Volunteer Report

By Taylor Wall

Readers this month will find that a large part of this issue of Sheer Dance is dedicated to celebrating the successes of Dance Fest, which was held at Dancers Studio March 5-6th. A huge number of volunteers put hundreds of hours of work into making this event such a success. You heard a bit last month about our "core team" of volunteers putting together the prep-work necessary to make sure the event starts, but what you didn't hear about was the massive manpower that it takes to keep the event running all weekend. I've had the privilege of serving as the Volunteer Coordinator for this event for two years, and I'm happy to say that every year it gets easier to staff over five hundred labor-hours with those who are excited to add their name to the growing list of individuals who make this event possible.

First of all, I'd like to start by recognizing the amazing professional team who makes Dance Fest the highly regarded competition that it is. Certainly two of the most prominent features of the event, Master of Ceremonies Gene Bersten's lively quips and Music Director Shane Meuwissen's grooving beats kept energy in the ballroom high, even as dancers readied to leave Sunday afternoon after two long days of dancing. The Dance Fest team is extremely grateful to Judges Elena Bersten, Gene Bersten, Kate Bratt, Cynthia Nehrbass, Jeff Nehrbass, Marcy McHenry, Mariusz Olszewski, and Lisa Vogel Galvin, who lent their knowledge and experience to judging some close and thrilling competitive events.

Making sure dancers got on the floor for the judges to see were our professional Deck Captains Shane Haggerty, Troy Lerum, and Zach Robinson, along with local volunteers Len Ferrington, Zhuojing Liu, and Paul Stachour. They kept three hundred seventy-five busy dancers organized and helped the program run smoothly. Tabulating results were Scrutineer's Assistants Maria Russett and Jessica Schalz. They worked as a powerhouse team recording competitors' numbers and each of our eight judges' marks while Scrutineer Nic Westlake crunched the data and calculated placements for seventy-nine competitive events. Staffing the front desk as the first smiling face spectators saw was Rosemary O'Connell at the competitor registration desk and Craig Hagensick in the main ballroom, assisted by Rochelle Lockridge and Katie Menk.

Have you enjoyed seeing yourself or your fellow dancing friends in photos on Facebook? You can join me in thanking Social Media Coordinator Neli Petkova and our last-minute photography team of Victoria Bowman, Danika Dahl, Celia Gonzales, Abhineet Gupta, Tijen Petersen, and Olivia Wicker, led by Kevin Viratyosin. Check out their full collection of 18,000 photos from the weekend on Flickr™ in the album Dance Fest 2016.

Last, but certainly not least, the dozens of little, day-of-event tasks like sweeping the dance floor between rounds and refilling the water station were graciously filled by the University of Minnesota Ballroom Dance Club Competition Team lead by Joel Torgeson, and the club's mixed proficiency participants organized by Seth Westlake.

My personal thanks are especially warm to volunteers Maria Russett of Cedar Falls, Iowa, and Kaih Schaeffer of Vermillion, South Dakota, who traveled longer than any of our local volunteers to lend a hand in developing our ballroom dance community. I feel like I'm always putting these ladies to work whenever they come to town, and they are always so excited and happy to help, that it reminds me of how our love for dance can connect all sorts of people, wherever they are, and help us build something wonderful together.

We are so grateful to all of these officials and volunteers for their support of the future of ballroom dance and we hope to see everyone back (along with more dancing friends!) next year March 4-5th, 2017 as we move to a new, larger venue in St. Paul at the Union Depot!