Danceworks’ 2010 Mad Hot Ballroom and Tap Competition

Even in the spacious arena of the Bradley Center, the sounds of ballroom dance and tap can be deafening. Sometimes, it’s from the sound of dozens of boys and girls in metal-tipped (and heeled) shoes running up and down aluminum staircases (in the hallways, it sounds like a giant popcorn popper). Other times, it’s the sound of thousands of boys and girls screaming out school names or the worn numbers of their competing classmates.

Saturday was the fourth annual Mad Hot Ballroom and Tap competition held by Danceworks, Inc. and sponsored by just about every big name charitable organization in the city of Milwaukee. The 9+ hour event is the culmination of an outreach program that targets 42 low-income area schools whose instructed students vie for trophies in dance styles of tango, salsa, swing, funky and latin. Winning schools who gained the most scored points in Ballroom and Tap were Vieau and Benjamin Franklin Schools, respectively.

It was grueling, colorful, and filled with restraint and poise followed by youthful exuberance and emotion. It was recorded and sent out live on Time Warner Cable’s community channel, and while television can never beat live energy, you can still get a sampling of the feeling tonight as Arts Digest features MHBT on its premiere episode. Watch MPTV (10.1 HD) at 8 p.m. or on 36.1 tomorrow night at 9:30 p.m.

Still not good enough? Danceworks has a winners showcase set for the evening of June 3 at La Lune Collection Headquarters (930 E. Burleigh St.). See the Danceworks website for details.