Growth in Interest

During the last few years there has been an explosive growth in the interest in ballroom dancing throughout the United States. All age groups are involved.

College Students Lead The Way

The number of colleges that have ballroom dance programs continues to grow in all regions of the country, and many college dance clubs hold classes for their members in both social ballroom dancing as well as in competitive dance, also known as DanceSport.

Colleges and universities also hold dance competitions where college students can compete against students from other colleges. These collegiate ballroom dance competitions are attended by cheering crowds of students and the noise levels are similar to those at football and basketball games.

USA Dance holds an annual national collegiate dance competition that attracts a thousand or more collegiate competitors from around the country.

Now Moving Into High Schools & Elementary Schools

USA Dance is now working aggressively to move this devotion to ballroom dance into our high schools, middle schools and elementary schools. USA Dance chapters across the country are working with K-12 schools to promote ballroom dance training for all school age youth. Much of this interest is being spurred by efforts to make school age youth more active and to fight childhood obesity.

Such efforts take the form not only of after school dance clubs and programs staffed by teachers, parents and/or dance instructors drawn from the local community or the closest USA Dance chapter, but also may include ballroom dancing in the Physical Education curriculum of a school. In some school districts, competitions are organized where children from a number of schools compete against each other, further serving to motivate the children and increase their level of interest in ballroom dancing.

Effects of Olympic Recognition

Enthusiasm for ballroom dance has always been strong with adults, but the interest among all age groups has increased dramatically during the last few years.

Much of this increased interest is focused on competitive DanceSport. This is attributed to the recognition of USA Dance as the Recognized Sports Organization for DanceSport in the U.S. by the USOPC, and the recognition of the World DanceSport Federation (WDSF) as the International Governing Body of DanceSport by the IOPC.

USA Dance and its international body, the WDSF, are working in concert to increase the interest and access to DanceSport events all over the world. Such programs as Dancing with the Stars, So You Think You Can Dance, World of Dance and other dance-related tV programs also help to keep the various DanceSport disciplines in the public eye both in the U.S. and abroad.