Letters: Ballroom Dancing Memories

Thanks for “Ballroom Basics” [Winter 2008, Classroom]. I took Dance 041 in fall 1984 and remember what a wonderful time it was. My classmates and I had so much fun learning the dances and going to the four required ballroom dances in Memorial Union’s Great Hall.

I still remember the last day — when the class was over, we all just sat around Lathrop Hall, willing it not to end. I don’t remember the names of my old partners, but I’ll always remember the feeling of being swept across the dance floor by them. Thanks for the memories!

Sandra Fischer ’87
Hartford, Connecticut

“Ballroom Basics” brought back fond memories of teaching ballroom dance at the UW. When I entered the university in the late ’60s as a graduate student in the dance department, there were no ballroom classes offered. With my department chair’s blessing, I developed the first sessions.

That first semester, I had to put announcements in every dorm to get enough students to enroll. By the time I got my degree, they were turning students away because the sessions filled up quickly.

It is wonderful to see that ballroom dance is still offered and that it is making another comeback in popularity.

Ellyn Sistrunk Kroupa MS’70, PhD’96
Madison

Thanks for your article about the ballroom dance elective offered through the dance department. My husband [Justin Ueland ’01] and I met in that class in Lathrop Hall in the fall of 2000. After a semester of dancing together in class and studying together at Grainger Library, we started dating. We were married in 2002 and were able to do a mean foxtrot as the first dance at our wedding!

April Klima Ueland ’02
Chanhassen, Minnesota

Published in the Spring 2009 issue