Most are there to take a break from studies and have a good time. While half the club's members are undergraduates and 30 percent are grad students, the remainder are a mix of faculty, students from other colleges and people from the dance community at large. On a recent Wednesday night open dance session, Alison Cook-Sather, director of education at Bryn Mawr, was brushing up on her quickstep. At Penn's Ballroom Dance Club, that's the whole idea - to put beginners in contact with more advanced dancers and let nature take its course. An effective way to achieve this is a dance game called Jack 'n Jill.
Females scribble their names on scraps of paper dropped into a bowl.
The guys line up and, one by one, discover who their partner will be. The music is usually something easy such as swing, the first dance they learned in September. At the formal gala when Tara Fallon announced a Jack 'n Jill, Wharton freshman Ariel Glassner took his place in line. I don't know how to do this, but I'm willing to try. Stealing a break from her studies, this was Brown's first exposure to ballroom dancing.