Provo High dancers twirl into first place again

PROVO — Provo High ballroom dance director Angela Williams Friday night steadied herself as she watched her students dance their way into first place for the fourth year in a row at the Utah State High School Team Match at Brigham Young University.

"I don't think I've ever been more nervous in my life," Williams said. "I guess it's that I know (the kids) have worked so hard and this was one of their goals from the beginning of the year."

The Provo High ballroom team is the first ever to successfully defend its title four years consecutively as Team Match Champions, which is held as part of BYU's annual DanceSport.

The Provo team's technique and experience kept them one step ahead of the eight competing high schools.

The six dances — waltz, samba, tango, cha-cha, quickstep and swing — performed in the Team Match are judged strictly on technique. The couples are not allowed to add any extra flares or spins, a philosophy that echoes Williams' advice to her dancers: "I can give you the flash and dash, but if you can't dance the flash and dash correctly, then you'll look like a dork."

The Provo couples swept through their performances to score 172 points out of 180, which are based primarily on technical skill.

A year of transition also may have added to the high school's success. Williams, the dance director for eight years at Provo, is one of only three directors to return this year, which gave the returning directors an advantage over the schools adjusting to change.

Many students in the Provo program began dancing at Farrer Middle School before it became an elementary. The middle school dance program began when Williams, then a biology teacher at the school, suggested ballroom dancing as an elective.

The staff decided to "give it a shot and it just blew up," Williams said. In the first year the school had to expand the elective to four classes.

Austin Holden, a junior on the Team Match team for three years, started his dancing career taking classes at Farrer.

"Originally I just went in the class because my friends were in there and there were girls there," Holden said.

Holden performed the cha-cha with his partner, sophomore Katie Williams, Friday in the Team Match and took nationals in American Style at Saturday's competition.

"What I work on the most is Latin, and the cha-cha is a Latin dance," Holden said. "I've had outside training, and so I had more experience."