Champtionship Ballroom dancing usually airs on PBS, probably a Wednesday in May. Check your local listings.
"Championship Ballroom Dancing" is the only regularly scheduled national broadcast of ballroom dancing in the U.S. It's an annual televising of the Ohio Star Ball, a ballroom competition held each November in Columbus, Ohio. Think of it as the unofficial North American championship. The show consists of the professional int'l style standard and Latin finals (see below for an explanation of international style versus American), and typically also includes cabaret events, and sometimes competitor interviews and/or American style demos. Lately, it's been hosted by dancer/actress Juliet Prowse and seven time U.S. int'l Latin champ Ron Montez.
The show is broadcast on the Public Broadcast Service (PBS) during the May "sweeps" period and apparently enjoys excellent ratings. Contrary to a persistent rumor, "CBD" is not generally broadcast during "pledge" periods. This information comes directly from Aida Moreno, producer of "CBD," who posted it in February of 1994 and confirmed it privately to Eileen Bauer a year later.
However, because PBS stations have a lot more freedom to set their schedules than do their commercial counterparts, some markets may show "CBD" during pledge periods. It's not common, but it probably happens. In any case, although many markets show it on the default broadcast date -- typically the first or second Wednesday of the month -- not all do. So you'll want to contact your local PBS station to find out the date and time of broadcast in your viewing area.
For overseas folks: PBS is a broadcast television network in the U.S., supported by public funds (read: taxes) and contributions from viewers. "Sweeps" months -- November, February and May -- are months when tv advertisers look very closely at tv "ratings" (viewership measurements), so all the networks, broadcast and cable -- including PBS, oddly enough -- put on their best stuff; the number of shows with sex and violence skyrockets (8-). "Pledge periods" are when PBS stations interrupt programs to beg their viewers for donations; PBS gets something like a third of its funding this way. [Henry Neeman hneeman@ncsa.uiuc.edu ]
See the obituary for Juliett Prowse, long-time presenter of Championship Ballroom Dancing.
Gomez Addams loved to dance "The Freddie" on the old TV series. In the later movie he can be seen dancing a tango.
This was a tv show, hosted by Arthur and Kathryn Murray, which ran for 11 years from 1950.
This file is part of the FAQ list for the newsgroup rec.arts.dance. The FAQ list is being maintained by Victor Eijkhout (victor at eijkhout dot net, talk about vanity), who appreciates being sent additions or corrections on the material in this collection. Copyright 1994/5/6/7/8/9/2000 lies with the maintainer and the contributors of various parts.
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Last modified on: Saturday, October 9, 1999.