Brownsville youth ballroom dance team comes up big at national championships
Mar. 14—The Texas Heat youth ballroom dance team from Brownsville has returned from the 2023 U.S. National Amateur Dancesport Championships at Brigham Young University with a youth Latin formation national championship and a couples champion among three in the top five after a slew of history-making performances.
The event took place March 7 to 11 in Provo, Utah.
The Brownsville-based ballroom dance company has 16 students and two alternates to form eight couples from the Fred Astaire Dance Studios led by Rebecca Rendon.
The team was the first Fred Astaire Dance Studios formation dance team to compete in the national competition, the first Hispanic team, the first from Texas and the first from Brownsville.
"We were never expecting to place like we did, so everything that we accomplished was a surprise to us. I mean we were going to go and do our best, but we never expected to come home with national champions as a team and then national champions as a couple. I mean we truly didn't," Rendon said Monday.
Her comment came after the team spent most of the past year preparing for the competition and with it being their first national competition.
Formation ballroom dance is a special part of ballroom competition 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.
Here's how the dancers placed:
— First place — 2023 United States Youth Latin Formation Champions Division II (out of 8 teams in the finals; initially 21 teams): Jose De la Cruz, Samantha Aldape, Hector Lara, Coral Garza, Giovanni Lopez, Cindy Meza, Alex Salinas, Haley Guajardo, Alexys Campos, Nhia Garza, Angel Estrada, Maura Sanchez, Christopher Meza, Ethan Ramirez, Jenna Gonzalez, Alec Nicholson, Isis Perez;
— Seventh place — 2023 United States Youth Ballroom Formation Champions Division I (out of 21 teams): Jose De la Cruz, Samantha Aldape, Hector Lara, Coral Garza, Giovanni Lopez, Cindy Meza, Alex Salinas, Haley Guajardo, Alexys Campos, Nhia Garza, Angel Estrada, Maura Sanchez, Christopher Meza, Ethan Ramirez, Jenna Gonzalez, Alec Nicholson, Isis Perez;
— First place — 2023 States Youth Open Rhythm Champions (out of 20 couples): Hector Lara & Coral Garza;
— Third place — 2023 States Youth Open Rhythm Championship (out of 20 couples): Alex Salinas & Haley Guajardo;
— Fourth place — 2023 States Youth Open Rhythm Championship (out of 20 couples): Giovanni Lopez & Cindy Meza.
"What was so nice about this was there has never been a team from Texas and the other teams truly welcomed them with open arms. The talk of the entire competition all week was Texas Heat. The other kids from the other teams would go up to our kids and tell them, 'Oh my God, you are all amazing. You dance so well. We're worried about the completion now,'" Rendon said.
"It was Texas is here to compete. But they were nice, and they were excited that there was a team from another state that had never gone before and that was something that was very welcoming for us. We didn't expect that. I had coaches coming up to me the entire week saying, 'Your kids are such great dancers. We're so happy you all are here,'" she said.
Rendon said the competition put Brownsville on the map because dancers on the other teams didn't really know Brownsville's whereabouts.
"I had one coach come up to me and say, 'I hope you and these kids understand what happened here at this competition. There has never been a team that has come in for the first time and takes a national title and gets into Division 1,' which is the highest division in the competition," she said.
"That was a pretty amazing to hear, and then at the end when they got their national title ... and we were announced as the first place youth of Latin formation. And then all of the teams went to hug them and congratulate them. It was just a pretty amazing thing to see," Rendon said.
Almost all of the previous winners, team and individual, were from Utah, Idaho and Washington state, with a few from California.
The Texas Heat team 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.
------
PREVIOUS COVERAGE:
