Our Crowdfunding Groups
BLAST is dance group that promotes diverse styles of partner dancing, ranging from swing, to waltz, to salsa, and many others. We organize open classes to learn new styles each quarter, showcase dancers and choreographers in the annual spring show, and have a competition team that travels throughout the Midwest to compete. Our goal as an organization is to create an inclusive partner dancing community at Northwestern. BLAST was founded in 2001 and is a relatively new organization, but we have been growing each year and are always open to introducing people into the world of partner dancing.
Our goal with this project is to be able to host a collegiate ballroom competition at Northwestern University in spring 2018. This day-long competition would bring in ballroom dance teams from all over the Midwest, including BLAST’s own competition team. In addition, the event would be free for all spectators so that members of the Northwestern community and the surrounding Evanston community can be exposed to partner dancing and see some amazingly talented ballroom dancers. Since this will be the first ballroom competition hosted by Northwestern since the inaugural Northwestern Ballroom Classic in 2006, we need your help to be able to successfully host. With your generous support, we will be able to bring in professional judges, hire an emcee, and cover several administrative costs that come with planning such a big event. Additionally, in reaching our goal of $5,000 we would be able to significantly decrease the registration costs for dancers so that more dancers and teams can participate.
Donate, or share this link with friends on social media. We appreciate any contribution that you could make. Even $10 can make a difference. Thank you so much for helping to make our plan a reality!
A donation of $10 provides funds for safety pins for pinning competitor number cards on the leads. Safety pins also come in handy for any unexpected costume emergencies!
Each couple competing is assigned a number at registration, and this number is how the judges identify couples on the dance floor. A donation of $20.18 provides funds for printing all the number cards we will need the day of the competition.
The top eight couples who place in each level for each style are awarded a ribbon. A donation of $50 provides funds for purchasing the placement ribbons.
A donation of $75 is equivalent to the average dancer registration fee. This will allow us to significantly decrease the cost of registration for competing dancers.
We need a lot of space for a competition, including a dance floor with seats for spectators, a practice floor, and rooms to put up the dancers in during the day. A donation of $100 provides funds for room rental fees so that we can have all this space the day of the competition.
A donation of $250 provides funds to compensate our emcee for the day. The emcee introduces the judging panel, calls out the rounds, and announces the winners during.
A donation of $500 provides funds to compensate the DJ and cover any potential technology costs. The DJ chooses all the songs for the rounds, and it is super important that we have the necessary technology such as speakers so that the dancers can hear the music they are dancing to.
A donation of $1,000 provides compensation for the panel of judges we will bring in to objectively select the winning couples.
