From an in-depth article in GO Magazine. Read the full article HERE.Competitive ballroom dancing is a sport in which partners (for our purpose, same-sex partners) enroll in tournaments where judges rate their prowess at executing 10 specific types of dance forms: International Waltz, Foxtrot, Quickstep, Tango, Viennese Waltz, Cha-Cha, Rumba, Jive, Samba and Paso Doble, plus Latin competition dances. These dance competitions or tournaments are in every sense performances: They are grand and spectacular affairs, at which hundreds or even thousands of participants flock to watch formally dressed and elaborately rigged contestant pairs compete for the glory of first place. Though they are by all accounts a blast to attend, both contestants and audience take these events very, very seriously. They are athletic competitions on par in seriousness and in structure with some Olympic events.
The Gay Games first featured same-sex ballroom dancing in 1994, when Gay Games IV held an informal event at NYC’s Roseland. Four years later at the Gay Games V in Amsterdam, same-sex dancing was included as an official athletic event. The house was packed.
Beyond the Gay Games (which were technically on foreign soil) there were, however, no national same-sex ballroom dance competitions in the U.S. until the late 1990s.
By the end of the decade, gay ballroom dancing clubs and classes began springing up, particularly in and near the Bay Area and in locales as far away as Sydney and London. National and international same-sex competitive ballroom organizations came soon after, and the Gay Games continued to represent the field; ballroom was included in Gay Games VI & VII, Sydney and Chicago respectively
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