It’s the final countdown for the dancers of the formation ballroom team Texas Heat as the time draws near for the 2023 United States National Amateur Dancesport Championships from March 7-11 in Provo, Utah.
The Brownsville-based ballroom dance company has 16 students and two alternates to form 8 couples from the Fred Astaire Dance Studios led by Rebecca Rendon. This team is the first Fred Astaire Dance Studios formation dance team to compete in this national competition, the first Hispanic team, the first from Texas and the first from Brownsville.
Formation ballroom dance is a special part of ballroom competitions where teams of coupled dancers, around four to eight, perform two routines that are medleys of Latin and Standard ballroom dance styles respectively, and in perfect unison.
International Standard ballroom dance style encompasses the waltz, Viennese waltz, tango, foxtrot and quickstep. The International Latin dance style encompasses samba, the cha-cha, jive, paso doble and rumba.
In addition to performing each style well, the teams must form shapes as they dance — such as a reverse V or a diamond — all while changing their formation on average every five to 10 seconds.
The competition next month will pit roughly 25 youth formation dance teams against each other to see who has what it takes to take home their division championship title.
The Texas Heat team, entering a national competition for the first time, has been working and training since June with help from Utah-based choreographer and professional ballroom dancer Paul Winkelman and Jan Mattingly, the Texas regional dance director for Fred Astaire Dance Studios and a longtime professional ballroom dancer based in the Houston area.
After a week-long boot camp with both in June, every month, one or the other has flown down to hold intensive three-day eight-hour sessions on weekends with the students since September to help make them competition ready. These sessions are in addition to their team and individual practices three days a week. The help has shown results, with Rendon saying she can see the students improving in leaps and bounds from where they started.
“They’ve gotten a lot stronger in the two formation routines they are doing,” Rebecca Rendon said.
To the point where they might not be competing in the competition’s category for less experienced teams, Division III, but actually in Division II.
Division III teams only get to compete with their two routines once, according to Rendon, but as a Division II team, they get a second opportunity on the floor.
Each team will send in recordings, which the judges review to place them in one of the competition’s three divisions. Two weeks before the competition start, the official schedule goes out, and the Texas Heat will see where they end up.
For 16-year-old company member Alexys Campos, the days leading up to the competition have been both overwhelming and exciting.
“I can’t wait to surprise the people in Utah because we have an advantage—we have nothing to lose. It is our first time, and we will go up there and try our best. It’s going to be so fun,” he said.
The team has a going-away performance planned for the community on March 3 at 7 p.m. in the Kenmont Gym. Admission is free for the public, with well wishes and donations welcome.
David Martinez, a Fred Astaire Dance Studios Director with the company, hopes that when the community sees their team perform, they’ll recognize the sweat, strength and character it has taken for the Texas Heat Ballroom Dance Company to make it to where they are.
“These kids are putting in a lot of work physically, mentally and emotionally. Some of them have had to sacrifice to be this great. We want them to see more than just their dancing. We want them to see the people we’ve created,” he said.
PREVIOUS COVERAGE:
Brownsville dancers work to blaze trail to national contest in Utah
Photo Gallery: Brownsville dancers work to blaze trail to national contest in Utah
