Brownsville dancers work to blaze trail to national contest in Utah
Sep. 18—It's been hours, eight to be exact, of exhaustive work and sweat for the teenage dancers inside the Promesa College Prep gymnasium on this day, June 24, in Brownsville.
The Texas Heat formation dance team remains hard at work despite their fatigue, despite the fact they do this each day of the week. Their instructors have eyes like hawks, going over the minutiae of choreography for their competition routine — everything from the arc of a hand to their timing is under intense scrutiny.
A group of female dancers sits slumped forward onto the floor as their male counterparts, on the cue of choreographer Paul Winkelman, run, leap, kick, turn and land in front of them. Then they stop, reset and do it again. And again and again, until it passes muster.
Then they move on to the next sequence, and it starts all over again.
Formation dance is a unique part of ballroom dancing competitions where teams of coupled dancers, usually four to eight, perform routines that are medlies of ballroom Standard and Latin dance styles respectively, and in perfect unison.
International Standard ballroom dance style encompasses the waltz, Viennese waltz, foxtrot, tango, and quickstep. The International Latin dance style encompasses the cha-cha, samba, paso doble, jive, and rumba.
To add to the difficulty level, the teams must also make shapes as they dance — such as a diamond or a reverse V — all while changing formation on average every five to 10 seconds.
The Texas Heat, composed of students from the Fred Astaire Dance Studio in Brownsville, is working to master these styles and formations, and more.
Together after months of hard work, they have set their sights on entering the 2023 United States National Amateur Dancesport Championships in Provo, Utah.
The formation dance competition portion, held in March, pits roughly 25 youth formation dance teams toe-to-toe to see who has what it takes to take home their division championship title.
For the newly created Texas Heat, it is a big mountain to climb.
However, just by showing up on the competition floor at Brigham Young University, these students will have already made history as the first Fred Astaire Dance Studios formation dance team to compete in a national competition, the first Hispanic team, the first from Texas and the first from Brownsville.
From there, it'll take hard work, teamwork, and a bit of luck to see what the judges think of their efforts to try and take home the title and the glory.
COMPETITIVE SPIRIT
The Fred Astaire Dance Studio in Brownsville is the only one of the franchise dance studios south of San Antonio.
Rebecca Rendon runs the studio and is known for her introduction of ballroom dancing to the Brownsville Independent School District and other local schools for students starting in the fifth grade.
It's one of few venues her school-age formation team can use to practice and compete in ballroom dancing. This, as it turns out, is unusual for the franchise and creates a unique problem.
"In Fred Astaire Dance Studios, it is usually adults. They rarely have students. For us, in Texas, we are the only studio that has students," Rendon said.
"The problem is that when we compete on the regional level in Houston four times a year, and we take these kids and adults from our studio, the kids don't have anyone else to compete against," she said.
Instead, they compete against each other and use the competitions to get feedback from the judges about areas they can improve.
Jan Mattingly is where things take a turn.
Mattingly has a storied career in professional dancing. She is the former United States American Smooth and Rhythm Champion, Fred Astaire National Smooth and Rhythm Champion and a member of the Fred Astaire International Dance Council.
She now serves as the Texas regional dance director for Fred Astaire Dance Studios, and said she always took notice whenever the Brownsville students would compete in the regionals in the Houston area.
"As I saw the kids come every time we had a competition, I thought it would be a great opportunity if they would take a formation team to the big competition they have in Utah, which is the United States Championship," Mattingly said.
"It is the only formation competition we have for their age category, which is the high school range. This is the only chance they have to compete against kids their age in formation competition," she said.
Mattingly says that for competitive dancers, it is important to have a goal to work towards. Regionals couldn't scratch that itch forever, and Brownsville needed to aim high.
It took some convincing for Rendon to get on board and a scouting trip to the national competition in 2022. However, seeing the competition and what students like hers were capable of served as a turning point.
"It made us a little nervous because we were all like: 'oh my God, these kids are amazing,'" she said.
"But it was also the energy that you feel there and realizing that these kids are never going to have an experience like this again because they don't get it here. This is the only place that they can go to do this."
Students auditioned in May, with 16 dancers forming the team's eight couples with additional two students as alternates. Together they'll perform two routines not exceeding four minutes each, one in the International Latin dance style and another in International Standard.
Three weeks before leaving for Utah, they'll need to send a video of their performances for competition officials to determine which of the three skill-level based divisions they'll be performing in.
Samantha Aldape, 12, is the youngest team member, with two years of dancing under her belt. The training, she says, is intense, but it's worth it to be able to show people what she is capable of.
"I can show that I can be going to a level of competition that nobody would ever see me go to," Aldape said.
Aldape and her teammates attend rehearsals four times a week with their studio instructors David Martinez, Lynnsie Allen and Brianna Salinas. Practices get recorded so Jan and her network of coaches and experts can watch, correct, and mark where the group is on any given week.
There are also periodic boot camps, like the one in June with choreographer Paul Winkelman.
Winkelman, who started in formation dance, has had a 40-year career on and off the floor.
He's also responsible for choreography for the group, just one of many in a career that according to Salt Lake City Weekly includes: field directing the 2009 Super Bowl halftime show, assistant choreographer for the opening and closing ceremonies for the Olympics in Salt Lake City, Utah and Athens, Georgia, and the movie "High School Musical 3."
Based in Utah, he's familiar with the landscape and what the students will be facing when they arrive.
For often seen competitors from Utah and Idaho, formation dance competitions aren't new. The competition host Brigham Young University has long been part of a vertical integration system where dancers start as young as 8-years-old before progressing up the line to the university level. Experienced dancers return to help or teach.
Texas is an outlier in the ballroom competition scene.
"Which is what makes it exciting, that Texas is sending a contingency to the national championships because there has never been anybody from this state before," Winkelman said.
For months Winkelman has been hard at work getting the team where they need to be, to have their best chance against more experienced groups.
To explain what he is looking for, he describes a scenario: If the music turns off, the dancers should be able to convey each dance down to the feeling for the judges.
Additionally, since formation dance is about synchronicity, each pair must be a good fit. Winkelman does this by pairing the more experienced dancers with those less experienced.
According to Winkelman, pairing two inexperienced dancers together can result in problems as no one in the partnership can help the other.
By pairing on differing levels, you get a partnership where, in the face of the mistakes that come with growth in any discipline, someone is there to help encourage and support the other.
"The object of formation dancing is that you've got to get the less experienced dancers up to where the experienced dancers are," he said. "Then everybody has to continue going up. That is critical."
It isn't all just knowing the moves either to succeed. The group needs to work on their stamina since Provo, Utah sits at 4,500 feet above sea level. Lots of cardio, aerobics, a good diet, and a lot of core work will help them perform just as smoothly as they would in Brownsville.
"To get to Utah it's going to be hard and we are going to have to rely on a lot of friends and family here. We are just trying to be very optimistic and do the best we can," dancer Jose de la Cruz said.
RALLYING SUPPORT
It is a hard fact to deal with that a national-level competition like this comes with a hefty price tag.
According to Rebecca Rendon and Jan Mattingly, the group is looking to raise something in the neighborhood of $80,000 to $100,000 for the Texas Heat.
This money covers everything from practice clothes to flying down coaches to work with the team to the highly specialized costumes the group requires for both numbers. Most importantly, it covers the plane tickets to get them to the competition.
Currently, they are working with the Dancing Thru Life Foundation nonprofit to find interested sponsors for the group and help get them to Provo. Anyone interested in helping the team is encouraged to reach out to the studio in Brownsville, by calling (956) 567-0420.
Rendon is also hoping to engage the community not just financially but to provide emotional support to show the dancers people are behind them.
"I want people to see them and be proud of them because it is something they should all be proud of," she said.
"They are representing this community at a national competition. While we don't know if it will happen again, it is happening right now. So we have to take advantage of this."
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