The popularity of ballroom dancing in the city seems to be gauged by where the University of British Columbia holds its yearly Gala Ball. After the dance club was founded in 1949, making it one of the school’s oldest clubs, it was held in the SUB ballroom. In the 1980s it moved to the Greek Hellenic Centre on Arbutus and even got so big during the 1990s it was held at the Vancouver Convention Centre.
The 52nd annual ball was at the Hellenic Centre again this past weekend, which points to the fact that kids these days aren’t in as mad a rush as they were 15 years ago to learn ballroom’s standard of foxtrot, Viennese waltz, modern waltz, tango and quickstep. Which leaves those who are learning, and competing, an enviable and somewhat rare skill.
This year’s gala chair was accounting student Melvin Wong who spent most of the two days on his feet, dashing about in his tuxedo and slicked-back hair. The only time he left his walkie-talkie behind was to step on the floor to compete with partner Cindy Liang when their bronze-silver level category was announced.
“Even my mom was like, ‘ballroom dancing?’ when I told her. I was never athletic or anything. P.E. in high school was the worst,” remembered Wong. But a friend of his was a competitive dancer who talked him into showing up to a class.
“The next thing you know you start doing it and it’s not that bad and the next thing you know you’re in a competition and the next thing you know your hair looks like this.” Wong pointed to his well-gelled hair reminiscent of a 1940s film star, which is how male ballroom dancers traditionally wear their hair (it’s slick buns for the females) as to not obstruct their facial expressions.
The Gala Ball is one of the province’s top DanceSport competitions, which means dancers perform to qualify for national and international competitions.
But the dance is also for the amateurs, too, with categories even for those who’ve taken lessons only within the UBC Dance Club. The club attracts more female dancers, acknowledges Wong, even though there are still many men who are an active part of the club, or have honorary memberships.
“I guess most men ask, why would I learn ballroom dancing? Times have changed, too, right?” said Wong. “We get people asking, oh, do you guys do hip hop? Well, we all know how and we can fake it, but we don’t do it. The binding part of this club is ballroom dancing.”
Clara Shih Marasigan and husband Joel Marasigan have attended all the gala balls ever since they were UBC students during the mid to late 1990s.
After graduating with a major in occupational therapy and bio chemistry, respectively, the couple continued their love of dancing, going to win titles as far away as Singapore and studying in Italy before coming back to Vancouver to start JC Dance Company.
Saturday afternoon, Clara watched two dancers make up steps to one of the fun dances, a reverse of the Latin paso doble where the man plays the woman’s part and vice versa.
“We both started at UBC Dance Club from absolutely nothing,” she remembered. “This is great, it brings us back to when we were here.”
When they attended UBC, the club had about one thousand students. Now there’s about 350, which Clara says is a shame.
“When you talked about dance in 1949, ballroom is what you danced,” said Wong. “Nowadays there are a lot of different types of dances.”
The UBC Dance Club is not just for students, anybody can join. For more information, go to the club website at ubcdanceclub.com.
