USU dance classes fill fast, lack funding
Alisha Tolman, Staff Writer
Students, especially females, may have found getting into a dance class is not easy. The classes fill up quickly and there aren’t a lot of sections to supply the demand. “Ballroom, or social dancing, has become a popular sport as well as a performing art,” said Utah State University dance instructor Bob Cartmill. “It is headed toward becoming an Olympic sport.” Instructors have had to place caps on class size to be able to give individual attention and to try to keep the girl/boy ratio as even as possible, Cartmill said. “In the past, I’ve had ratios of four or five girls to every boy,” he said. Classes offer dance instruction in everything from ballet to belly-dancing. Social dance courses introduce students to couple dancing, inluding Latin (cha-cha, rhamba, samba), waltz, fox-trot and swing, Cartmill said. Students usually want to learn all the dances, but for those who are interested in specific dances there are advanced courses and clubs, Cartmill said. For example, there is the Swing Club, the Mountain Veils Danse Orientale (a belly-dancing club) and technique courses such as Latin, Standard (waltz and fox-trot) or even Western Swing Dance “Students who want to get into dance as a sport should take advanced classes,” Cartmill said. Though there is a lot of student interest, USU no longer has an actual dance department, Cartmill said. Cartmill is not paid as an actual member of the faculty, but is paid from class fees brought in by dance classes. The dance department was terminated because of a lack of funding. “I don’t think USU is aware of the popularity ballroom had gained. There are high school teams and classes popping up all over,” Cartmill said. Some members of the USU Ballroom Dance Company, an advanced ballroom dancing team chosen by audition, volunteer to help teach these new high school ballroom teams. Greg Archibald, a member of the Dance Company, instructs a Skyview High School ballroom team for free. For now, the USU dance instructors “do really well with what we have,” Cartmill said. For a while, dance classes and clubs were held anywhere there was space, including racquetball courts, Cartmill said. Dance classes are now taught in the HPER building in the evenings. Also, dance instructors are trying to offer more sections of beginning social dance next semester, Cartmill said. Students enrolling in these classes have the option of taking them for no credit by registering through campus recreation.