BALADS have a DanceSport team who compete in university dance competitions. This isn't as scary as it sounds - university competitions have a fun and friendly atmosphere and welcome all dancers, from complete beginners to advanced level. We encourage anyone and everyone to get involved in our team - anyone can join, no matter how much or little you've danced before. Competitions are a great way of learning to dance well and are fun days out, not to mention the sense of achievement you can get from them!

If you want to be a part of our growing team, or want to know more about competitions, come along to the classes or send us an email. Check out the gallery for some photos from last year's competitions.

• Monday 8.30-10.30pm – Kingswood dining hall (price yet TBC) - a chance for dancers of all levels to learn some technique to add to your routines, to help you do better at competitions.
  
• Tuesday 8-10pm – Kingswood dining hall – £3 for 2 hours - the focus will be on beginner routines from 8-9pm and novice from 9-10pm, but novice should attend the first hour to brush up on basics, and beginners are encouraged to stay for the second hour to either learn some more advanced steps or get some extra help with their own routines.
  

The dances at the competitions are split into two categories - Ballroom and Latin. If you are competing at beginner or novice levels, then you will generally only dance two ballroom dances at a competition - waltz and quickstep - and two latin dances - cha cha and jive.

The majority of competitions that we enter are university circuit competitions, for students only. Loads of unis bring teams along, and they are fun competitions with a friendly atmosphere alongside the competitive edge. There are three different sections in each competitions - the ballroom section, the latin section, and the team match (which incorporates both ballroom and latin).

In the ballroom and latin sections you dance and are marked and recalled as individual couples, purely on the merit of you and your partner. For these events couples are split into different ability levels:

• Beginner (for those who haven't competed before or had professional coaching before the start of the academic year) - beginners are restricted to dancing basic steps.
• Novice - also restricted to basic steps, but for those who don't count as beginners.
• Intermediate - unrestricted steps - not every competition has intermediate, but where they do it acts as a bridge between novice and advanced.
• Advanced - also unrestricted steps - for more experienced dancers.
• Ex-student - not all competition have this category, so if not ex-students can often dance in advanced.

• Leicester - Sunday 6th November 2011
• Nottingham - Sunday 20th November 2011
• Warwick - Sunday 27th November 2011
• Bath - Saturday 3rd December 2011
• Southern Friendly - March 18th (Bristol)
• SUDC (Southern Universities Dance Competition) - 18th February 2012
• IVDC (Inter-Varsity Dance Competition) - 3rd March 2012

All team members should have been emailed our competition info pack with everything you need to know about university competitions - let Anthony or Georgina (our team captain and vice-team captain) know if you haven't got a copy!

If you have any questions regarding competitions, please contact Georgina Hebron, the Team Captain, at surhul_balads@yahoo.co.uk