Instigator Els van de Zande, currently a second-year Biology student, was previously a member of Utrecht’s student ballroom dancing club. When she decided to transfer to Wageningen after a year, she discovered that there’s no similar club here, despite the fact that this is ‘a good way to quickly get to know people and to feel at ease wherever you go’. Last spring she went in search of people who shared her passion and wanted to help her set up an association. This brought Els in contact with Kikkie Poels, first-year Master’s student of Animal Science, who was keen to help her. Poels: ‘I’d been dancing for a couple of years before I came to Wageningen, and I missed that feeling of elegance that you have on the dance floor.’ Klaudyna Borewicz, a PhD candidate and dance teacher who had harboured the same idea for some time, also joined Els.
The threesome will be organizing beginners’ and advanced lessons. From jive to cha-cha and from the waltz to the tango. Klaudyna: ‘For those who are interested, we’ll also be organizing workshops with professional coaches and we may even put together a competition team.’ The organizers hope to get the approval of Thymos, the student sports foundation, by the end of this year. Then they can call themselves an official student sports association. Borewicz: ‘Luckily we don’t need to be an official association to start the lessons. We are already holding our first workshops in the Bongerd.’ Between twenty and thirty students have already shown interest in WUBDA. They are keen to join as soon as that’s possible.
Photo: Wim van der Zwaluw