The Brown Ballroom Dance Team's second annual "Dancing with the Profs" on Friday night had it all - charismatic emcees, celebrity judges and, of course, a sea of sequins. From the moment Visiting Assistant Professor of Psychology Theresa DiDonato and Eric Ho '11 took the floor with a hip-hop-infused cha-cha to the crowning of Professor of Biology Robert Reenan and Reina Saiki '10 as 2009 dance champions, the audience packed into Alumnae Hall never stopped cheering for - and occasionally laughing at - their professors' dance moves.
Six professors were paired with members of the Ballroom Dance Team to learn 90-second dance routines ranging from a high-spirited quickstep, danced by Chaplain Janet Cooper-Nelson and Derek Bangle '10, to a dramatic tango set to Shakira, danced by Visiting Professor of Applied Mathematics Vladimir Dobrushkin and Michelle Norworth '10. Short videos were played before each routine, showing some of the training process in true "Dancing with the Stars" style.
This year's event featured a real Brown celebrity judge - President Ruth Simmons herself. As a judge, Simmons was "looking to have fun myself" and wanted to see couples that danced with "attitude," she said.
The other two judges were former collegiate chairwoman of the Rhode Island chapter of USA Dance Laura Colaninno and Ballroom Team Coach Russell Monk - who was described by Bangle as the competition's token "cantankerous British judge." The friendly banter between Monk and Bangle was an entertaining theme of the evening: When the mustachioed Bangle asked Monk what he was looking for on the dance floor, Monk replied, "A clean-
shaven face."
This year's event also featured a special performance by dancers from the Dance Alliance of Rhode Island, a nonprofit organization that promotes dance education in the community.
Last year's "Dancing with the Profs" debut raised $2,000, which the team donated to the Brown Annual Fund, according to Chihiro Ikegami '10, who helped to organize the event and also served as co-emcee.
This year, the team will donate half of its proceeds to the Dance Alliance of Rhode Island. The other half will be used to support the 40 to 50 active Ballroom Team members in their travels and competitions.
At the end of the evening - after the cha-cha by DiDonato and Ho, the sultry first-place samba by Reenan and Saiki, the quickstep by Cooper-Nelson and Bangle, the tango by Dobruskin and Norworth, a jive by Visiting Lecturer in French Studies Stephanie Ravillon and Michael Kim '10 and a mambo by Assistant Professor of Economics Geoffroy DeClippel and Deeksha Gupta '10 - the audience was asked to vote for their favorite performance.
As the audience cast their votes - extra votes were on sale for a dollar apiece - Simmons said that, though she couldn't name her favorite pair for the sake of impartiality, "the fact that the faculty are fundamentally out of their element" and are "willing to allow themselves to be judged on something so unlike what they're used to - that's what I find so exciting."
Like Simmons, the champions wouldn't name their favorite performance, though they did agree on their favorite dance move. "Definitely the booty drop," Reenan said. "Dip it low, take it up slow."
"We worked on it quite a bit," Saiki added. "It was the climactic moment."
