Dancing with the Profs!

On Friday the 6th, Shaun L., Aaron, Viv, and I zipped out to Providence to watch my sister Tree compete in Dancing with the Profs!!

Brown’s ballroom dancing club puts this event together each year. Essentially, professors join the ballroom dancing club team and learn how to dance. After months of practice the professors compete against one another in an exciting exhibition open to the public. Back in October a student representative of the club approached my sister and asked her if she’d like to participate. Since then she’s been training with sophomore dancer Eric Ho for a feisty cha-cha.

Theresa was the first of the six professor contenders to dance. After a brief introduction where the MC applauded her appreciation for chocolate and coffee, Theresa took the stage. After a short video of an interview with Tree and her dancing partner was played on a big screen, the lights dimmed and the music started pumping.

Theresa and Eric were dancing like crazy! It was awesome. The crowd was totally digging it. Here are some photos!

Theresa and her dancing partner on the floor

For those of you with facebook you can see a video here.

Theresa and Eric

After Theresa performed, there were five other professors who got up to dance. My favorite of the other 5 was the chaplain who performed a quickstep. She was extremely animated and was really revved up the crowd. After all the participants had danced, they took a break to count the votes and a few of the ballroom dancing club members graced us with performances.

The best was, by far, a tango performed by two recently graduated students. The dude was stoic and strong and helped me understand what it meant to provide a good ‘frame’ for his partner. The woman didn’t so much rest in his arms so much as drape across them. They spun around the room and while their legs were stepping in a furious, yet calculated manner, they two dancers were almost stationary from the waist up. At various points in their dance, they would both break from their frozen structure to simultaneously whip their heads as an accent to the intensity. It was awesome.

Much to the chagrin of Theresa’s loyal fans, the winner of the night was a different professor who performed a samba (incidentally, the professor who won is Vivienne’s boyfriend James’s adviser.)

It was an awesome night! My only complaint was that there was no pamphlet given out at the door. It would have been really cool to read about the history of the dancers. Most of the night was focused on the professors, which was nice… but I would have enjoyed reading about Theresa’s dancing partner Eric. How long had he been dancing? What was it like working with my sister?

Theresa and Dad D.

I’m really proud of my sis. She did a great dance and was in control of her moves and the crowd. Great Job T!