So you are a student/faculty/staff at UH and are interested in dancing? Well, you may be looking at the right place.
Most college ballroom dance clubs have two sides: The social/take-a-break-from-studying side and the competition side. Although we would love to have competitive ballroom dancers as members (or better yet, instructors), currently we are mainly a very loosely non-organized organization that mainly serves a social function. We have fun, learn/practice a little bit of dancing, and go out now and then to dance studios or night clubs. Sometimes we even organize a ball or a Dance Camp.
For the last five years or so we have met on Sunday afternoons, either at 4 or 5 PM. We usually spend two or three hours teaching a very basic beginning ballroom class and an almost as basic intermediate class. Sometimes we hire a professional instructor for a short series of "advanced" classes, mainly to have some exposure to the rest of the world. After classes we play some music so everybody can practice. Currently we are meeting in the University Center Underground at the World Affairs Lounge (the place with flags all around the ceiling). If you are around here on a Sunday afternoon please pay us a visit.
This saga comes from my own memories of conversations with other Club members, most of them no longer dancing at UH. I offer no assurances as to accuracy, veracity, or truthfulness of this history.
Craig Gohering (I will get the correct spelling later) is the founding member that deserves the most credit for keeping this Club in existence from the time I joined (Spring 1994) until Fall 1998. During an after-class conversation, Craig mentioned that the Club was founded by three UH students taking ballroom dance lessons elsewhere, so as to have a place to dance at UH. The three founders were Tim (an oriental guy still teaching at the Club when I joined, last time I checked there was a picture of him at SSQQ), another white guy that came by now and then--possibly to take a look at the women--, and Craig himself.
When I (Emanuel) joined, Craig was teaching the beginning and intermediate sections, and an oriental girl by the name of Emily often taught the advanced section, in combination with Tim and other people. Watson (the tall hindu now teaching the intermediate section), Rob (now a professional dance instructor), Scott and Nancy (now married, with a baby--Scott works as DJ at the Houston Center of Dance and other places), Theresa (who very graciously gave a lot of us our first opportunities to attempt to lead a woman that actually knew how to follow--also married now), and other people I may recognize on sight but whose names I don�t recall right now, all were experimenting and practicing in the advanced section.
Later, Tim got a job out of state, Emily married, got pregnant and also moved out of state, and from then on until Fall 1998 Craig with his electronic organizer and collection of CDs took care of the beginning and intermediate classes, and sometimes also taught something to appease the people asking for an advanced class. Although some of us helped a little bit now and then, for all practical purposes Craig was the force that kept the Club alive and going for years. (My main contributions consisted of spending about one hundred dollars every semester to place ads in the Daily Cougar�small price considering that often I spent more than that in one single month of lessons at SSQQ�and in self-appointing myself as the �Welcome Committee� and encouraging onlookers to join the Club, often giving them small private mini- lessons to get them started).
Craig made a practice of holding a class EVERY Sunday, as long as UC was open. (I think that made a lot of sense--dancing skills quickly get rusty for lack of practice--I know that very well from personal experience) Then in 1988 Craig became engaged and then married, and his wife Amy (beginning at the fiancee stage) contributed energetically to the Sunday classes. In Spring �99, Amy was seriously pregnant and�understandably�both Craig and Amy disappeared from teaching dance at UH. Watson and his partner Marla took over teaching on Sundays, and then Marla got a job in Austin, TX and Watson was left to fend for himself. Watson is scheduled to get his Ph.D. on Dec. �99, and I suspect he would like to actually make some real money afterwards�that means taking a real job, probably in another university.
At this point the possibility of UH Social Dance Club becoming a memory loomed quite large. The Club does not have a strong (or even a weak) tradition of recruiting and developing leadership and management talent. Although Craig himself was comfortable teaching Country and Western dancing, the main orientation in the Club was away from popular dance (read night clubs stuff--in Houston that is mainly Country & Western and Salsa/Merengue) and toward competition dancing , and competition dancing is a notoriously difficult and demanding--and expensive--challenge. We treated members more as students taking a dance class than as members in an organization, and did not promote a well defined development path to keep members coming back time and again. Most new members participated in the Club for one semester and then moved on (out of forty or fifty new people that joined every Fall and Spring, only a handful reappeared the following semester).
I took upon myself to announce the need for new officers to keep the Club going one more year, and volunteered to teach a beginning class. Khanh had been spending a small fortune in private dance lessons, and naturally he had an itch to pass this expensive knowledge to new Club members (we have lost lots of good people like Khanh in the past), so he mentioned that perhaps he and I could teach a class together. Later, Khanh changed his mind, preferring to teach his own section, and I agreed (I was at a point where I would agree to almost anything to keep this Club going, but at the same time I believe that having two beginning sections is a great idea�it allows new people to get exposed to different philosophies and styles of dancing). Joyce volunteered to be an officer under the proviso that she did not have to do anything beyond signing her name in a new officers form, and later she has graciously taken on more and more duties, including teaching with Khanh. Any complaints Joyce may have are totally justified, but I am grateful she has done so much, and I am sure so is Khanh.
And it was this way�or so I say�that we got to Summer �99. Although a few older members show up now and then, the story from now on is mainly up to you. �If it is to be, it is up to me�. The future is wide open, and presents plenty of potentially very rewarding opportunities (hey, read the next section).
What�s in it for me? That is a very understandable question in the late 90�s (and at any other time). Well, we can do far more than learning a few figures of tango, waltz, or even salsa. The Club offers opportunities to improve our communication and organizational skills, build a better self-image, and meet tons of people, all while having fun at the same time. Then we can write all of our accomplishments-- offices held and functions performed--in our resumes when the time comes to go out looking for a well paying professional job.
With that in mind, here are a few riddles to busy your mind when you take a break from practicing salsa turns in the kitchen floor:
Happy dancing now. Please e-mail your comments or suggestions to [email protected] (Emanuel) or [email protected] (Khanh). Thank you for you participation and your best efforts.
To learn more please choose from the Table of Contents