Ballroom team shows wild side in jungle-themed show
The USU Ballroom Dance Company thrilled audience members Friday night with their Latin Medley performance during their “Jungles” Spring Showcase in the Ellen Eccles Theater.
The ballroom dancers entertained the audience with a variety of performances ranging from the graceful waltz to the upbeat cha-cha.
Performances included fun, frolic dances with costumes ranging from “George of the Jungle” to mischievous monkeys.
Guest performers included the USU African drummers, who added to the “jungleness” with their up-to-tempo drumming in several dance numbers, said Scott Stephenson, USU ballroom dance team member.
Stephenson said he felt the team performed exceptionally well.
“I think everything went really smooth and most everyone nailed it tonight,” he said. “We remembered all the parts and nobody missed the footwork.”
The team performed the dance routines that helped them win second place in the Latin medley in a San Diego ballroom dance competition earlier this year.
Stephenson said his favorite dance was the cabaret and also the team’s best performance. He said the cabaret is more like gymnastics and that ballroom dance is a sport, which most people don’t recognize it as.
“I think if guys think of ballroom dance as more of gymnastics and less like ballet they would probably be more inclined to allow themselves to be interested in ballroom dance,” he said.
Stephenson said the team connected with the music and their performances connected with the audience.
The dances were choreographed entirely by the dance team coaches Adam and Jeanne Shelton.
“(Adam and Jeanne) have a lot of talent so I think it would have been good no matter what theme we would have been but ‘Jungles’ had a fun, jungle-boogey mood to it that people really liked,” Stephenson said.
The movie themes woven into “Jungles” included “The Lion King”, “Tarzan” and “George of the Jungle”. The movie themes were used to connect to the audience, Stephenson said.
“There is a lot of emotion wrapped up in those movies and everybody loves the music,” Stephenson said.
A solo hoop dance was performed by 21-year-old ballroom dance member Joshua Eskeets in the second half of the show. It is a sacred, traditional Native American dance that can only be performed for a crowd but cannot be practiced in front of people because of its sacredness, Eskeets said.
Eskeets started his dance with one hoop linked to him and gradually added a hoop one at a time to eventually hold a wingspan of 22 hoops, a skill he said that takes a lot of muscle memory and hours of practice to get down.
Eskeets said due to time constraints he was only able to hold 22 hoops, but can manage to a total of 32 hoops.
Eskeets said he learned the hoop dance at the age of six and has been something he has always loved to do.
“It’s a very intricate dance. You have to know the physics of it,” he said.
The hoops do not stick or link together like many people believe, but are just circular hoops, which makes the task of keeping them up and spinning while dancing a difficult one.
This specific dance took one to two hours of daily practice for a week for preparation for performance, he said.
“A lot of this work is mental and muscle memory,” he said. “Before I perform, I think through the different designs I’m going to do. After that I just have to get my legs to keep up and keep moving.”
Stephenson said he would love for ballroom dance fans to keep coming to their performances and supporting the team.
Utah State petitioners are still in the work of creating a dance program, which Stephenson said would be great for students.
“It’s kind of an uphill battle because of the economy and the interest of students,” he said. “In the end, if from a few years from now USU has a program where people can come specifically to get a dance degree, that would be great.”
Stephenson said the arts in universities are somewhat disappearing and hopes that they are preserved.
“The arts are valuable and if we take arts out of education, we miss a lot,” he said.
–candice.sandness@aggiemail.usu.edu