History
DEl Beatty, Director of Student Involvement, created the Ballroom Dance Company at SUU as part of the Entertainment Bureau in the Spring of 1995. He had become acquainted with Melissa Jewkes whose husband was working at that time in Athletic Marketing. With Melissa’s tremendous background and success in the Ballroom world, it was exciting for us to have her to working here. The team itself actually had no budget yet, and that year, the Ballroom Dance Spring Concert was held in conjunction with the Acclamation Revue as one show… because with only one semester of material behind them there wasn’t enough to present a full show alone. Although it was a small first show for the Ballroom Dance Company they gave a fantastic show and paved the way for another dance program to begin at SUU that would offer opportunities for involvement in performance.
There was tremendous interest generated for the Ballroom Team from the beginning, and students had the desire to not only compete as a team, but to compete as individual couples as well. The team grew and succeeded under the direction of Melissa and filled the role it was designed to fill in providing involvement opportunities for our students, educational training in competitive ballroom dance syllabus steps and experience in local competitions. Melissa established a strong relationship with Continuing Education and began offering ballroom technique classes, encouraging her team members to enroll and develop proper technique and skill, which also continued with the successive directors of our company until 2004.
The Early Years
After a few years of continued success we were able to slowly increase the special appointment amount for Melissa, and she worked under this amount until her husband accepted new employment in New Jersey and she unfortunately had to leave SUU. At the time of her departure it was her recommendation that we hire someone with a degree in Ballroom Dance to lead the team in her absence. However, we were both afraid that no one would come to SUU for the salary we could offer unless they had other employment in Cedar City, a spouse working on campus, or some other reason for being here. This fear became a reality, but we were able to hire two outstanding Ballroom students (Cory Rivers and Eric Hansen) to split the salary and direct for one year so that the team would continue. At the end of that year we offered the role of Ballroom Dance Company directorship to Richard & Marie Roberts. They did a fabulous job with the teams, and as graduates of BYU with degrees in Ballroom Dance, they brought professionalism and insight to the program which continued to flourish under their direction for two years.
After their two years with us, Richard and Marie moved to Florida to accept new employment, and to be closer to Marie’s family. At this point, and upon their recommendation, we again turned to one of our own talented student dancers, Andrea Zundel, to provide leadership to our team. She accepted the job and the company continued under her direction. After Andrea graduated from SUU we hired another student, Jennifer Maughan, who directed the SUU BDC program for three years and accomplished great things during her time with us. She continued offering technique classes through continuing education. Jennifer recruited several students who had never danced before, and helped them to discover a “passion” for ballroom dancing. This has actually been typical of all our directors -- the fact that they recruit many students that do not possess previous ballroom training, or have danced on other forms of dancing teams, however they also work with many students that have danced on their high school ballroom teams, or studied at professional ballroom studios with Paul Winkelman, Rick Robison and others in the Salt Lake and Provo/Orem areas. The majority of our team members today fall into those similar categories, and when they come together as a ballroom team they are strong and excel as performers.
For over a decade we have been watching the ballroom team grow and flourish; we believe it is because of students hard work, dedication, and love for ballroom dancing! In recent years there has been a tremendous resurgence in interest regarding Ballroom Dancing because of television shows like “So You Think You Can Dance?”, “Dancing with the Stars” and others; and so the burden fell upon DEl as the Director of Student Involvement to provide this ballroom opportunity that our students are requesting.
2004 to the Present
In the Spring of 2004, Jennifer Maughan made the decision to not return as the Director of the SUU Ballroom Dance Program. At that point DEl felt the surge in popularity and an urgent need to find a replacement that had tremendous experience, and hopefully a degree, in Ballroom Dance. He found just the person in Mark Baker. However, he was already teaching and coaching for UVSC and doing a great deal of private work as an individual instructor and choreographer around the country. They met a few times and DEl presented our opportunity to him. However, he felt the timing was not right, and although he would welcome an opportunity to have a team of his own, and one that was still relatively new, he would have to wait another year and fulfill his teaching commitment to UVSC.
DEl held true to previous form and hired two outstanding and experienced students, Rachelle Brewer and Ana Sargent, to lead the team during the 2005-2006 school year. Again the team flourished and enjoyed much success in addition to an outstanding year-end tour to California. The Ballroom program continued to grow in popularity. Rachelle and Ana brought Mark Baker to campus to choreograph a couple of numbers for the team last season; and this experience proved to be an invaluable weekend. It gave DEl and the SUU team members an opportunity to see Mark interact and instruct; and we grew to appreciate his tremendous skill as a choreographer and instructor.
When the timing was right, Mark finally agreed to coach our team and continue the development of the SUU Ballroom Dance Company which is now in its eleventh year. He has a great vision and enthusiasm for growing the program and capitalizing on the wave of popularity surrounding Ballroom Dance; the students love and respect Mark as their director, and these next few years promise to be the most successful years on record for the SUU Ballroom Dance Company. Mark completed his studies in the Arts Administration graduate program at SUU and received his MFA in August of 2008.
During the 2007-08 academic year Ballroom Dance found a new home under the College of Performing and Visual Arts (CPVA). Dean Bill Byrnes, working with Vice President for Student Affairs Donna Eddleman, Shauna Mendini, and Mark Baker, took the steps to move Ballroom under the operation of the Dean's Office. New classes were created under the banner of PVA for the Ballroom Touring and Backup Ensembles. In addition, sevearal new social dnace and ballroom dance classes were added to the CPVA Dance Program.
In the fall of 2008 the tranistion was completed and now Ballroom Dance is thriving as part of the CPVA. Over 150 students auditioned for the Touring Ensemble and the two Back up Ensembles. The various ballroom dance classes were filled to capacity in the fall of 2008. .