Each spring, the people at the Valley Social Dance Studio in Appleton, WI organize a competition and showcase, inviting a number of dance schools from around WI. Schools from Green Bay, Appleton, Wausau, Eau Claire, Madison, and even Rockford, IL attend this fun and uplifting dance competition.

In years past, the Art of Dance has trained dancers to participate in this competition. Since the date is fast approaching, this year we will not have a delegation to participate in this comp. However, if you will be in the Appleton area the weekend of the competition, I encourage you to attend as a spectator if only to experience the atmosphere at a competition.

The evening of Friday, 28 March 2008 will have various “solo” (choreographed) partner dancing entries.
The entire day of Saturday, 29 March 2008 will have all of the “freestyle” (non-choreographed) entries.

Wisconsin State Dancesport Championships
April 17-20
Compete - Attend - Support Darrell & Sarah

Darrell and Sarah will be dancing in both the Professional Rising Star American Rhythm
(Thursday Evening, doors open at 7:00 pm) and Professional Open American Rhythm
(Saturday Evening, doors open at 7:00 pm) competitions. We would love to have familiar faces in the audience!

If you are interested in coming, let us know NO LATER THAN March 28!

Sarah and Darrell will be debuting as a new professional dance partnership at the Indiana Challenge this year! Come on down and cheer like mad! More details on the road trip to follow…

Featured Performers:
Alain Doucet and Anik Jolicoeur

The Star of the North is well known for providing a fun and energetic environment for competing. Our goal is to hold a competition that is enjoyable, competitive, and accessible to all ages and skill levels.

11:00 a.m. - 9:00 p.m.

Our plan is to arrive sometime Friday afternoon / early evening, watch the Friday night events, spend the night, watch the Saturday daytime and evening events, spend another night, and return to Madison Sunday. A whole weekend of ballroom dancing!

Watching a lot of dancing can be great inspiration for your own dancing!

With rapid preparation, tons of practice, and a little luck, Sarah and I will be competing in the Professional Rising Star competition on Friday night and the Open Professional competition Saturday night.

Every competition has vendors for shoes, clothing, costumes, and jewelry! Throughout the Friday night and Saturday night portions of the competition, there will also be periods of social dancing. Saturday evening ends with a professional showcase.

Details including prices, carpool information, departure times, hotel rooms, etc, will be published here and announced on the Announcements mailing list.

The competiton organizer’s published prices are…
- Friday Night - $45 in advance / $50 at the door
- Saturday Daytime - $25 in advance / $30 at the door
- Saturday Night - $45 in advance / $50 at the door

Ordering tickets in advance for the Friday Night and Satruday Night events is a good idea - when the ballroom is at capacity, they stop selling tickets. (This has caused problems for us in years past.)

This is a weekend of entertainment and ballroom immersion. Nothing compares to seeing so much quality dancing all at once! Consider it inspiration and fuel for your dancing.

The studio will offer Sunday group classes and private lesson packages for competitors. New dancers and skilled dancers equally welcome! Leads, you are specifically encouraged to attend. We need you, leads!

Please see Badger State Competition 2007 for more details.

In this second year of the Badger State Ballroom Dance Competition and Showcase, students of dance compete with each other (amateur entries) or their teachers (professional/amateur aka pro/am entries) in either solo (choreographed) or freestyle (not choreographed) dances.

This is the second year the studio will participate in this fun amateur and pro/am competiton!

Studio package prices will be published soon. You can expect prices to be low, so you can dance a ton of entries! Leads, we need you! Don’t worry - I will make sure you are ready by 24 June 2007.

Sunday classes and lots of private lesson times will be made available to participants of this competition. I want to revive the Sunday noon volleyball at the Nat, too - good times!

The numbers add up quickly when entering a competiton. The studio’s prices are quite competitive. Where other studios and dance teachers add a sizable surcharge per dance for each pro/am event, I do not. I want you out there dancing! I want to dance with you. I know money is a consideration for most people, and I would like your dollars to get you as much time on the dance floor as possible.

In addition to the per-dance surcharge I just described, other instructors often charge “lost time” for attending (and traveling to) competitions - four to eight hours of private lesson time per day the teacher is at the comp dancing with students. At first glance, that may seem unreasonable, but economic pressures play a role - the teacher could have stayed home and booked private lessons instead of participating in the comp with the amateur. (Teachers have bills to pay and businesses to operate, of course.)

The teacher also has hotel, meal, transportation, and admissions costs to cover related to attending the comp. Those costs are split between all competitors entering the comp with the teacher. (So if the teacher enters with 10 students, those costs are divided by 10 or somehow prorated between those students. Having more students means each student is responsible for a smaller share of that cost.)

If you are dancing with Darrell or Amanda, also expect to pay a portion of the hotel, meal, transportation, and admission costs for Darrell or Amanda. Having more competitors means less teacher cost per competitor.

In the past, I have absorbed the cost of hotel snafus, my admission charges, fuel, etc. It is not practical for me to do that into the future. Though I need to watch the bottom line, I am still dedicated to introducing you to as much delight in your dancing as I possibly can!