the team
- $140
- Community
- $200
Professional coaching
Travel to competitions
Part of your entry fees
Borrowed costumes
Cost is never the reason someone can’t dance with us. Write to brown.ballroom@gmail.com and it is dealt with privately, with no forms to fill in.
What actually happens
Well first of all, welcome! We’ll all circle up into two concentric circles and pair up. Leader? Follower? We’re all dancers, it doesn’t matter. Take your partner in frame. Don’t know what that means? Don’t worry, neither did I.
The lesson is taught to the whole room at once, slowly, counted out loud. It usually starts with the waltz box step, which most people have roughly working by the end of the hour.
Every few minutes everybody rotates, so no one is stranded without a partner. Leading and following are roles rather than genders: dance either, dance both, or switch whenever you like.
The last half hour is open floor: music on, practice what you just learned, ask anyone for help. A lot of people end up going to get food together afterwards.
Come in further down
Most of this site is written for people who have never danced, because most people arriving here have not. If you have, none of the beginner framing applies to you. Turn up to the Bronze (Google Calendar, opens in a new tab) or Silver (Google Calendar, opens in a new tab) lesson that matches where you are, or to open practice (Google Calendar, opens in a new tab), and skip the newcomer hour (Google Calendar, opens in a new tab) entirely.
Two things worth knowing. Dues work the same way, so your first semester is free whatever you already dance. And if you want to compete this year, the entry deadlines are real and some of them are close, so it is worth saying hello before the first one rather than after.
Write to Ian Chow, our competition captain, at ian_y_chow@brown.edu, about levels, partners and entries. Anything else goes to brown.ballroom@gmail.com.
Questions people ask
Anything else, write to brown.ballroom@gmail.com. A person on the board answers, usually within a day.
No, and it is the normal case rather than the exception. The beginners’ lesson assumes nothing at all: not rhythm, not coordination, not knowing what a waltz sounds like. Most of the current team could not dance a step when they arrived.
No. Most people arrive on their own. Everyone rotates through the lesson, and if you later want to compete, we help match you with a partner at a similar level.
Whatever you can move in. Shoes with a smooth sole are ideal, but clean socks work perfectly well and plenty of people dance in them for months. Nobody buys dance shoes in their first week, and you never have to buy them at all if you are not competing.
No. A significant part of the team never enters a competition and comes purely for the weekly lessons and the social side. If you do want to try one, your first is about two months after your first lesson, against other first-timers.
You can make this as much or as little of your experience at Brown as you’d like. Many of the members of the eboard are also committed members of numerous other clubs and activities. Many others in the club give Ballroom their everything. Come for the trainings that suit you. Compete if you wish. You’re a part of the family regardless and will get out of Ballroom what you wish.
Yes. The team is open to everyone: undergraduates, graduate students, RISD students, staff and members of the wider community all dance with us.
Yes. The beginners’ lesson restarts its material often enough that there is no wrong week to arrive. People join in October and in March and are fine.
Tell us you’re coming.
Sign up for our mailing list here. Or just show up! Everyone is welcome and if this is something you want to stick with, we’ll add you in then.
Send the blank email that opens and you are on the list.
Instagram @brownballroom
Or just turn up: Sundays at 12, Alumnae Hall