PROVO — Provo High ballroom dance director Angela Williams Friday night steadied herself as she watched her students dance their way into first place for the fourth year in a row at the Utah State High School Team Match at Brigham Young University.
"I don't think I've ever been more nervous in my life," Williams said. "I guess it's that I know (the kids) have worked so hard and this was one of their goals from the beginning of the year."
The Provo High ballroom team is the first ever to successfully defend its title four years consecutively as Team Match Champions, which is held as part of BYU's annual DanceSport.
The Provo team's technique and experience kept them one step ahead of the eight competing high schools.
The six dances — waltz, samba, tango, cha-cha, quickstep and swing — performed in the Team Match are judged strictly on technique. The couples are not allowed to add any extra flares or spins, a philosophy that echoes Williams' advice to her dancers: "I can give you the flash and dash, but if you can't dance the flash and dash correctly, then you'll look like a dork."
The Provo couples swept through their performances to score 172 points out of 180, which are based primarily on technical skill.
A year of transition also may have added to the high school's success. Williams, the dance director for eight years at Provo, is one of only three directors to return this year, which gave the returning directors an advantage over the schools adjusting to change.
Many students in the Provo program began dancing at Farrer Middle School before it became an elementary. The middle school dance program began when Williams, then a biology teacher at the school, suggested ballroom dancing as an elective.
The staff decided to "give it a shot and it just blew up," Williams said. In the first year the school had to expand the elective to four classes.
Austin Holden, a junior on the Team Match team for three years, started his dancing career taking classes at Farrer.
"Originally I just went in the class because my friends were in there and there were girls there," Holden said.
Holden performed the cha-cha with his partner, sophomore Katie Williams, Friday in the Team Match and took nationals in American Style at Saturday's competition.
"What I work on the most is Latin, and the cha-cha is a Latin dance," Holden said. "I've had outside training, and so I had more experience."
Michelle Glasgow, a junior, performed the quickstep in the Team Match with her partner, sophomore Sterling Downer.
"Sometimes I couldn't hear the music because everyone was screaming so loudly," Glasgow said of the performance. She just followed her partner and trusted that he could hear the fast-paced tune.
"I just really like performing, putting a big smile on my face and having fun, showing that I'm having fun," Glasgow said.
Glasgow, who is also the national school-age champion in weight lifting, has to work hard like many of her teammates to participate in ballroom dancing. She said some days she trains with her dad lifting weights and then practices ballroom until 10:30 at night.
All of the team members are held to a strict practice schedule. The junior varsity and varsity teams each have a class during schools hours and then practice for three hours Thursday nights. But when January hits and the Team Match team is selected, the practice regimen can be grueling.
"I tell (the team) January to March is mine.," Williams said. "They have to be so precise, and that's where it becomes intense. They are very dedicated team members; they give up a lot."
Including their holidays. All of the holidays during the three months the team takes to perfect their skills for the state Team Match Williams dances her students through eight hours of practices. By the end she says they are dead tired.
Provo's hard work got them noticed.
"Angela Williams has done a great job building the Provo High program," said Claudia Hill, the floor captain of DanceSport and a BYU faculty member. "They've really improved."
E-mail: lriddle@desnews.com