Ball Held On B-Ball Court

Winter formal season may still be more than a month away, but Harvard students and Boston residents were putting their dancing skills to good use this Saturday at the Ballroom Dance Team’s first competition of the year.

The 14th Annual Harvard Beginner’s Competition took place in the Malkin Athletic Center basketball court, where high heels traversed the three-point line with a lithe daintiness rarely shown by the venue’s typical visitors.

The event—held on Saturday—was host to mainly new dancers, although some in the Bronze and Silver categories had more experience. Teams were assessed based on nine dances arranged in four styles: Standard, Smooth, Rhythm, and Latin.

Over 300 couples from the greater Boston area registered to participate in the competition.

Clipboard-bearing judges in black suits patrolled the floor’s perimeter as the six-hour competition waltzed on and every round whittled down its competitors by about half. Some of the dances went through four sets of cuts to reach the six-couple finals.

“What I’m looking for is a good pairing, how they handle a blunder, and energy on the floor,” said Lisa Perry, one of the seven judges of the event. “Otherwise you’re going to get bored,”

Competitors in successive rounds increased in skill, and the area beyond the floor was an unceasing flurry of anxiety, cheering, and preparation.

In the center of it all was Rookie Captain of the Harvard Ballroom Dance Team Patricia Hao ’09, who quelled the qualms and tended to the needs of her team’s tenderfoots.

“These are all my rookies. They’re my babies…I’m a little overwhelmed because there are so many things to take care of,” she said.

Hao’s responsibilities ran the gamut from matching partners, an effort she called “a dance in itself,” to fixing costumes. When a male competitor asked if his shirt was unbuttoned too far, Hao replied, “Trust me, chest hair is a plus.”

The final event for entrants was the Team Match, a round that brought at least five couples from each team to the floor. Harvard came in third behind MIT and Tufts, respectively.

“The competition went well—a record high number of competitors came,” wrote President of Harvard Ballroom Dance Team Peter A. Lee ’07 in an e-mail. “It ran smoothly, (and) hundreds of new ballroom dancers got a taste of collegiate competition.”