Where tango meets 2Pac, a new dance style is born

Erin Washington

We’ve seen it in the movies. Hip-hop and ballroom dance meet and instead of clashing they combine into some new art form.

Now it’s being done in real life.

Earlier this month at the Fred Astaire Dance Studio Colonial Classic Dancesport Championship, ballroom experts and novices from across New England came together. Students from Fred Astaire Dance Studio branches competed against each other in international standard ballroom dances such as the waltz, Foxtrot, quickstep and tango, as well as Latin dancing.

All levels of dancers compete, from beginner students to teachers. One teacher in particular, Alberto Peart of West Springfield, has added a new flavor to his traditional routine hip-hop.

Peart has only been doing ballroom dancing for three years. Nevertheless, he and his partner Jessica Makowski, who has been dancing for six years, won first place in the cabaret competition with a combination hip-hop and Latin dance. And they were not dressed in the typical ballroom garb, with Peart’s baggy pants and polo shirt and Makowski’s corset and slick pants inducing the feel of a party or a dance club as opposed to a strict competition.

The piece opened with a form of hip-hop dancing, an interactive, funky-jazz style based on the hip-hop derivative called pop. Pop is a combination of technical jazz and free-form hip-hop, and can be seen on shows such as “So You Think You Can Dance.” It is sometimes called a watered-down version of hip-hop, but it emphasizes performance and interactivity between dance partners. Compared to the way Makowski danced, Peart described his style as “a bit more sharp and rough.”

But put together with her style, “it looks like two people out there having fun and doing their own thing.”

The second half of the dance was a Latin number, but the transition to this style was not at all abrupt. Peart explained that both hip-hop and Latin are based on body isolations, making the first section a great introduction to the performance. Because of hip-hop’s lack of organized technique, Peart said, “it made things a little more hyped up for the audience.”

Although Peart has not been doing ballroom for very long, he has been dancing other styles. He studied jazz dance ten years ago when he was in junior high school, then made the transition over to hip-hop.

But his real passion in life is acting. He has been acting for as long as he can remember. A few years ago, he was a member of Shakespeare & Company, which performs Shakespeare’s plays for students and regular patrons in the Berkshires.

When asked how it felt to be a person of color in a Shakespeare company, a genre that has few and stereotypical roles for such people, Peart explained that he went to a diverse school, so typecasting was not so much of a problem.

“It’s how you portray the character. That’s why I’ve gotten so many opportunities,” Peart said.

Nowadays Peart is a member of a theater and training company, “Serious Play Intensive Theater Training” (SPITT). The group performs at A.P.E. in Northampton and teaches teens and young adults acting skills. And although for the past few years he has been concentrating more on dance, he still has practiced performing. “You perform every day when you’re teaching your style.”

For more information about Fred Astaire Dance Studios, visit www.fredastaire.com.

Alberto Peart of West Springfield strikes a pose with Lyuba Kurbanova at the Fred Astaire Classic Dancesport Championship, held earlier this month in Quincy.