An Intimate Portrait of a World Dance Champion
Enter below to win a signed copy of the newly released paperback edition of Ballroom!
Biographies fascinate me because, well, I’m nosy…and because I love to share in stories of the human spirit.
Show me the DRIVE, the setbacks, the behind-the-scenes struggle and then show me the TRIUMPHS and the victories! They enthrall and inspire me!
In ballroom, we see the flawless finished product on the dance floor.
Sure, we might see the nitty-gritty in practice, but when it comes to the top couples, we probably didn’t even NOTICE them before they were NOTICEABLE.
Did they just appear? Did they enter their first comp with those breath-taking lines, perfectly coiffed and fully rhinestoned? No, they did not.
They all started one awkward lock step (feather step) at a time.
So, we might wonder….“What does it take to get there?”
If only there were MORE ballroom dance biographies! A ballroom dance biography is rather rare.
So, when another dancer shared with me this book, Ballroom! written by 3x World Champion and 4x Blackpool Champion Sharon Savoy, I promptly read it in my every free moment.
Enter to Win A Signed Copy of “Ballroom!“:
1. Sign up for our DanceSport Place Newsletter by clicking here. Our newsletters includes Free videos, articles, interviews and tips, exclusively for dancesport competitors. You must be subscribed to win.
2. Fill out the Rafflecopter entry below: enter to win and get additional entry points.
Important: This giveaway is only open to residents of the U.S. and Canada. This giveaway is courtesy of Ms. Sharon Savoy and DanceSport Place.
Entries close on November 13, 12:00am PST.
“Ballroom!” by Sharon Savoy
Ms. Savoy’s book relates the story of one fateful year at the Blackpool Dance Festival when she and her husband/partner, David, achieved victory as Blackpool Exhibition Champions.
Peppered in between the retelling of that event, are glimpses into the past of how she began her love affair with dance and the path of her professional career.
From her beginnings as a Balanchine-trained ballerina to finding her place in the world of ballroom, Ms. Savoy’s lifelong devotion to dance flows onto the pages with openness and candor.
Photo used with permission by Sharon Savoy
Throughout the book, Ms. Savoy takes the reader into the MIND of a dancer: the sacrifice, drive and devotion, along with an insight into the world of ballroom.
This insight includes the mental process of competing, complications of partnerships, even the backstage political scheming and Ms. Savoy unabashedly provides honest commentary on it all.
She doesn’t hold back on exposing the most unglamorous bits of the ballroom world.
Grooming flops, check.
Partner kerfuffles, check.
Biased judging, check.
More then a few pages, made me think to myself “Did she really write that?!” Yes, she did! Ms. Savoy didn’t hold back on showing what it REALLY takes to get to the top.
In Jack Reavely’s review of the book for Dance News, he sums it up this way:
…if you think that someone like her had an easy time, then you are utterly wrong…It was perspiration, coupled to passion and utter goal orientated mental strength, which pulled her through.
Besides the riveting text, the book’s photos are equally captivating.
Years back when I was a young dancer in the ballroom world, I remembered seeing pictures of the Savoys from a calendar.
The images of their incredible poses and lifts were set to backgrounds of various landmarks around the world. (No Photoshop here! They’re the real deal!)
Photo used with permission by Sharon Savoy
In fact, some of these images are in the book. Just looking at the photos are impressive.
Even more so was reading the behind-the-scenes secrets of how they came to be. Ms. Savoy describes the combination of strength, flexibility, and imagination that was needed to produce these spectacular feats of physics and partnering.
A good reminder that behind every effortless gorgeous dancer, is an enormous amount of HARD WORK, trial and error.
The style in which Savoy writes is the same in which she dances-with her heart on her sleeve. She lays it all out there, and the reader can surely feel the true devotion, in fact her life, that she has given to her craft. As she says about herself,
Whether I performed or competed, I left it all on the floor.
Every dancer will relate to this personal story of what it takes to become a champion.
Ready to be inspired by this ballroom dance biography?
You can order a copy of Ballroom! by Sharon Savoy through this link:
With her husband Erik, they are the founders of DanceSport Place and have a passion to help dancesport competitors reach their dancing goals.
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