The Scripps Voice

By Stacy Wheeler ‘13
Contributing Writer

Although she’s a member of the Claremont Colleges Ballroom Dance Company (CCBDC), you won’t ever see Emily Fujimoto (HMC ‘11) dancing in three-inch heels and a skirt. That’s because Fujimoto is a lead, meaning she dances the traditionally male role in ballroom dance. In previous years, the CCBDC team had only ever had one other female lead in the history of the company. This year’s team has five.

“When we take people into the company we take them either as leads or follows because we have to balance our lead-follow ratio. People can try out for either position, regardless of gender,” said Paul Roach, director of CCBDC.

The tryout process is very competitive for follows, but this does not mean that female leads audition as such simply to improve their odds. “I like leading better than following,” said Fujimoto. “The fact that I’m female doesn’t affect that at all.”

Liz Sarapata (HMC ‘13) sought her role as a lead for a similar reason. Starting mostly as a choreographer, Sarapata “never really learned how to follow,” she said. “It is hard for me to perform confidently unless I feel that I am in a very nonjudgmental environment. Being a lead allows me to create this sort of environment for myself and my follows.”

Ballroom dance has very uniform gender roles. Traditionally speaking, leads are males who portray masculine characteristics, while follows are females with the embodiment of grace, sexiness and femininity.

Do such gender roles present problems for female leads? Sometimes, said Fujimoto. “There are some moves I simply cannot do as a female…since they would be inappropriate or just would not work properly with a female body.”

Sarah Roh (PO ‘12) gave an example of such a move, in which a follow puts her hand on the lead’s chest. This move, given female anatomy, can prove problematic to perform with grace.

Surprisingly, though, none of the female leads have noticed any prejudice or discrimination against their roles. “[No one is] going to be like, ‘Oh, well, she’s not going to be as good of a lead as a guy.’ I don’t think there is that stigma here. It’s a very welcoming and accepting community,” said Roh.

Instead of facing disapproval from other people, Fujimoto sometimes has to work on her own self-confidence. “[In my first ballroom lesson] I actually followed even though I knew I wanted to lead,” she said. “I was worried that it would be weird [to volunteer to lead].”

Fujimoto and Roh both said that being a female lead can be intimidating outside of Claremont. “I don’t know how they’re going to respond to me [elsewhere],” said Fujimoto. “Will they try to tell me that I’m a girl and therefore can’t lead?”

DanceSport, competitive ballroom dance, drives most trends in the dance form. Although there are now categories of competition for same-sex ballroom couples, the biggest competitions are dominated by male-female couples that stylize their dancing with exaggerated gender roles. According to Roach, the gender roles in ballroom dance are deeply entrenched in pre-1800s social dancing.

Challenges of having female leads on the company, Roach said, are limited to choreography restrictions and getting leads to “look the part.” This problem of looking the part, however, is not unique to female leads.

“In the traditional partnerships with a female follow and a male lead, we still have problems with people not looking the part. Those problems exist regardless of gender,” said Roach.

In the end, Roach said that having female leads in the company is a positive thing. “I think one of the things people tend to get nervous about when they dance is the boxed-in gender roles. If you feel boxed in, there are all these other people who are not being boxed in, in very obvious ways,” he said. “That’s really nice for me to point and say, ‘Look, if you don’t want to be feminine, you can be masculine instead.’ And I tell the leads the same thing.”

By Elena Hernandez ‘11
Guest Writer

PHOTOS COURTESY OF ELENA HERNANDEZ

As six legs flipped over six heads into suspended upside-down splits, there was an audible gasp from the bleachers before the crowd of over three hundred burst into applause. At the 2010 National Collegiate Championships at the Ohio Star Ball in Columbus, Ohio, the Claremont Colleges Ballroom Dance Company’s formation Latin dance medley was quickly becoming an audience favourite just one minute into the routine. By the end of the evening, the Claremont Colleges had been named the second-place formation team in the nation.

This year’s nationals dance routine was in close contention with University of California, San Diego for first place. Team member and the CCBDC co-president Aaron Brown (PO ’11) agrees that the excitement of the crowd revealed that the routine was well received—and inspired the dancers to perform even better.  “It definitely felt like we won the crowd over,” he said, “There was never a moment when I wasn’t excited to be dancing.”

The nationals competition routine members spent 10 to 20 hours a week rehearsing the dance, but nothing could have prepared them for the intensity of actually competing. The CCBDC co-president Asumi Ohgushi (’11) has previously competed with the CCBDC in the nationals routine, yet she still feels the adrenaline rush of performing. “It was very, very stimulating; it was very intense,” she said, “I was aware of what I was doing the whole time. I was up in the judges faces 80 to 90 percent of the time, so I was focusing on everything I was doing all the time.”

However, it wasn’t only members of the dance routine that prepared for the nationals competition; other members of the Claremont Colleges Ballroom Dance Company supported the routine members through encouragement and even by putting the final rhinestones on their costumes. “Seeing the costumes put together by team members shows just how much all of he team cares about each other and how collaboration makes everything on team possible,” nationals member Kelsey Frost (’13) says. It is in the same spirit of collaboration that the CCBDC hosts events such as the Claremont Dance Festival, the Ballroom Dance Concert and our own ballroom dance competition, the Winter Showdown, which is coming up early next spring.

The nationals dance routine expects the Michael Jackson medley to be just as energetic—and as competitive—in year’s competitions. One of the routine dance captains, Ian Jimenez (HMC ’11) sums it up this way, “The final performance was one of the best we had ever had. We did a great job and I am excited to see what we can do next semester.”

This year, the members of the Claremont Colleges Ballroom Dance Company (CCBDC) have redefined the meaning of hard work. After months of long 7:00 a.m. practices and weekend rehearsals, every CCBDC member is excited for the performance in which all of his or her effort will finally pay off: the 11th annual Ballroom Concert. Members of the dance team have spent months preparing their costumes and routines for this 90-minute spectacular, and the show is expected to garner a large and enthusiastic crowd.

This year’s theme is “Made Modern.” Asumi Ohgushi (’11), CCBDC publicity manager, explained that the idea behind the theme is to “examine how the world of ballroom dancing has changed in the last century and contrasting musical styles from the 1940s to today’s modern pop and hip-hop sounds.” The team will be performing 26 routines in an array of dance styles that will explore the evolution of each of displayed dance forms.

“It is unique that just over 90 undergraduates can put on such a monumental work,” commented Kristie Finch (CMC ’09), CCBDC secretary. The show will not only feature almost 100 team members, it will also feature routines choreographed by a large variety of team members. There are plenty of routines to choose from, but Finch divulged, “My personal favorite is an empowering routine choreographed to ‘It’s Raining Men.’”

Scripps women have always been fans of CCBDC, but this year the performance will feature a grand total of 23 Scripps women, meaning they make up about half of the female performers. The students come from all four class years, and include Ohgushi, Elena Hernandez (’11), Elin Ramsey (’11), Ellyn Brady (’10), Emily Seaman (’09), Jessica Hurley (’09), Kelly Cloward (’09), Lauren Wann (’10), Nikki Morin (’09), Andrea Montes (’11), Bre’anca Sanders (’11), Darina Kostadinova (’12), Elisa Chavez (’11), Julia Scheibmeir (’12), Julie Lapidus (’11), Kelsey Langille (’11), Kit Wong (’10), LeeAnn Allen (’12), Maria Martin (‘12), Mariam Tejeda (’11), Natalie Sacks (’11), Paulina Sanchez (’10), Samantha Scherm (‘11) and Chloe Skew (‘08).

Ohgushi stressed that “Made Modern” will be an enjoyable show for almost everyone, assuring “this year’s concert will give you a taste of everything the modern world of dance sport has to offer, and it’s definitely not an event to be missed.”

The performance takes place every day of the weekend: Friday May 1 at 7 p.m., Saturday May 2 at 7 p.m., and Sunday May 3 at 5 p.m. Student and faculty tickets are only $5, and general admission is $15. For more information please contact concert@claremontballroom.org.