BALLADS: St Andrews Competitive Dance Society

It’s difficult to get excited about going to a two-hour training session at 7pm on a Monday. For any other sport, slogging my way to Victoria Memorial Hall when the sun had long since set and 80 pages of reading awaited me at home would have been an unappealing prospect. But even the endless spiral stairs that led to the building’s top floor could not dampen my spirits as I entered the dance hall. The cheerful dancers greeting me were learning the basic steps to the cha-cha, and in less than fifteen minutes, even those with no previous dancing experience were swaying their way through the routine with impressive precision. 

This is the BALLADS (Ballroom and Latin Dance Society), one of St Andrews best-kept sporting secrets.

While ballroom dancing may seem like a stuffy, old-fashioned pastime, the BALLADS confounds expectations by offering a plethora of non-Western European styles. Of the ten styles of dance BALLADS competes in, the Latin American style — which includes the cha-cha, samba, rumba, paso doble, jive, and salsa — draws from a range of South American and Caribbean cultures and histories. Team captain, Calvin Cirugiao, described BALLADS as the “Swiss Army knife of all dance societies,” for the breadth of dance traditions it brings together. 

Alongside Latin genres, traditional ballroom dances such as the waltz, foxtrot, tango, and quickstep are also in the BALLADS’ repertoire. Emilia Bozza, President of the Society, said that the “pageantry and glam” of traditional ballroom dancing is what made BALLADS appealing to her when she signed up for the Ballroom on the Beach Give it a Go in her first year. 

The BALLADS coaches, Jim and Karen Millar, are a significant part of what makes the society what it is. The husband-and-wife duo began instructing BALLADS at St Andrews twelve years ago. “When I began teaching,” Jim said, “the society had only a handful of members, and none of them were competitive.”

Now the team has multiple two-hour sessions a week, with an optional additional hour for technique and social dancing, and supports students competing at three competitive levels. St Andrews now consistently places among the top three universities at the Inter Varsity Dance Competition in Blackpool, as well as in other ballroom competitions across the country. 

“They’re great kids,” Jim reflected, “[Dancing] gives them a switch-off from their studying.” 

Jim’s accolades in ballroom and Latin dance include winning his first international ballroom dancing competition at the age of eight and, more recently, being named captain of the Scotland and North West England ballroom dancing team at The English Gala in Oxford.

Not all dancers who compete with BALLADS come to the society with an extensive dancing background. BALLADS treasurer Helen Street is herself a beginner, having joined the society only a few weeks ago. One of Street’s favourite aspects of team practices is that experienced BALLADS committee members are eager to help less experienced dancers. 

Even though I am a nervous, novice dancer, I find myself excited to return to BALLADS’ practices next Monday. It’s easy to avoid a sport that seems so technically demanding and artistic, to let the fear of putting a foot wrong keep you from taking the first step. But with dedicated coaches and committee members eager to help, BALLADS offers even those of us with two left feet an opportunity to learn something new and switch off from our studies. The readings will still be waiting when I get home, but a Monday evening on the dance floor is more than a worthwhile escape.

Illustration by Maggie Carmone