Ballroom Dance Company, 1987, South Korea
BYU’s Ballroom Dance Company continues to maintain a tradition of excellence. As the current US formation champions, the Ballroom Dance Company has also won both the prestigious British Ballroom Formation and British Latin Formation Championship titles more than 25 times.
Beyond their accolades, the Ballroom Dance Company has also built relationships across borders. In 1984 the company toured China for the first time, where their elaborate performances were broadcast on Chinese national television. The company’s beauty and artistry captivated a young girl named Qu La Jia, also known as Jia Jia, who later studied ballroom dance at BYU with her husband, Chen Bing. This couple later became artistic directors for the Guangzhou Art School in China and started a ballroom dance revolution in their native country.
In 2014 the Guangzhou Art School and BYU celebrated 30 years of a cross-cultural bond by putting on several collaborative performances in Guangzhou. Chen Bing said, “The best part of this opportunity is that our students got to feel what we felt at BYU.” Current BYU ballroom director Curt Holman summed up the experience: “Common languages are music and dance. Everything we do can reach out and touch someone, and they can pay it forward in the next generation.”
