“Have you ballroom danced before?” a girl 
asked, as we waited outside the studio door.
I shook my head, a reluctant smile appearing 
on my face. “Not yet, but I am about to.”
In my creased, worn, white sneakers, I walked 
toward the mirror room of the Central Campus 
Recreation Building, my body excited and ner-
vously brimming with anticipation. The dimly lit 
space was perfumed with sweat and rubber, the 
clatter of heels against the hardwood floor sur-
face, a clock in the back ticking softly. The glim-
mer of the moon shone softly over Palmer Field 
and against the wall, reflecting in the mirror.
Coming in with my lint-ridden sweats and 
creased shoes, I felt underdressed as I looked 
at the surrounding dancers. Their flowy skirts, 
high stiletto heels, ironed suits and black ties 
made the blaring coffee stain on my Michigan 
shirt even more apparent.
I hesitantly glanced at the time on my watch: 
8 p.m. The Michigan Ballroom Dance Team was 
offering free newcomer lessons for the month of 
September in hopes of recruiting people to their 
team. And while there was no way that I could be 
a part of the team (my lack of rhythm and inflex-
ibility account for that), there was also no way 
that I could pass up the opportunity to partake 

in a free session.
***
My relationship with dancing has always 
been one of apprehension
of apprehension, but also of discrete 
fondness. Since I’m
Since I’m of Nigerian heritage, danc-
ing is a tremendous
tremendous part of my culture and cel-
ebrations. During
During birthday bashes, ladies in their 
cloth wraps and men in their suits stomp their 
feet to the Naija beats, the cling-clang of 
drums swaying their bodies as they move 
their legs back and forth.
Throughout my life, I have tried to 
mimic those moves, yet something is 
always off. My feet seem to lag as I 
stomp to the beat of the music, my 
tempo becomes a muddle as 
I lose track of which limb 
performs what move and 
my arms become so stiff 
that they stick like glue to 
the sides of my waist.
Yet I honestly love to dance. 
There is something so freeing about 
the 
movement of letting yourself sway to the sound 
of the music, something so spiritual about float-
ing atop a rhythmic line, with no gravity or 
weight holding you down.
With something like ballroom dancing — a 
highly technical and competitive dance that 
combines multiple styles from around the world, 
including the cha cha from Cuba, the samba 

from Brazil and the Pasodoble from Southern 
France — it is safe to say that I was nervous at the 
thought of trying to learn how to move my feet 
correctly in the first steps of the dance.
dance.

“Welcome!
“Welcome! Are you guys ready?” And with 

that, we
that, we began
began the proceedings of our magical 

escapade back
escapade back to the 16th century, the supposed 
time period when the first account of ballroom 
dancing was recorded.
The history of ballroom dancing 
is said have begun in Europe, par-
ticularly in Germany. While visiting 
Augsburg, Michel de Montaigne, 
an important philosopher of the 
French Renaissance, accounted 
for a dance where people 
were so close that their 
faces 
touched. 
These 
dances were often per-
formed by lower-class indi-
viduals; however, as the 
popularity and complexity 
of these styles evolved, they eventually became a 
marker of high social status. 
The development and standardization of this 
dance continued until the 19th and 20th centu-
ries, when styles such as waltz, tango, quickstep 
and foxtrot began to emerge and were performed 
competitively. This art style slowly permeated 
from the boundaries of Europe to the climbing 
towers and bright lights of New York City, as a 

dance style known as the “swing,” created and 
popularized by African Americans in Harlem, 
began to emerge in America.
And here I stood, four centuries after this 
dance’s advent in the mirrored, strangely somber 
CCRB dance studio, about to test the limits of my 
self-sanity and limb coordination.
All 40 of us were instructed to form two 
groups facing each other on either side of the 
room; the “leads” and the “follows.” Typically, 
leads are more masculine-presenting partici-
pants that “lead” the dance by choosing the steps 
and often initiate the stylistic techniques such as 
the twirls or the dips, while the follow synchro-
nizes with their footwork. I migrated toward the 
follow side, hoping my inability to stand on my 
two feet would be overshadowed by someone 
else’s talent.
Two of the ballroom dance club leaders took 
the center stage of the room, separated by the 
sea of anticipating newcomers, impatient inter-
mediates and the watchful advanced. Dancing 
by ourselves at first, we started with a “simple” 
three-count rhythm; right leg to the front — to 
the middle — to the back — side step, to the mid-
dle — to the front — repeat.

I think that one of the easiest things to do 
on a college campus is ignore people — I know 
this because it’s something I do all the time. 
When I’m going to class, or to a friend’s house, 
or even just wandering around campus and 
enjoying the fall, I do it all with my AirPods 
in. I put my hood up, walk at a decent speed 
and, frankly, do everything I can to ignore 
those trying to get my attention.
And as a college student, there are quite 
literally hundreds of people on this campus 
who are trying to get your attention, from one 
end of the Diag to the other. Every single day, 
you and I walk past voter registration drivers, 
the Jehovah’s Witness missionaries, the stu-
dent organization advocates, the blood drive 
people and, of course, and more rarely, the 
preachers with comically large signs telling 
us that we’re all going to hell. And like me, 
I’m sure you do your best to ignore them. You 
probably avoid eye contact, quicken your pace 
and pray that you don’t have to interact.
But there’s a part of me that really, real-
ly respects what these people are doing. 
Because every single day, these people are 

ignored, and even accosted by tens of thou-
sands of students who unequivocally don’t 
want to deal with them. But every day, they 
keep coming back — and there’s a part of me 
that is deeply intrigued by that fortitude.
On an ideological level, I don’t agree with 
most of them, nor do I desire to adopt their 
practices. I am, however, interested in them 
as people. What brings them back? Why do 
they brave the cold and rain to sell, or preach, 
or offer something to students who have 
repeatedly said that they don’t care?
So, for a weekend, I decided I’d change up 
my routine. I took my AirPods out, kept my 
head up, made eye contact and immersed 
myself in conversation with everyone I found 
on the Diag who wanted my attention — 
everyone I was used to ignoring.
***
The more you talk with people soliciting 
just about anything on campus, the more 
you quickly come to realize that these people 
aren’t faint of heart — because they can’t be. 
I think the best example of this necessary 
resilience is the Jehovah’s Witnesses, at least 

two of whom can be found from 7 a.m. to 8 
p.m., seven days a week, standing somewhere 
on the Diag beside a small cart filled with 
flyers about finding eternal life. They never 
approach students on campus, or call out to 
them, or yell. They just stand there, smiling, 
waiting for us to talk to them.
But we very rarely do. I remember that the 
first time I approached the group earlier this 
year, they seemed almost surprised when I 
asked them for their elevator pitch and looked 
around for a moment to see who would take 
the lead before they responded.
Once they got started, though, their pitch 
rarely changed. They worked in shifts, and so 
in each of the four conversations I had with 
them, I talked to new people. But in every 
conversation, many things stayed the same. 
They were always well dressed — men in suits 
and ties, women in dresses — they always 
characterized their faith as an analytical, 
objective interpretation of the Bible and they 
were always incredibly kind to me (with the 
caveat being that my identity as a cisgender, 
straight male made that easy).
Yet what I was most interested in wasn’t 
their faith in Jehovah, but rather their faith 

in the process of evangelization. In one con-
versation I had, I asked if anyone had talked 
to them in their three-hour shift. They said 
no, chuckling, but remarked with a light smile 
that they had been talked at, likely meaning 
they were heckled.
When I talked to them one last time that 
weekend in 40-degree weather and rain, they 
smiled and said that they were used to being 
ignored. And the last man I talked to said 
that working in sales had hardened him and 
that he wasn’t affected by rejection. They all 
understand that quite literally, 99% of those 
passing by will act like they don’t exist, but 
they remain standing, in freezing tempera-
tures and in stoic postures, for the one person 
who might.
Every Jehovah’s Witness I talked to that 
weekend mentioned that they found the 
religion through their family. But one of the 
women told me that her mother, a devout 
Catholic, had been converted because some-
one knocked on her door. This means that of 
the group of 10 who I talked to that weekend, 
only one had a personal experience of being 
converted, and it was tangential. But their 
faith in the process was unwavering.
That’s what fascinates me most about 
every canvasser on this campus who keeps 
showing up despite the constant rejection: 
it’s that they never lose faith in the numbers 
game. And that extends beyond religious out-
reach.
Rob Sweet, a canvasser who registers pass-
ersby to vote in Michigan, explained his per-
sonal experience to me simply.

3 — Wednesday, October 26, 2022 // The Statement
Canvassing the canvassers — 
Evangelicals, voting drives and more

Waltzing my way through ballroom dance history

BY CHARLIE PAPPALARDO, STATEMENT COLUMNIST

BY CHINWE ONWERE, 
STATEMENT COLUMNIST

Read more at MichiganDaily.com

Read more at MichiganDaily.com

Voters cast their ballots early for 
the upcoming elections in UMMA 
Monday, October 24.

GRACE LAHTI/Daily

Ray Jin gracefully dips Erica Santos in one of the night’s 
performances Thursday, September 29.

MARIA DECKMANN/Daily

