• By ED CULLEN
• Advocate staff writer
• Published: Jun 25, 2010

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Spectators are as big a part of ballroom dance competition as fans of any sport.

“We invite spectators because dancers like to please the crowd,” said Ann Durocher-Steven, event organizer for this weekend’s Gumbo DanceSport Championships and Louisiana Challenge at the Crowne Plaza Hotel, 4728 Constitution Ave.

Friday’s and Saturday’s all-amateur competition is a national qualifying event for USA Dance, Durocher-Steven said.

“USA Dance has a seat on the Olympic committee,” she said. “We’re trying to make ballroom an Olympic event.”

Ballroom dance is recreation for older dancers, she said. “It’s a sport for younger dancers, through age 40. They’re highly competitive.” Sunday’s Louisiana Challenge is a pro-am competition.

Ballroom spectators are vocal.

“When we’re dancing, spectators call out our numbers,” said Brandi Thomas, 19, who met her dance partner, Bill Hutchings, at the LSU Ballroom Dance Club.

“I saw him in his first competition in Atlanta in the newcomer level,” Thomas said. “He trained two or three months, and he and his partner burned up the floor.”

Spectators voice their approval of a couple’s dancing by calling out the dancers’ competition number.

“Calling out dancers’ numbers is acceptable protocol,” Thomas said. “It doesn’t sway the judges. It’s for the dancers.”

Thomas started ballroom dancing with her grandfather when she was 9.

“We did exhibitions around the state,” she said. By the time she was 12, Thomas was instructing the Mandeville High School Swing Dance Club.

Thomas, a business major at LSU, teaches at Ballroom by Brandi in Covington and Mandeville.