She waits in line with an array of colorful dresses and shirts, shivering with excitement as the couple in front of her enters the floor. “Number 7,” the m.c. booms. She and her partner glide into an open space on the floor and take a sassy position. “Cha-cha music please.” And they are off.
Sophomore Emily Hines has used her unique talent in competitions across the country, performing in New York, New Jersey and Utah as well as in Montreal, Canada and collecting many significant awards along the way. This talent is ballroom dancing, an art Hines has practiced for about six years. She has gone up against many notable dancers and recently modeled for DanceSpirit magazine.
Hines practices ballroom every Friday, Saturday, and Sunday for total of 20 hours a weekend with her partner at her dance studio. She specializes in 10 dance (Latin) and standard combined. She also does Latin dances consisting of the cha- cha, samba, rumba, paso doble, and jive, standard dances which involve waltz, tango, Viennese waltz, foxtrot, and quickstep.
In competition, Hines has gone up against notable dancers such as Kiril Kulish, who won a Tony award for his lead role as Billy in Billy Elliott and new Dancing with the Stars professional and So You Think You Can Dance alumni Lindsay Arnold. She has also been judged by Tony Dovolani, and Maksim Chmerkovskiy from Dancing with the Stars.
Competitions are set up with a large dance floor surrounded around the perimeter by 12 or so judges with clipboards. These judges score the numbers from the male partner’s shirt and then announce the top six dancers at the end of the final round starting from the lowest to the highest for awards. The highest award Hines has won so far was at Big Apple Dancesport Challenge where she and her partner won 3rd place in Championship Latin, the highest category possible, while at the same time, they were competing against adults.
Hines has also recently modeled in DanceSpirit magazine. She got this opportunity because the head of the New York Chapter of USA Dance, the organization for amateurs in ballroom, contacted her coach and asked if she and Hines would be interested in modeling for the magazine. “I had never modeled in a magazine before this. The photo shoot was so much fun! It was one of the highlights of my dance career, and I feel really lucky that I got to experience something as cool and interesting as that. It was definitely one of the best times of my life,” said Hines.
Hines’ friends have been very supportive of her pursuits. Her friend sophomore Nicole Schwien said, “I think it’s cool that she is doing something that I haven’t heard any other high schooler do.”
Sophomore Morgann Tucker added, “She seems really dedicated to ballroom dancing and from the pictures on Facebook she looks amazing!”
Even with all her success, Hines always stays focused on how she can get better for the future. “How I feel after I dance depends on how well I thought I danced. If I think that I danced well then I’m really excited and happy. If I do not think that I danced very well then I’m still happy, but I think to myself how can I improve this if we make the next round?” said Hines.
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Photos courtesy of Emily Hines