Ballroom Dancing Team Attends Competition

The Fairmont State Ballroom Dancing Team, the only Dancesport team in West Virginia, competed at the DC Dancesport Inferno 2006 held on Oct. 28 and 29 at the University of Maryland's College Park campus.

The FSU team consisted of Captain Mariko Tsuruta, Jacqueline Albright, Sarah Grumblatt, Dylan Callery, Andrea Burnett and Dr. Michael Fulda as adult competitor ballroom dancing coordinator. Given the record attendance both newcomer and bronze levels included a field of about 80 couples, which required about seven heats to attain the quarter final round in front of a panel of six judges.

Dylan Callery and Andrea Burnett competed at the newcomer level. They attained the quarter final round of the waltz and tango in American Smooth and the cha cha in International Latin. Tsuruta competed with Matthew Watkins of Cornell at the bronze international standard level, where they reached the quarter final level in the waltz. Partnering both with Eric Weinberg of Rutgers at the bronze American smooth level, Albright reached the quarter final in the waltz and the semi final in the tango. Grumblatt reached the quarter final level in both the foxtrot and the Viennese waltz.

The DCDI is hosted by Washington, D.C., area universities and is open to college and university students and to other members of the amateur ballroom dancing community. More than 650 students from 35 universities competed during two full days. Private universities represented included Caltech, Columbia, Cornell, Duke, Georgetown, Johns Hopkins, New York (NYU), Princeton, Stanford, U. Penn., William and Mary and Yale. Public institutions competing included the flagship universities of states including Maryland, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Virginia.

The FSU Dancesport team will next compete at the National Collegiate Championship to be held on Nov. 18 and 19 in Columbus, Ohio, held in conjunction with the nationally televised Star Ball.