In just one week, our team will be traveling to the most important competition of the year -- The Collegiate Ballroom National Competition, otherwise knows as the "Ohio Star Ball!"
This 2-day competition takes place in Columbus, Ohio in the Columbus Convention Center. Not only is OSB the biggest collegiate competition of the year, it's also the largest Pro/Am Competition in the world! The Michigan Ballroom team has won the collegiate championship (and the $5000 prize!) for the past 14 years, gaining a reputation as the biggest and best collegiate team in the Midwest!
Only students can compete on the collegiate level, however, recently graduated students have 6 months of eligibility to dance. Thus, a lot of alumni will come back either to watch or dance one last time, motivated by their sense of nostalgia, or yearning for the past (Babin, 85). The team is a significant part of many students' college experiences, and a lot of our alumni still feel connected with dancing and the team itself.
Since the competition is only a week away, here are some of the ways my teammates and I are preparing:
In a competition, competitors are split into heats, with about 20 couples on the floor at a time. Lower levels, such as Newcomer and Bronze, usually have 5-7 heats in the 1st round. As the levels get more advanced, the heats decrease in number. About half of the dancers on the floor are typically eliminated each round, dwindling down the number to about 6 couples in each dance final. At the lower levels, this is particularly tiring, as the final couples sometimes dance upwards of 40 times by the end of the day!
Clothing
As I mentioned previously, in order to be successful at a competition, standing out on the dance floor is just as important as dancing well. Besides wearing the right costume, there are other things that dancers to do get noticed. This includes: sparkly jewelry, styled hair, fake nails, fake eyelashes, bright makeup, and spray tans. It seems silly that these extraneous accessories can heavily contribute to how successful you are at a competition, but that's merely the nature of the sport. Just like how spray tans can keep your skin from looking washed out under the bright lights (thank goodness I don't have to worry about that!), fake eyelashes and bright makeup can help accentuate your features. Also, because our coaches and the upper-level team members push the importance of things like spray tans and accessories, group influence motivates other people on the team to also obtain these extra features (Babin, 165). In preparations for the upcoming competition, I'm headed to the mall today to buy fake nails and jewelry to match Jamie's yellow dress. I've also considered trying a new hairstyle to complement the yellow fringe. Here's an example of something I might try: Ballroom Hair Tutorial!
It seems like there's a lot of costs associated with OSB -- functional costs (shoes, costumes), travel costs (hotel, gas, food), accessory costs (fake nails/eyelashes, hair, spray tans) and all the time put into practicing. However, the experiential value and social value of the competition is well worth it. It's my senior year and I'm hoping that the last 3.5 years of dancing have prepared me to do well at OSB this year!
Babin, B., & Harris, E. (n.d.). CB: Consumer Behavior : Student edition 7
[Rachel Macintosh]. (2016, Sept 30). Ballroom Dancing Hair Tutorial | Sleek Low Bun with a Twist [Video File]. Retrieved from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U73xhdQnRJc
This 2-day competition takes place in Columbus, Ohio in the Columbus Convention Center. Not only is OSB the biggest collegiate competition of the year, it's also the largest Pro/Am Competition in the world! The Michigan Ballroom team has won the collegiate championship (and the $5000 prize!) for the past 14 years, gaining a reputation as the biggest and best collegiate team in the Midwest!
Only students can compete on the collegiate level, however, recently graduated students have 6 months of eligibility to dance. Thus, a lot of alumni will come back either to watch or dance one last time, motivated by their sense of nostalgia, or yearning for the past (Babin, 85). The team is a significant part of many students' college experiences, and a lot of our alumni still feel connected with dancing and the team itself.
Since the competition is only a week away, here are some of the ways my teammates and I are preparing:
Rounds
Merely practicing our moves can't prepare us for the mental and physical exhaustion of a competition. Thus, our team conducts "rounds" in order to simulate a real competition. Our team members will break off into heats and "perform" for each other. My partner and I have been trying to increase the amount of rounds we participate in in order to increase our stamina and physical fitness.
Clothing
With the amount of couples on the floor at a time, it can sometimes be hard to get noticed. Just one mark from a judge can prevent you from moving on to the next round, so it's important to stand out. Something that can help you do this is wearing costumes that complement your skin color. I used to wear a black latin skirt with bright pink fringe (as seen in the picture above). However, my coaches urged me to get something brighter in order to make my darker skin "pop" on the floor. My best friend, Jamie, on the other hand, has very light skin, and her yellow dress blended in with her skin tone. We decided to switch costumes for OSB and as you can see in the picture below, the color works much better with my skin type.
The yellow dress was slightly loose on me, so I decided to get it tailored. A friend of mine told me to go the tailor in Nickel's Arcade. However when I got there, I realized there were actually 2 tailors in Nickel's Arcade! I decided to check both of them out. The first was Ojen's State Street Tailoring. Ojen spent about 30 minutes on my dress, thoroughly inspecting the seams and explaining what needed to be done. After I took the dress off, she gave me a quote of $25. However, she typically needs 2 weeks to finish a job and because my competition was in a week, she was going to charge me an additional $10 for short notice. She was taking advantage of my time pressure, or "urgency to act based on a deadline" (Babin, 165). $35 seemed overpriced for the service being done so I decided to check out the place next door: A1 Tailoring.
When I walked into A1, the tailor spent about 5-6 minutes looking over my dress before having me take it off. Unlike Ojen, the A1 tailor didn't place any adjustments pins in the dress and I had a feeling that her stitching wouldn't be as precise. Once the A1 tailor wrote up my bill, it came out to $20. Although I suspected the service quality of A1 lacks in comparison to Ojen's, I decided that because I was only wearing the dress to one competition, I preferred A1's lower prices over Ojen's higher quality of service.
When I walked into A1, the tailor spent about 5-6 minutes looking over my dress before having me take it off. Unlike Ojen, the A1 tailor didn't place any adjustments pins in the dress and I had a feeling that her stitching wouldn't be as precise. Once the A1 tailor wrote up my bill, it came out to $20. Although I suspected the service quality of A1 lacks in comparison to Ojen's, I decided that because I was only wearing the dress to one competition, I preferred A1's lower prices over Ojen's higher quality of service.
Extras/Accesories
It seems like there's a lot of costs associated with OSB -- functional costs (shoes, costumes), travel costs (hotel, gas, food), accessory costs (fake nails/eyelashes, hair, spray tans) and all the time put into practicing. However, the experiential value and social value of the competition is well worth it. It's my senior year and I'm hoping that the last 3.5 years of dancing have prepared me to do well at OSB this year!
Babin, B., & Harris, E. (n.d.). CB: Consumer Behavior : Student edition 7
[Rachel Macintosh]. (2016, Sept 30). Ballroom Dancing Hair Tutorial | Sleek Low Bun with a Twist [Video File]. Retrieved from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U73xhdQnRJc
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