By Katie RessmeyerThe Daily Northwestern

Jason Chin spends his weekends dressed in slacks and a tie while dancing with women in formal gowns.

He is one of about 15 men on the BLAST Ballroom Competition Team. Though at times he catches flack from his friends for it, he said the dancing is a form of release.

“It gets me out. Otherwise I would be at home doing problem sets,” Chin said.

Finding male dancers like Chin to join the team has proved to be one of BLAST’s biggest challenges this past season.

When the year started, a number of girls on the team didn’t have partners. The team focused on getting more men to join, even if they didn’t have any experience. They approached dancers this fall at the BLAST classes and spring show auditions to convince them to join.

Michael Weinstock, McCormick senior and captain of the Ballroom Competition Team, said the team targeted men who already showed some interest and technique.

BLAST also posted advertisements on Plan-It-Purple, telling men that joining the competitive team would impress girls.

“I think it’s pretty hot,” said Medill junior Katie Holland, the president of BLAST and a former PLAY writer. “It’s not like they’re doing ballet, which is a great thing too.”

Chin first became involved the end of freshman year, when he began taking BLAST classes. When he didn’t make the spring show, he decided to join the competition team.

The team attends about three competitions each quarter, all in the Midwest. Next weekend, the team will be competing at the Ohio Star Ball Championships.

The competitions are broken into categories of dance and experience levels.

Because new dancers compete against each other, the BLAST Ballroom Competition Team takes dancers of all levels.

“We don’t need a team of exceptional dancers,” Weinstock said.

Dancers of similar skill levels are paired together and taught a routine for a certain type of ballroom dance, such as International Standard or Latin.

Weinstock has been a member of the Ballroom Competition Team since the end of his freshman year and has been dancing with the same partner for nine months.

“Partners get really close,” Weinstock said. “There is no personal bubble.”

As partners dance together for months, gender barriers tend to break down, Weinstock said. While performing in Latin competitions, for instance, females often wear a little more than a bra, while males don open shirts.

“It’s very sensual,” Weinstock said.

Still, Weinstock said recruiting men is usually a problem.

This year, the team’s efforts have been successful. Of the team’s 30 members, about half are men. There were about 10 dancers on last year’s troupe, Chin said.

The team’s early efforts to recruit men have helped newcomers get quickly acclimated, Chin said.

“We broke them in early, and they’re hanging in there,” he said.

But Weinstock said the team always will struggle to find enough men.

“There is that stigma of guys dancing,” he said.

Although girls think it is interesting, Weinstock said his male friends are often skeptical of his dancing.

“What do they do? They sit around in their apartments and drink,” Weinstock said. “I get to go dance with girls.”

Reach Katie Ressmeyer at [email protected].