Student Spotlight on Sara Wilcox

“He slayed my hair and there it was, beaten and defeated on the floor, at the end of his arm.” How does this sentence even make sense? Read on a for a surprise story!

In this month’s article we wanted to focus on a student at Aria Ballroom who has a completely different story than our regular students, because in addition to loving dance and competing in dance, she also performs in formation teams! Although we don’t currently have a permanent formation team at Aria Ballroom, it is another aspect of dancing that doesn’t always get a whole lot of attention and we wanted to highlight that!

So now we will turn our attention to a long-time student of ours, Sara Wilcox!

Sara is 16 years old, and it’s not a joke to say she has literally been dancing ballroom for half her life. She started out in a ballet class but ballet just wasn’t quite keeping her interest. Some family friends were involved in a ballroom dance club and invited Sara and her family to come watch the concert. By the end of the concert, Sara and her two sisters were hooked. They started classes the very next month, and soon Sara was partnered and preparing to compete. There was a catch, though. Sara’s partner was much better than her, so in order to catch up, she began taking private lessons. 

Competitive dancing was a goal from the beginning and she jumped into competitions immediately. In her first studio, she was placed on a competitive formation team, and individual competitions are strongly recommended for all members of the formation teams, so Sara immediately started working towards that goal. She had a few motivations that kept her working hard. First of all, she felt like she had to catch up to her much better partner. Secondly, she was inspired watching the older kids dancing higher levels and more interesting choreography. And thirdly, she really wanted to wear all of those beautiful gowns. Let’s be honest. That’s a very legitimate motivation!

If we count formation team dancing as a separate style of dance, Sara trains in four different styles! With her current partner, Isaac, she trains in International Latin and Standard with Kora and Simeon here at Aria Ballroom. While she does not currently have a partner in American Smooth (they keep going off to college!), she’s been keeping up her Smooth skills with a teacher in her other studio closer to where she lives; and she trains intensively with her formation team. This girl is busy!

She has had quite a few partners throughout her ballroom career, but she seems to have happily settled on Isaac. 

“Dancing with Isaac is definitely really awesome,” she said. “I have been super lucky. What I love most about him is that he makes me laugh and when I am stressed at competitions he somehow knows what to do to pull me out of myself. He also really knows how to get a crowd cheering for us, which I know helps us win events. He has so much charisma!  Dancing with Isaac feels easier because we are closer in height and can take better driving steps in Standard. I love that he is a quick learner and that he is a good mix of chill and intense.”

Although she enjoys dancing International Latin and Standard and is heavily focused on those two styles at the moment, her real joy is American Smooth. “I love Smooth because it is the perfect blend of Latin and Ballroom. I get to be expressive and elegant. I also really LOVE music. It is my other passion. And with smooth we get to dance to music I love. So I feel it more. Of all the styles it is the one that feels the most like dancing for joy for me and not just dancing a routine. In particular I love Smooth Foxtrot. With foxtrot I get to be super expressive and engage the audience while I try to tell a story with my dancing. My second favorite would be International Rumba. I really love playing with timing and dynamics in Rumba!

“I have thought about narrowing things down,” she admitted, reflecting on her busy dance schedule and difficulty juggling three different styles and her formation teams. “But I just love them all so much.”

We also wanted to get her perspective on formation team dancing, since she performs on formation teams and has so much

experience with them. For those readers who may not know what a formation team is, the idea is for 4 to 8 couples to dance to a medley of music incorporating the styles of that category and doing it precisely at the same time altogether. The couples run through shape formations as they dance in order to make their performance as visually appealing as possible.

Sara performs on a formation team for both International Latin and International Standard.

“The thing I like most about formation dancing is being part of a team,” Sara explained. “On each of my formation teams I am working with 7 other couples doing something we love together. I have made many friendships through this experience. I enjoy having a team full of people all working really hard to be physically and mentally prepared to dance 5 to 6 minutes of an intense routine together. Another thing that I like is that I have an opportunity to try things I wouldn’t otherwise, like a particular arm styling that wouldn’t be my first choice but becomes something I really like.  

“There are things I don’t like,” she added. “Sometimes it is very hard to find ways to work together when the members on your team come from different levels of experience and have different goals and work ethics. Some of my teammates dance more for the social benefits, which is awesome! While others are out there to become the best. Sometimes it is hard to find a balance between everyone’s goals. Another challenging part of a formation team is not having any control. In individual competition, every decision you make is between three people: me, my partner, and my coach. In a formation team, my coaches are 100% in charge, and even when they do want input from the team, there are 16 of us!”

For Sara, formation team dancing is not just something to do for fun. It also offers her a vehicle for her future educational success. Brigham Young University in Provo, UT, is currently the only university in the United States that offers a degree in Ballroom Dancing, and their dance program places a heavy emphasis on formation team dancing. By having so much experience with formation team dancing, this opens up the opportunity to receive a scholarship to BYU and possibly a spot on BYU’s touring team, which travels around the world to demonstrate.

“My short term goal is to make the Youth Ballroom Pre-Championship final at Nationals and the Championship Semi-finals,” Sara said, “But I really want dancing to be my vehicle to see the world. I am not sure right now if I want to make dance part of my professional career, but I am open to it. We will just have to wait and see which doors open and which ones close.

“My favorite thing about ballroom dance in general is that it is such a great blend between sport and art,” Sara continued. “I feel like an athlete and an artist and I love that. I really love being physically fit and I love expressing myself through movement. For me dance is an emotional release. 

“Another thing I really love about ballroom is the community it creates. I love seeing Simeon and Kora connect with their friends who were once their competitors at competitions. Dancers form special bonds because they give so much of their heart to their jobs. I love being around people like that.”

We also asked her what she enjoys about dancing at Aria Ballroom. She was quick to effuse,

“Dancing and learning at Aria is the best!  Aria offers me superior professional coaching. But my favorite thing about Aria is Simeon and Kora. I know I’m not their best dancer, but they treat me as if I have the potential to become the best. They don’t play favorites and they give every single one of their couples the same amount of careful attention. I love that they are there for me at competitions to provide feedback and keep me pumped up and in the game. Another thing I love is that they introduce me to other professionals in the dance community and help Isaac and me have incredible experiences.”

Lastly, we asked Sara to share a memorable experience she had at a competition. 

“One of my favorite memories happened dancing at People’s Choice in Scottsdale Arizona. It was one of my first times dancing Open Latin. My mom and I had picked out a hair extension so I could have a long ponytail for Latin. I was dancing both styles on the same day at that competition, and dancing both Latin and Standard on the same day means sacrificing your look for one of the styles; I was trying to find a good compromise.

“We clipped the ponytail extension under my ballroom bun. I looked amazing, and I was super excited. Lucas (my former partner) and I were dancing our Paso Double and my hair extension got caught in a button on his sleeve. With a flourish of his arm, he ripped out my hair extension! It was stuck fast, though, and he had to finish our routine with 14 inches of my ponytail attached to his arm. The final crash was epic. He threw the hairpiece down onto the dance floor. It was the truest paso double ever danced. He slayed my hair and there it was, beaten and defeated on the floor, at the end of his arm. Every time I think about it, it makes me laugh.”

Many competitors have funny stories like that, and that is one of the best parts of competitive dancing. All of the stories! 

It is such a joy to have Isaac and Sara in the studio, they are so much fun to be around and every moment with them is filled with laughter. Thank you so much to Sara for sharing her thoughts and stories with us and we wish her all the best for the future!

Love our Spotlight articles? Check out one of our other spotlights, our student who’s commute includes a flight from Japan, Etsuko Nishiyama!