HAMPTON, Va. — The ballroom dance team at Virginia Peninsula Community College in Hampton isn’t letting grass grow under its feet, even though it just wrapped up an award-winning season.
“This year alone, our dancers have won almost 200 individual awards, and we took our first overall school win in Richmond,” said dance team adviser Pam Roberts.
Roberts put the team together 11 years ago when she realized there was so much talent at the college. But it was rough going at first.
“We were kind of like the Bad News Bears in the ballroom world. We didn’t have costumes, we didn’t have shoes, and we didn’t know what we were doing,” she said.
Pam tells me they are the only community college with a ballroom dance team, competing against schools like Princeton, Columbia, and UVA. But it didn’t take long for the dance world to notice the box-stepping brigade, even at that first dance-off.
“By the end of the competition, the judges were coming up and asking us who we were and where we came from. They had never heard of us,” she said.
They know now. The Peninsula team managed to pull off a seventh ranking in the country.
J.D. Ellis was one of the first students to dance on the team, even though he was new to the art. But it didn’t take long for him to get into the swing of things.
“Two months later, they paired me up with my partner, and I was at my first competition competing in international cha-cha, rumba, and East Coast swing,” he said.
This year, Ellis won best international Latin lead in two national competitions, as well as dozens of other awards.
“The music takes over, and I get going into my routine, and at that point, nothing else matters,” he said.
He plans to make a career out of the sport and has been tapped to teach. But for now, his passion is traveling to competitions with his team and performing on stage.
“At that point, it feels like nothing in the world matters. It's just me and my partner creating beauty in motion,” he said.
“Trying to hit each beat harder than the last,” he added.
The Virginia Peninsula Community College ballroom dance team is putting Virginia on the college ballroom dance map one foxtrot at a time, and they are positively Hampton Roads.
If you would like to donate to this award winning team you can go to https://www.vpcc.edu/educational-foundation/give/ [vpcc.edu]
