“You have to connect physically”: beginners and professionals find their place in the Ballroom Dance Club

“Okay guys, let’s dance!”

On a Monday at 7:30 p.m., Andrej Hacke, an instructor with the Princeton Ballroom Dance Club (PBDC), plugs his phone into the speaker in the Group Fitness Room at Dillon Gymnasium. Cha-cha-cha music echoes from the walls of the studio, signaling the start of the group class. Club members – some taking a moment to put on their black or beige dance heels – line up in three rows in front of the mirror.

At the beginning of the class, Hacke reminds his students to extend their legs as soon as they touch the floor, always turn their chests toward their partners, and move cleanly and clearly to the rhythm of the music.

“From the beginning to the end of practice, we have to apply our technique to our routine,” Hacke said.

For four decades, PBDC, a Campus Rec athletic club, has served as a social and competitive organization that brings together novice and experienced dancers alike. The club was founded by Neil Clover, who served as an instructor for the club and taught a ballroom dancing course at the university for seven years.

The current instructor, Hacke, is a four-time Slovak national champion and began teaching for the club in the fall semester. His son Sam Hacke, a 12-time U.S. champion, also began teaching at the club last spring, focusing on the ballroom dance style.

Despite his attention to detail, Hacke’s classes are designed to appeal to dancers of all abilities. In fact, the vast majority of PBDC members had no experience in ballroom dancing before joining the club.

“I’m usually busy giving private lessons, so these groups are different,” Hacke said. “I like working with young people and seeing how they react. Back in Slovakia we only taught children and young adults.”

Depending on a dancer’s level of experience, they are divided into different categories according to the international competition standard: Newcomer, Bronze, Silver, Gold and Open.

Wyndham Freeman ’26, PBDC president and bronze dancer, was involved with the club for only a year before taking on the leadership role. He also played a role in finding professional trainers to lead the PBDC practices.

“If we were a football club we wouldn’t need coaches because they have played football all their lives,” Freeman noted. “But in ballroom dancing you really need teachers because no one here is good enough to actually give a lengthy, multi-week lesson.”

After warming up, Hacke divides the dancers into two groups, leaders and followers, and lines them up facing each other.

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“Small details improve your bond with your partner,” he said. “The leader must know what the follower is doing.”

With this he instructs a student partner to guide his hands to the correct place to facilitate a turn.

“Take me there, take me there…Thank you,” he said with an interactive sense of humor.

For Anlin Kopf ’25, who also dances for Más Flow and KoKo Pops, partner dynamics are key to ballroom dancing.

“You have to physically connect and communicate,” Kopf said. “Sometimes we learn a step and then you realize you have to turn completely around to do it, and people start to get disoriented and dizzy,” Kopf said.

Kopf has been involved with PBDC since her first year at Princeton, successively holding the positions of officer, general officer, president and treasurer. Unlike most club members, she joined with prior experience.

“My grandmother used to dance (ballroom), and when we would visit her house I would learn,” Kopf said. “I have a really strong nostalgic connection to it.”

Kopf’s dance partner Mehmet Tuna Uysal is a sixth-year doctoral student in the Faculty of Electrical Engineering. They compete together in the silver category.

Uysal emphasized the uniqueness of dancing with a partner and the coordination required.

“This dimension (of connection) and waiting for each other’s signals while dancing grows over time,” he said.

Like Kopf, Uysal is no newcomer to the ballroom scene. While attending Yale University, Uysal decided to choose the ballroom after observing a group of people having fun dancing outside. After arriving at Princeton, he joined the PBDC to pursue his passion.

“At Princeton, graduate students’ daily experiences are their departments, their labs, or their seminars. “It’s a pretty focused environment,” Uysal explained. “That’s why I think having the chance to be somewhere else and be around people who are doing completely different things is valuable in reinforcing the spirit that you interact with at Princeton.”

At the end of Hacke’s 45-minute beginner’s lesson, he played Usher’s “Yeah!” The song has a tempo suitable for cha-cha-chá, which prompted Hacke to ask the class to dance to it. After a break, the advanced lesson began.

The club also has a community-oriented component. PBDC is preparing for its annual Princeton Ballroom Dance Competition, scheduled for Dec. 7 at Dillon Gym. Up to 100 participants, seven judges and one main judge have taken part in this event. Participants come from private dance studios, universities in the New York and New Jersey regions, and ballroom dance schools on the East Coast.

PBDC members have also participated in other competitions at Rutgers University, the University of Pennsylvania and Carnegie Mellon University.

“Basically you go and you can dance all day, which is super fun,” Kopf said. “You can (also) watch other people dance, especially the people who are really good and compete at a very high level. And you can dress up, look pretty and wear sparkly dresses.”

Beyond competitions, PBDC maintains the communal aspect of ballroom dancing through ballroom dances. Earlier this semester, the club organized an open dance event where Freeman led a workshop on Jive, another international Latin American style dance.

Finding the appropriate balance between the social and competitive aspects of ballroom dancing was Freeman’s top priority.

“I think the club culture is definitely not very competitive. On the one hand, this means that there is no pressure. “Nobody expects people not to make mistakes,” Freeman said. “However, as someone who enjoys competing, this takes away a little bit of seriousness and commitment,” noting that some participants are less likely to show up to classes and events.

However, Uysal also sees the benefits of this stress-free environment.

“The aspect of openness for everyone is certainly in the foreground. Some people may only be interested in the social aspect, others may want to improve their technique a bit. It’s good to have both,” he noted.

“I just want people to know that this idea of ​​ballroom as some sort of elite sport is not true,” Freeman said. “Many adults want to start dancing later in life, but it is very expensive. In college you get a good price for classes and everyone is very friendly, even if you have no idea.”

Kopf echoed that sentiment and believed the ballroom had many bright years ahead.

“I think there’s this general idea that ballroom dancing is old and dying, but that’s really not the case,” she said. “The community, especially the intercollegiate community, is really, really vibrant.”

Angela Li is the features editor of The Prince.

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