Dance partner search over the web

Some years ago, I was a struggling ballroom dancing beginner, barely able to master the one-two-three of the waltz, and desperately seeking a dance partner.

After haunting dance schools, ballrooms and dinner dances with a posse of solo dancing ladies, I met my match at the Lancaster Gate Hotel. Our eyes locked across a crowded floor, we quickstepped to Let's Face the Music and Dance, and he's been carrying me ever since.

But if I was looking for a partner today, a ballroom is the last place I would go. Keyboard finger-tapping is replacing foot-tapping in the search for the ideal dance mate. Partnerships are being cemented across counties, states and continents using the Internet.

Some, such as world amateur champions Chris Hawkins and Hazel Newberry, recently turned professional, have their own Web pages. Others, such as Benoit and Lorraine Drolet, UK Closed professional champions, have columns on existing sites. The Drolets, in The London Connection Column, on The World Dance Plaza site run by the Rullens' dance consultancy, offer tips on technical skills, practising and coaching. On sites around the world there are dancing message boards, chat rooms and virtual shopping malls where it is possible to buy the latest in flashy earrings, glitzy shoes, glamorous ballgowns, instruction videos, tail suits, fishnet tights and dance shoes. A series of online surveys at the Rullens' site is seeking responses to a survey on how easy dancers find it to get on with their partners. Earlier surveys found that 72 per cent of people think it is a good idea to have a romantic relationship with a dance partner, 67 per cent prefer the new, dynamic "Italian" style of dance to the traditional "British" style and 88 per cent believe champions are "protected" by most of the judges. One of the fastest-growing areas is the burgeoning "partners" market as lady and gentlemen dancers promote themselves and their availability on various international Web sites. Ballroom dancers are using the Internet to advertise their willingness to relocate to different cities, and even continents, to bring them the perfect dance partner. Many of the dancing Webmasters are computer software businessmen and women who took up dancing to keep fit.

The Dancescape site, set up and designed by Canadian amateur champion Robert Tang, warns with its message: "This is not your mother's ballroom dancing." With up to 3,000 visitors a week, it has a "Dancers' Paradise" page with links to a personal column, where free ads can be placed for "dance only" partnerships.

There is a Swedish girl, 22, at the top of the competition league who wants a partner willing to move to Sweden. A professional Hungarian male wants a lady partner aged under 28. He is willing to move to a different country if the partner is right.

The leading British site, Ballroom Dancing UK (http://www.zem.co.uk/dance/index.htm), is run by Polish amateur dancer Eva Allen, who has her own ad seeking a partner on the site. Anna Komissarenko, 26, a Ukrainian studying in London, advertised for a partner on the site a year ago. She had 15 responses. "One was quite bad, but the others were really good," she says.

Currently on the site there is a "Tall blonde female dancer looking for a professional male partner for paid performances in Walnut Creek." There is Rosanna, slim and "with a great experience", living in Italy but willing to move for the right competition ballroom dancer.

A 5ft 3in woman, promising a "contagious stage presence", seeks "a male partner to do Lindy Hop or Carolina Shag." A "dedicated male" from Hampshire, aged 33 and 6ft 1in in shoes, seeks a partner with more than two years' experience "for mutual practice, social dancing, amateur competition".

But the Internet has not worked for everyone. Gillian Tracy, 60, and a former nuclear physicist, is qualified student teacher and has started her own dance school in Bognor Regis, West Sussex. Her ad has been on the Internet for months. Her search has yet to yield a single response. "I have been dancing for six years and have not had a partner since I started," she says.

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Last modified on: Saturday, October 9, 1999.