For those who may have missed last month’s Dancesport Championships, or for those who wanted more, another opportunity to experience the best in amateur ballroom dance will be available at Brigham Young University’s Ballroom Dance Company Concert, Friday and Saturday, April 8-9, at 7:30 p.m. in the Marriott Center.
Directed by Lee and Linda Wakefield, all groups in the Ballroom Dance Company will perform both nights, with an additional matinee performance Saturday at 2 p.m. Tickets can be purchased at byutickets.com or (801) 422-2981 and cost $12 for arena seats or $25 for floor seats.
This year’s concert, dubbed “Imagine,” is a tribute to the creativity and color of the selected pieces. While different from the usual touring program, the campus performance will begin and end with elegant “bookend” dances selected from the international repertoire that earned the company its most recent championship title in Blackpool, England.
The opening performance will be “Mystérieux,” a Latin competition medley. “The idea behind this piece is to look like you saw a Cirque du Soleil show,” Lee Wakefield said. “It’s very esoteric.”
A unique “blacklight” dance will also be featured, a number choreographed with dancers in glow-in-the-dark costumes that will bring to mind classic video games like Pacman and Pong. The dance is appropriately called “MicTendo,” a homage to the original Nintendo gaming system.
The finale will be the sparkling “Americana” medley, a standard ballroom competition dance that the group performed to continue its title as U.S. National Standard Formation Team Champions, a title it has held for 27 consecutive years.
“We think it’s a concert that will fly by quickly and appeal to everyone,” Wakefield said. “It’s easy to go to a dance concert and have a painful experience because you’re looking at your watch. This isn’t one of those.”
Style and elegance are hallmarks of the BYU Ballroom Dance Company, considered one of the best formation ballroom dance teams in the world. Phenomenal dancing, colorful costumes and fascinating music combine to present a stunning visual performance this year.
For more information about this concert, contact Lee Wakefield at (801) 422-5087 or lee_Wakefield@byu.edu, or visit the company’s website at pam.byu.edu/similarpage.asp?title=Ballroom%20Dance%20Company.
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Writer: Philip Volmar
