Ballroom! Obsession and Passion inside the World of Competitive Dance

Offers an enlightening inside view of the politics, biases, stresses, and strategies that characterize the competitive ballroom dance scene. Terps of all stripes will relate to Savoy’s struggles with partners, costumes, the development of choreographic ideas, musical choices, performance mishaps, and the extreme discipline required of professionals in all forms of dance. Dreams are made and broken every year in the dazzling Empress Ballroom at the Winter Gardens in Blackpool, England. Fierce competition, brutal politics, and stunning artistry are all on the program at the world’s most prestigious competition, known to ballroom dance enthusiasts simply as “Blackpool.” In this spellbinding book, Savoy offers a backstage pass to a world where rhinestones and high heels accompany explosive athleticism and staggering talent. With emotionally absorbing and energy-packed prose, she provides an insider’s close-up view of all the players who compose this glamorous world that is part dance, part sport, and part art.