Your team board are always happy to answer your questions! Find info on each board member here, and you can contact the whole board by email at ballroom-exec@umich.edu or using this form on the website
Hello to the official Michigan Ballroom Dance Team for Fall 2019!!!
Our roster for the semester is now complete and I want to extend the warmest of welcomes to the newest members of the MBDT 🙂 I am so excited that you are all joining our community and hope everyone had a fantastic Guys’ and Girls’ Night, whether it was your first time or last of many. I know I thoroughly enjoyed getting to know you all better, dancing with my fellow ladies and beating the guys in the dance off (in my totally unbiased opinion at least), and celebrating the start of a great semester together!
Some things for new members:
- What is Week at a Glance??? I’m glad you asked! Week at a Glance (WAG for short) is our weekly newsletter containing information about all our upcoming events for the week, including lessons, practice space, socials and much more! Week at a Glance is your best source for all things MBDT, so please take the time to read through it thoroughly to ensure you don’t miss out on our events. Our lesson and practice schedule sometimes deviates from normal to accommodate special events, so please check the schedule below before turning up at the CCRB!
- SAPAC workshop: Our mandatory Sexual Assault Prevention and Awareness Center (SAPAC) workshop is this Tuesday at 9pm in CCRB 3275. In this short interactive workshop, we’ll be talking about consent, bystander intervention strategies, and how to promote a safe and respectful culture on our team. This is a requirement for attending future social events, and attendance will be tracked. We know this is very short notice, so there will be a makeup opportunity available: if you are unable to attend, please email me (Lizzie) by replying to the Week at a Glance email.
- Lessons this week: After our SAPAC workshop on Tuesday, weekday review lessons will start on Thursday this week with a review of last Saturday’s lesson (9/28). If you didn’t make Saturday’s lesson you can catch up on what you missed, but this is also a great opportunity for everyone to ask more detailed questions from your student teachers and get more practice with your cool new rumba, foxtrot and mambo moves! Then on Saturday Steve and Susan will be back to teach you something new 🙂
- Check out our newcomer guide! The password is in the email you just got with the link to this page. Click here to access.
- Join our Facebook group! It’s the hub of our community where we post event reminders and announcements during the week, as well as lost and found items, partner searches and much, much more! Check it out here, and just hit request access. Make sure you’ve added your Michigan email address to your Facebook account or you won’t be able to join the group, there’s instructions about how to do this here (if you aren’t a Michigan student please contact ballroom-exec@umich.edu and we’ll sort it out).
- Calendar: The team has its own Google calendar, available here, which you can use for reminders for all our events during the week and to see what competitions are coming up!
Some things for members returning from last semester:
- SAPAC workshop: Our mandatory Sexual Assault Prevention and Awareness Center (SAPAC) workshop is this Tuesday at 9pm in CCRB 3275. Differently from previous years, returning team members are only required to attend this workshop if they have only attended it once in the past. If you’ve attended this workshop twice or more, you do not need to attend this year. Attending this workshop is a requirement for attending future social events, and attendance will be tracked. We know this is very short notice, so there will be a makeup opportunity available: if you are unable to attend, please email me (Lizzie) by replying to the Week at a Glance email.
- Illinois Competition (10/12): Registration, Rooms and Rides and payment are all due this Friday (10/4) – look for more details in emails from your lovely Away Comp Chair Natalie!
- Bronze American Lesson: our first Bronze American lesson will be this Monday 9/30 7-9pm at Steve and Susan’s studio. Anyone on Pre-C and above is eligible to attend, so fill out this form to sign up and get ready to learn some more advanced American moves!
And now the schedule…
Monday 9/30
9.30-11.30pm: Open Practice at DTS
Tuesday 10/1
9-10pm: SAPAC workshop in CCRB 3275
10pm-midnight: Open Practice at DTS
Wednesday 10/2
9.30-11.30pm: Open Practice at DTS
Thursday 10/3
9-11pm: Newcomer review lesson in CCRB 3275. Review and get more practice on the material we covered in last Saturday’s lesson!
10pm-midnight: Open Practice at DTS
Friday 10/4
Deadline for Illinois competition registration, rooms & rides and payment!
Saturday 10/5
4.30-6pm: Newcomer lesson with Steve and Susan!
Sunday 10/6
Your ballroom team membership comes with a FREE membership to the ballroom club! Just ask at the club front desk for your card. The Ballroom Dance Club meets once a week on Sundays and provides a relaxed, social environment to learn ballroom alongside the wider Ann Arbor community. It’s a great opportunity to attend an additional lesson (if all the team lessons this week weren’t enough) and get some help from upper-level team members. For more information about Club, check out their website here, where you can also subscribe to their separate email list.
Club is in the League Ballroom this week, with a special LatinX Heritage collaboration event! This is an amazing opportunity to learn the history behind some of the Latin dances we learn on the team and to improve your social dancing skills. Team alumni Alex Escobar and Katelynn Miller will be teaching a bachata class, so this is a great opportunity to learn some more bachata moves before our next party 🙂
Looking further ahead:
Shoe vending is coming soon on October 8th, 10.15pm-midnight! Newcomers, this is the perfect chance to get your hands on a pair of those fancy shoes you’ve seen other team members wearing. More details to follow next week!
Save the date for the Ohio Star Ball aka OSB aka NATIONALS!!! OSB is the most fun competition of the year and we’d hate for you to miss it, so save the date for November 23rd-24th! Lots more info coming later…
Happy dancing this week, and to our new members: welcome to the team. 🙂
Lizzie
President, Michigan Ballroom
