Children's ballroom dancing in the US

[raindance]

With four years of additional data, my opinion on this has shifted. I no longer think they are starting with more kids. I think they are doing a better job of getting those kids partnered up.

...

Do I sound Frustrated? I am. If I spoke Ukrainian, I’d be ready to work out a deal with a Ukrainian studio to take my boys there for tryouts, and offer TPS visa sponsorship to the winning partners/parents.

Go over to one of the studios in question, and see if there is anyone over there who is bilingual that you can talk to about options. I would guess someone associated with the studio speaks English, and you could at least talk things through and ask about partnership opportunities for your kids.

I am in a different part of the country, and (at least last time I was dancing which is a while ago now) there was a studio with pros who had come from a different country (not Ukraine nor Russia). A lot of their clientele was from that local ethnic community, but certainly not all. And some of the pros spoke English very well. If the pro was bilingual, even if the prospective partner only spoke Ukranian (or whatever language), the partnership could still work.

Now, whether a young dancer and her family (from whatever ethnic group) would want to work with a non-ethnic boy will likely vary. But given that you're looking for partners for boys, the odds are in your favor that at least some of the girls and their families might be interested. You might need to consider working with the pros that work with those girls already, however.

 

[Warren J. Dew]

Go over to one of the studios in question, and see if there is anyone over there who is bilingual that you can talk to about options. I would guess someone associated with the studio speaks English, and you could at least talk things through and ask about partnership opportunities for your kids.

To be clear, by “Ukrainian studio” here, I mean “studio located in Ukraine”, not “studio run by ethnic Ukrainians”. I might be affluent enough to have kids in ballroom, but not enough to take trips half way around the world on a whim, let alone to destinations in a war zone.

I am in a different part of the country, and (at least last time I was dancing which is a while ago now) there was a studio with pros who had come from a different country (not Ukraine nor Russia). A lot of their clientele was from that local ethnic community, but certainly not all. And some of the pros spoke English very well. If the pro was bilingual, even if the prospective partner only spoke Ukranian (or whatever language), the partnership could still work.

I’m open to long distance partnerships, but maybe not at intercontinental distances.

Now, whether a young dancer and her family (from whatever ethnic group) would want to work with a non-ethnic boy will likely vary. But given that you're looking for partners for boys, the odds are in your favor that at least some of the girls and their families might be interested. You might need to consider working with the pros that work with those girls already, however.

Assuming you are talking about studios in the US, we had one experience similar to this. It was an ethnic Russian Latin studio. I’ll spoiler details.

Spoiler

Studio owner was fine with our coming to the studio to look for partners, on the condition that any resulting partnerships “dance for her studio”. She helped set up two tryouts for 16 year old, and three tryouts for 13 year old. As far as I can tell, she managed to get all girls who were a potential reasonable partnership match for either boy to try out.

At the time, we were insisting on a willingness to add Standard. None of the potential partnerships worked out, generally due to the parents of the girls not being willing to add the extra time to take on Standard. In retrospect, I would not have insisted on adding Standard immediately, and would have been willing to do a few months of Latin only first.

Despite not resulting in partnerships, this was generally a good experience. It was really nice having the studio owner pulling for the boys and for forming the partnerships, even if none actually worked out.

Pretty sure this is the attitude of the European studios that produce the partnerships that fill all the top spots in the world rankings that DanceMentor mentions - girls are expected to take on partners when available; boys take the partner the studio recommends. Not the studio’s fault when the parents are overly picky, though I think in Europe the parents are less likely to defy the studio’s recommendation.

When I have time, I’ll post separately on how most studios fall short of this ideal.

 

[raindance]

Yeah, sorry, I thought you meant an ethnic studio in the US, with lots of recent immigrants still speaking the home language. We have those around here, where speaking that European language would be an asset for a student there, but not necessarily a requirement.

How things are actually done in studios in Europe (Ukraine or elsewhere) is probably a bit different than in the USA.

Are your boys hoping to compete standard, latin, or both? Meaning, if they found standard only partners, would they be happy with that? Or are they hoping for 10 dance with a single partner? Just curious.

 

[Warren J. Dew]

Are your boys hoping to compete standard, latin, or both? Meaning, if they found standard only partners, would they be happy with that? Or are they hoping for 10 dance with a single partner? Just curious.

Well, the two boys are different people, and their circumstances are different enough I’ll discuss them separately. I’ll risk putting this in a public thread since the case studies might be relevant to the thread, though if people start objecting I can move to their respective private threads.

16 year old:

Spoiler

16 year old is currently “on break” from ballroom; this seems to be a teenage rebellion thing. He likes Standard, and to a lesser extent Smooth, better than he likes Latin. In principle, 16 is about the age, in the British/European tradition, where it becomes okay to specialize, but his parents aren’t ready to suggest this yet because they/we think his Latin is also too good to abandon.

Plus, Latin is just plain bigger in the Northeast. When we went to the ethnic Russian Latin studio, it was clear he was the one the studio owner really wanted dancing for her. There are two Boston area kids’ studios specializing in Latin, but none in Standard.

Interestingly, David Kloss also asks after 16 year old whenever he comes into town; I think Kloss saw him and his former partner as on track to get to the top with the “classical” style of Smooth.

While his Standard coach is also enthusiastic about him, it’s not clear Standard coaches see him the same way that Latin and Smooth coaches do. Unfortunately, he was sick the day Standard rounds studio brought a recent world champion in, so we didn’t get a direct reaction, although there’s some indication that studio wanted her to figure out how he gets the movement and body flight he does so they could apply that to their own sons and other kids. Nonetheless, she or others appear to have figured out how - or at least the foot strength part - and provided advice on how to get that - advice that should help although it is different from what he did to get it.

If he by some miracle found a Standard only partner - In my opinion extremely unlikely, as all the girls seem to like Latin and only a small minority dance Standard in addition - we would consider that. But honestly, the only way that might happen would be if an English studio let him come in and take their best girl back to Boston, and abandoning their existing English coach would no doubt be a bigger hit than abandoning a Ukrainian coach.

So, bottom line, hoping to find a partner that dances both Standard and Latin, and preferably Smooth too, but perhaps not absolutely mandatory.

13 year old:

Spoiler

13 year old does not have the same preference for Standard/Smooth. However, he’s also not 16 yet, so we’re not willing to have him give up either Standard or Latin yet. In addition, he could probably progress in Smooth as fast as 16 year old did, so we’d really like any partner to take that on as well, maybe making David Kloss happy in the process.

13 year old is not yet good enough to make coaches sit up and take notice the way 16 year old does. We think he will be in a year or two, but that’s largely because we know all the things we did with 16 year old and can do or have done all those things with 13 year old too. But the upshot is that coaches will not presently go to bat for him the way they will for 16 year old.

This is unfortunate since the key foot strength secret could still be applied to an 11 year old partner, while any partner for 16 year old would likely have completed puberty and thus not have that key period available for building strength any more.

Still, confident coaches can look at 16 year old and say, “I can turn that into a world class dancer.” It’s less convincing when they look at 13 year old little brother and have to say “I’m sure he’ll follow in his brother’s footsteps and become something I can turn into a world class dancer in a year or two.”

So, for now, looking for someone that will do both Standard and Latin, and preferably Smooth too.

 

[wahoo_foxtrot]

Because of my recent year-long work travel, I am now taking lessons in a kids' studio with limited capacity to coach am-am and pro-am. It is quite fascinating how this kid studio runs its business, and their kids look so happy there (despite a selective sample).