MIT Ballroom Dance Team

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About the Team

About the Team | About Ballroom | About Our Coaches | About YCN Points | About Inclusion

Ballroom at MIT is represented by two organizations: the Ballroom Dance Team (us) and the Ballroom Dance Club. The team promotes competitive ballroom dancing at MIT. The club fosters social ballroom dancing.

Our Team

We are the MIT Ballroom Dance Team, an organization of MIT students and affiliates who love competitive ballroom dancing.  We help our members improve their dancing technique and support their participation in ballroom dance competitions.  We encourage anyone in the MIT community to join us as long as you have an interest in competitive ballroom dance, whether you have any dance experience or not.  In fact, most of our new team members joined without any dance experience of any type. There are no try outs — we welcome anyone with an interest.

Instruction

We offer both professionally-taught and amateur-taught group classes each week in multiple styles and across multiple proficiency levels (check out our team coaches on our About Our Coaches page!), plus supervised practice time from the veterans on our team.  Our members also practice privately with their partners.  We learn and compete in both International and American styles, and our lessons are divided evenly between the Standard/Smooth dances, and Latin/Rhythm dances.  If you are unfamiliar with the dances, explore the section About Ballroom in general.

Partnerships

You don’t need a partner to join or to participate in any of our lessons or workshops.  One of the advantages of being on the dance team is meeting lots of dancers who also need partners.  Everyone who is just starting out will be looking for a partner, too, and our veteran team members are always willing to help you find a partner.  In the end, partnering decisions are completely up to you, but we are glad to help out and offer advice along the way.

Competitions

Team members are required to participate in at least one competition each semester, and most choose to attend even more. Most of these competitions are held annually in the New England area by other colleges and universities.  Some of these competitions are followed by shows by world-class dancers. We host our annual competition, the MIT Open, in the spring. Check out our team’s Results page to see how we’ve done in past competitions.

Workshops and Social Dances

We organize beginner workshops, as well as monthly public social dances.  All events are open to the whole MIT community as well as dancers not affiliated with MIT.  As with joining the team, no partner or experience is necessary to attend any of our workshops or socials.  For the latest information on upcoming events, see our Events page.

Team Community

We are not only a team but a tight-knit group of friends who share a passion for dance.  We often go out as a group to dance socially or just to have fun. Many team members also cooperate with the MIT Ballroom Dance Club; we often teach lessons for them and frequent their socials as well.

Other Activities

MITBDT also participates in events sponsored by other groups at MIT and in the general community. In addition to promoting ballroom dancing, the team also participates in events on behalf of other organizations. Our team member will also share their talents with the community through performances at MIT or for nearby organizations.

MITBDT

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Upcoming Events

Beginner Dance Camp 2025

Dance Camp teaches beginners how to ballroom dance. No partner or experience is required, and eat free food! September 3, 4, 5



News

Beginner Dance Camp 2025

July 7th, 2025

Dance Camp teaches beginners how to ballroom dance. No partner or experience is required, and eat free food! September 3, 4, 5

Boston University 2024

January 20th, 2025

Here is a list of the MITBDT dancers who placed into finals at BU on Sunday 12/08. Congratulations to everyone who competed! The three rookie couples who competed did very well with Hector Chaires and Cecelia Raia making 7 of the 8 newcomer finals and Miles Silva and Anne Reidenbach making the finals in all […]

Tufts 2024

January 20th, 2025

Here is a list of the MITBDT dancers who placed into finals at Tufts on Saturday 11/23. Congratulations to everyone who competed! Smooth Newcomer Waltz 1) Makenna Reilly & Eleanor Murphy 2) Abraham Lemaitre & Sehar Lohawala 3) Michael Chen & Zdenka Myslikova 4) Zachary Pracher & Anne Reidenbach 5) Miles Silva & Xu Guo […]

MIT Competes at Harvard Beginners 2024

October 16th, 2024

Here is a list of the MITBDT dancers who placed into finals at Harvard Beginners on Sunday 10/14. Congratulations to everyone who competed! Special congratulations to Max Tenenbaum and Dominique Dang who won all of the bronze standard events, Lilymoon Whalen and Hongyi Zhou who won all of the bronse latin and rhythm events. MIT […]

2025 MIT Open Announced

September 8th, 2024

The 2025 MIT Open will be held on April 26 and 27, 2025, in Rockwell Cage!

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