Welcome to the Reddit ballroom, a community for everyone interested in ballroom dancing.
I am from Germany and reading other people's stories in the posts around here, which mostly focus on the ballroom scene in the USA, got me interested in how the ballroom scene might work in other countries and how other people found their way into the scene there.
So here is a quick rundown of how the system in Germany works from my experience and how I see the differences to the system in the USA:
In Germany, you have, on one hand, the dance schools, which offer a wider variety of programs along with ballroom dancing and are commercial enterprises. They usually only offer classes of social dancing levels and almost no competitive events. These are basically all associated with the "ADTV," which in turn is an associate of the "WDC." Of course, there are other dance schools that focus on different dance styles, like ballet or kizomba. My best guess is that most people who start with ballroom dancing have their first point of contact in one of these dance schools. They also have their classes usually organized by this bronze, silver, gold medal type thing, where you learn new figures on each medal level.
Then there are dance clubs, which are usually a division of a larger club that has multiple divisions for different sports. Those are registered non-profit associations. They have a more narrow focus and offer classes specifically catered for competitions. Depending on the club, there often are pre-tournament classes or actual beginner classes. Often they also have a social group. They are basically always associated with the "DTV," which in turn is an associate of the "WDSF." A little bit on the tournament structure: You start at D-class and through competitions, you can work your way through C, B, and A all the way to S-class. D- & C-class have a restricted syllabus, and the classes beyond that are (mostly) open choreography. As far as I understood, at A- & S-class, you are eligible for the international WDSF Open events.
Lastly, there are usually dance classes offered as part of university sport, but they usually only offer beginner classes. Though exceptions can apply, and some universities offer classes at higher proficiencies or collaborate with local dance clubs for the higher classes.
In contrast, the ballroom scene in the USA seems to be dominated by chain studios. I read the names "Arthur Murray" and "Fred Astaire" a lot. There are also independent studios, but from what I read, most of them are from former chain studio teachers that went independent at some point. But all of these are commercial enterprises and apparently even more so than the ones in Germany, considering the prices people quoted around here for competitions, etc. Not sure about the independent one, but the chain studios are part of the "NDCA", which is part of the "WDC." Though Arthur Murray seems to be big enough to be basically its own thing, as I have noticed the WDC amateur league is more or less run by Arthur Murray, or at least in partnership with them.
There also seems to be collegiate dancing at universities, but I am not sure what role they play in social and competitive dancing. I am not all too familiar with the universities in the US, but from what I know, university sports play a bigger role than in Germany. So these might replace the role of the dance clubs in Germany.
So all in all, the dance sport seems to be more commercialized in the US than in Germany, but at the same time, social and competitive dancing is more closely linked, since the dance studios cover both sides, while in Germany they are more strictly separated. In Germany, the competitive (amateur) scene is oriented towards the WDSF side, while in the US it's geared towards the WDC.
Oh yeah, also I guess american style ballroom is also a thing and most competitions cater to that, rather than the international style.
Some things that seemed odd to me, but very well might just be due to a different perspective on things: The prevalence of solo classes at the social level. These make a lot of sense to me for the competitive level, but I've seen them offered as part of newcomer deals at dance studios, which I found quite baffling. Unless I'd need a special choreography for like, a wedding dance, I wouldn't have considered as much. Also, the existence of pro/am dance. I hadn't even known that this was a thing before I came here and, to be honest, I still don't get the appeal of it. But maybe someone can enlighten me.
While I did the obligatory dance course during school, I personally got into dancing rather late. When I got bored of a previous hobby of mine, I tried some salsa dancing during university. Shortly thereafter, I got into Latin formation dancing by chance. Next to that, I also did some standard and Latin couple dancing, but progress has been slow as it has proven quite difficult to find a consistent partner to train and compete with.
So feel free to share your own knowledge and enlighten me on any things I have gotten wrong.
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The collegiate ballroom scene in the US is quite vibrant, and how many people (including me) get their start in ballroom. It’s a much more affordable way to dance and compete compared to studios. Collegiate competitions are generally open to non-collegiate competitors and some collegiate teams are as well. At the largest competitions, there are often 100 couples in a level.
The relative level of competitive vs. social dancing varies, but there are definitely a few teams (especially in the Northeast) that have a good number of high-level dancers and high-level coaching.
That's sounds cool, especially with how large the fields are. In germany they are for the most part quite small. Sure there are a few big tournaments like hessen tanzt, but overall it's more of a niche sport.
Like almost everyone has done a beginner course, most often at a dance school or at university, but very few actually make the jump to competitive dancing.
Started dancing in the Northeast US. This is the way I understand it:
For the most part, collegiate ballroom isn't syndicated or organized, it's just a bunch of schools being like "huh we like dancing". So some schools have competitive teams, some clubs have a separate social club, some schools have them merged in one organization, etc. US schools DO have athletic organizations like NCAA, but ballroom is NOT part of that. While certain competitions and certain schools have some partnerships with national organizations like NDCA or USA Dance (attributed to WDC and WDSF, respectively), I'm not too certain to what extent those partnerships go, although I get the sense that the vast majority of collegiate competitions are each, themselves, independent from all others. The one sort of exception is that there is a SEPARATE ranking system for collegiate dancers. For most competitions, it's the YCN point system - but there has been a push to reevaluate the legitimacy of that point system for usage beyond the collegiate sphere. YCN generally pushes dancers to higher levels faster, because it recognizes that most collegiate dancers stop dancing once they leave college, and thus it encourages an almost artificial level of advancement that isn't appropriate for dancers that continue dancing beyond college. Lastly, a "collegiate competition" is NOT exclusive to college students - it's simply a competition that is hosted by a college. The popularity of any one collegiate comp compared to another is a function of longevity (how long has the comp been incumbent), timing, and proximity to cities with strong collegiate presence. This is why MIT is always the biggest collegiate competition in the country, excepting national events.
Outside of college (though many of these topics intersect with collegiate), there are five important topics to know: AM/FA, pro-am, amateur levels, professional levels, and American styles.
AM/FA, or Arthur Murray/Fred Astaire, are two chains primarily in the US, but also exist internationally. Because they're franchised, they often have a negative association within independent circles. Many branches do not require their teachers to actually have dance experience to become instructors, and from personal anecdotes shared with me by current teachers, a lot of the "training" is really just pushing a sales pitch. On the upside, if a truly passionate dancer takes over a particular AM/FA branch, that specific branch may well be an excellent source of actual competitive training. I'm not too familiar with the details here, but I also do know that AM/FA has its own closed system of events, competitions, etc. that is separate from the national/international orgs. I've never seen this corroborated in writing, but from some people I've received the sense that AM/FA discourages attendance at NDCA and USA Dance comps in favor for their own in-house competitions. Most competitive dancers, particularly those who come up through collegiate teams and end up taking competition seriously, will try to steer you away from these chains unless they have specifically good experiences with a particular branch.
Amateur levels in the US are separated into closed syllabus and open syllabus. Within the closed syllabus, the levels go newcomer/prebronze, bronze, silver, gold. Within the open syllabus, the levels go novice, pre-championship, championship, where "championship" is equivalent to open amateur. Syllabus levels describe how much of the syllabus you're allowed to do; for example, you would be allowed to do a contra-check in gold, but not below that. I believe the open syllabus levels roughly correspond to your letter levels, but I'm not 100% certain. Moreover, sometimes you'll see events like "open bronze", where essentially you're allowed to dance an open syllabus, but judged on a bronze level. These levels are also not objective, but based on the overall proficiency of dancing in a local area. Championship level in the middle of nowhere, for example, might be equivalent to Novice level in a city.
I believe professional levels are entirely self-selected - as in, you become pro simply when you feel like it. I'm not too familiar with this, but going pro feels somewhat politically charged in my circles, because it seems like you can choose to be pro simply by declaring yourself as one and paying a membership fee. This results in many top-level amateur couples dancing better than some pro couples, and some pro dancers only being "pro" for the sake of pro-am.
Pro-am, or professional/amateur, is a category that allows "professional" dancers (see above) to dance with basically anybody. Ostensibly, it's an opportunity for casual dancers to experience the glamor and magic of a competition. In practice, because many amateurs in pro-am are wealthy retirees, it can sometimes be just a money thing; many pros require their amateur students to pay not only competition fees, but also travel, food, and board (not to mention lessons in general). The show Dancing Queens, while slightly dramatic, showcases this quite well. This has also led to the creation of seemingly useless categories in competition, including things like pre-silver, full silver, open silver, etc. (on every single level); combined events, single events, scholarship events, etc. Because of how many "different" events there are, this has also led to a shitton of participation trophies (i.e. you're the only dancer in your event, congrats you got first place). I once saw a claim that pro-am basically invented the participation award, but I have no evidence to back this up. Thus, pro-am is in a weird place where it's a good thing to get more dancers on the floor - but can be a bad thing because it essentially creates unnecessary cash flow by turning competitions into potentially five- or six-figure expenditures for individuals.
Lastly, American styles are just American styles. American competitions don't necessarily value these over international styles (and in fact international styles are still bigger than American styles, even in the US), but they're definitely more popular here than in other countries. Many colleges, particularly in the Northeast, teach all four styles from the beginning and it's really up to individuals to decide which styles they like.
This is my experience. My best friend has been competing in the pro circuit for 5 years now. She and her partner are independent instructors as well and, my understanding, it means they're not able to compete as amateurs, since they instruct. They also do pro/am competitions if a student wants to go to a competition that they are already attending. Or sometimes they'll attend a competition for pro if they've got a student particularly interested in it. There's something down in Florida that one of the other students wants to go to because they also want a vacation there, so my friends are going, even though it's not something they would have attended otherwise.
On your next point with pro/am, it's not always a money thing and if you look at smaller studios (not the ones winning top studio/top teacher/top student awards) they don't always have the rich retirees. None of the students at our studio who are competing are over the age of 51. Competitions do get expensive though and the participation awards bother me. I'm relatively new to competitions (only 1.5 years into the journey) and I'm enjoying the growth of my performance. My last competition I didn't dance as technically well as previous ones, but I was able to have more personality and fun on the floor as I'm much more comfortable with the performance aspect and I wasn't counting in my head so very hard. I don't find it particularly rewarding to get a bunch of medals or certificates just because I happen to be one of two dancers in my category. The solution to that, for me, is to focus on larger competitions where more people are attending in my category. (as a sidenote, Michigan Dance Competition in March has a reasonable 'participation award'. If you win/place in your category your award tends to be a business card sized coupon for money off at their next competition. The organizers seem really interested in putting on a well run, fun competition and not just extracting every dollar they can. I would highly recommend it to anyone looking for a small-medium sized comp that extends over 3.5 days).
Personally, I started as a social only dancer and I was doing it to acquire a new hobby and accelerated my learning process by adding private lessons to group. Technique-wise my first studio was dreadful. But it lead me to meeting my friend who is the pro and that has been a 15+ year relationship at this point. There was a significant dormant period in my dancing because life is busy and our local studio was not good. I re-started my dancing when my friend opened her own studio as a way to support her. I was still only socially dancing for the first few years. My husband actually wanted to start competing first, which lead me to also compete (though not with him yet). I compete pro/am with my friend's pro partner. I'm also starting dress design/commissions, which has been a fun creative outlet.
You're right that pro am doesn't 1-to-1 correspond with money, but a little bit of an anecdote.
I was working for a comp, asked a friend (who ran the comp) if I could dance pro am Standard for free just for shits. He said sure, but what ended up happening is that I ended up being the only lead doing gold anything. As a result, I ended up getting the "Best Male Gold Dancer" award - which they gave out the day BEFORE I stepped onto the floor.
Later I found out that any sort of "best big studio", "best xyz dancer" etc. awards are just participation based. If you have more entries, you win the award. No merit in it whatsoever.
The one and only time I've done pro am lol, and I'll never do it again unless I ever end up in a place without an amateur partner. All those blue ribbons I won for the dozens of individual events, they're the most useless blue ribbons I have throughout my entire dance career.
I don't disagree with you at all, just that not all the pro/am pros are leeches.
Thanks for writing all this up, that was quite informative.
I was under the impression that the american smooth and rhythm styles would be more popular in the US than the international styles, but looks like I misjudged there.
Concerning pro-am dancing, I already had an inkling that it was more of a way for rich people to kind of fast track their way to a tournament performance.
I think the distinction between professional and amateur dancer is a holdover from an earlier time, when there still was the strict division between the professionals represented by the WDC and the amateurs represented by the WDSF. Once you had proven your mettle and made a name for yourself competing as an amateur you could switch into more of a teaching role. With the breaking down of this clear seperation and the coming of pro-am dance this probably lost some of it's original meaning. But I am also just guessing here.
Are the open and closed syllabus levels serial, as in you have to go through the syllabus levels, all the way to gold, before you can start in the open levels? Or is it more of a choice, where you can just chose whether you want to practice open or closed syllabus? Comparing the levels, tbh, is probably quite pointless. It's just if you want to actually compete on an international level, you have to find teachers that will actually get you to this level. My guess is that this would be a bit more straightforward in the german system, where it's more standardised.
I thought the WDC amateur league basically is the arthur murray league. At least it has their logo on the homepage: https://www.wdcamateurleague.com/
As far as "are there rules that specify which level you must dance", the answer is no. But to the question of "will your coaches strongly encourage you to take the levels in sequence", the answer is generally yes.
Anyone competing internationally/representing the country will undoubtedly be true open amateur. Novice and prechamp are more reflective of somebody dancing an open syllabus, but not at the highest level of technique.
Couldn't tell you, unfortunately. Not sure what the connections are between different establishments.
American Smooth is more popular then Standard though.
The chain studios use predatory pricing. There need to be more independent dance studios.
Depends on the specific scene. I think this is true in studios, but in collegiate competitions (at least on the coasts, not sure about Midwest/South), Standard is bigger.
Standard is bigger pretty much everywhere I've seen, including at pro comps and non-franchised comps across the US
Hi! I’m on the exec board of a Midwest USA collegiate club. Our club is about the only opportunity for regular social dancing within an hour, so we’re open to the public and play a pretty big role in the social scene. We offer free lessons to anyone who wants to show up. There are lessons at beginner, intermediate, and competitive levels through local instructors. We also have a team of university students who travel for collegiate competitions. Some universities treat their ballroom clubs like a sports team and fund them accordingly. Those groups also compete in a variety of amateur and pro-am events at bigger competitions. We aren’t one of those and don’t have the funding to compete at that level, so we focus more on community outreach and involvement - we believe that dance shouldn’t only be exclusionary/only for people who can afford expensive private lessons. It comes with a trade off though. We’re more of a club group than a sports team. I think it sounds pretty similar to how you described your local uni groups.
You forgot the best thing about university dance scene in Germany (& Netherlands & all the other teams that joined over the past years); the ETDS! If you haven't been to one I highly recommend :D .
FTFY 😉
The ETDS (European Tournament of Dancing Students; though that acronym should be taken with a grain of salt as plenty of participants are former students, now well into their 30s, 40s and a few beyond) is a bianual tournament/festival event, most often held in Germany or the Netherlands. Last time, around 700 individual dancers attended ranging in level from dancing for under a year to S-class. While lower level dancers dance either with their fixed partner or find a spontaneous matchup during „blind dating“ at the evening parties preceding the competition, higher level dancers are usually assigned partners through a lottery system; though the exact rules differ every time.
I find this improvisational Jack&Jill style of competition very interesting and an important adjunct to mainstream competitions. It is the only place I know where social improvisational dancing is done with a competitive dancing style and background. Everyone talks about leading and following, but if you truly want to know what that means, IMHO, you need to come to an ETDS.
The event understands itself as a „fun competition“. Anything resembling proper competition dress is prohibited and many think that really the parties are more important than the competition. Many attendees party till late in the night only getting 4 or less hours of sleep before getting up for the competitions on Saturday and Sunday and not sleeping at all from Sunday to Monday. Sleeping is done communally with sleeping mats and bags in large gym halls to keep the event affordable to students. Personally I think this and the sleep deprivation rather adds to the flavour.
I think the ETDS is a major factor in creating a sense of community and identity of German university dancing teams and the reason why there are many German cities with big university dance teams. Though that is speculation on my part.
In recent years the ETDS became so popular organizers can't fit everyone who wants to attend anymore, so there is always a lottery to be allowed to join the event.
Thx for the elaborate response! Why the fix? You still need to be a member/ former member of a University team as far as I am aware in order to participate.
The university dance scene is part of the wider dance scene and the ETDS is just the best thing. You need to be a member of a team, but you can just join your local team or any other if your city doesn't have one.
Hell yeah! I actually attended the past three ETDS and liked them very much. I will be there for Enschede as well.
I just wish there were more big dance events like the ETDS. Not even the tournament so much, just the huge dance floor with all those dancers is kind of an unique experience.
Niiice, see you there! In the Netherlands we do have the NTDS, and I think some sister associations in Germany also sometimes have smaller versions of that.
I could elaborate on all the details of the ballroom dance scene in Poland, but it would be mostly a carbon copy of OP's post. I guess the situation is similar in most European countries, due to shared culture and history. Two things are different though:
WDC vs. WDSF: In Poland, both these organisations have a comparable number of members, and both are running competitions, with top couples reaching world level. None is seen as more professional, both are considered basically equal. Dancers usually start their journey in whichever club is closer and meets their requirements and preferences, becoming a member of WDC or WDSF rather randomly, and then just stick with the organisation they began their career in.
Age. Ballroom dance as a sport is very popular among children and teenagers, so ages 7-19. I don't know the exact numbers, but I would guess, based on my observations, that ca. 80% of all dancers fall into this age group. I have been recently to a few competitions for adults (16+) only, and it struck me that there were no couples looking older than 20! Unfortunately, universities don't care as much for dancesport as much as they used to in the past. University clubs are dying. In high schools on the other hand, the trend appears to be rising, because many parents throw so much money at it. Past the age of 20-25, people still dance, but prefer social dances like bachata, salsa, west coast swing, lindy hop, discofox... I am an exception, being 30+, haha. But I'm not going to stop as long as I am able to win against the youngsters.
I will use the opportunity to also say that it is puzzling to me that in the US ballroom dancing seems to be a very niche activity. I came to this conclusion based on Reddit, where I guess Americans are dominant. It is mentioned so rarely, it looks like it is something totally obscure to most people - hardly ever mentioned as a possible hobby one could take interest in, having the time and capabilities!
I relate to this a lot
Yes ballroom isn't as popular.
West Coast Swing is the popular partner dancing with the younger crowd.
I started dancing in the US with a collegiate club, not a commercial studio. Ballroom dancing is not an official collegiate sport, so it does not get the funding that other sports teams get. Some colleges organize collegiate competitions that other college teams attend, but non-students can also compete and sometimes even join the teams and attend the classes. I've also seen studio teams attend collegiate competitions.
The culture of individual collegiate clubs/teams varies by school and who's currently running the group. My collegiate club, which is at my alma mater and also where I work, started out with a number of dance styles, not just dancesport, and used to organize big parties that featured both ballroom and social styles. Some of the social dances splintered off into their own clubs because dancers in those styles weren't necessarily interested in ballroom. Now the club has a ballroom team and teaches ballroom dances as well as West Coast swing (we're on the West Coast), but the two sides don't interact that much, and the ballroom side no longer seems to hold socials.
I started at a local studio here in Dubai trying to learn social but my coach at the time sold me on standard ballroom I tried it and fell in love with it I tried to learn a bit of Latin social but never was able to my hips are as stiff as a nailed board 🤣🤣 anyway my first coach left after a few weeks of me joining bad luck right now it was actually good for me started to learn how to lead from a guy at the time until the new coach got their once she arrived we partnered up and she prepped me for a comp in 3 months give or take I did amature and we pushed for bronze ranked first second comp we did silver also first after a while she quit and I stopped for a year now at Fred astire and not gonna lie love the environment but they did try selling me on American smooth not my thing tbh it's confusing but respect to all styles
I can share my experiences starting at 27 in Australia. A friend of mine invited me to a studio that primarily does social dancing and medals, but did do some social competitions between other franchise locations. This particular studio was a part of the franchise at the time called Marshere but that studio has since become independent. My understanding is most studios are independent and offer medals which are associated with the Australian dancing society and are your bronze, silver and gold structure.
I danced medals and socially for a year, the teachers that were the best were all amateur competitors, C grade at the time but since have gone on to open level and B grade and one of the principals used to dance open level. They clued in that I was interested in competition and I paired with someone at the studio and was coached there for a bit in all three styles until we decided to seek a different Latin coach. All of those teachers went to the same coaches and I started learning from someone from that studio which primarily marketed as a competition studio, there are a few of these.
On to the structure of dancesport in Australia, I started out in recreational which is your restricted syllabus and you're allowed to just wear practice wear. The idea here is to make it more accessible since dancing is quite expensive. From there you can move up to C grade where you start earning points to move on to the next grade. There's then also B and open level. I'm not sure who Australia is more associated with wdsf or wdc but a lot of the top coaches are retired wdc competitors. I know recently there's been more of a push for us to be more aligned with wdsf by Dancesport Australia which is the governing body for competitive dancing here.
Most other people I know who dance did so when they were a kid or like my dance partner who wanted to do more if it after doing her debutante and learning some there. University clubs used to be bigger but I believe they've fallen apart due to popularity and lack of funding.
I'm sure I've left things out and there's a lot I don't know but I hope you found it interesting!
Canadian here
The ballroom scene is rather commercial here as well, though where I live(Calgary, AB), if you're serious about competing, you need to find a dedicated partner and take private lessons. There are group classes, but they only go so far.
As part of gym in high school (realschule), classes have a dance module, for which they sometimes pick ballroom. We also have clubs at university, but generally they aren't very large.
I got into ballroom because of a girl (German, student exchange). She's long gone, but I'm still learning and having fun.
I want to point out that there is competitive dancing in German dance schools as well, though maybe not in each.
There is basically a parallel world of dance competitions with levels being Hobby, Rising Star and Sport. Hobby only allows dancing in "street clothes", but the higher levels also allow dance wear. You can rise up through the levels, but as it's less strict you can also start in whichever level you want. Hobby includes Cha Cha Cha, Rumba and Jive for Latin and Slow Waltz, Quickstep and Tango for Ballroom. Rising Star adds Samba and Viennese Waltz, and Sport adds Paso Doble and Slow Foxtrott.