Our Mission
To foster, promote, encourage, train, instruct, teach, coach, offer dance lessons and educate the members and non-members in ballroom dancing.
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In January of 1961, Clancy Burroughs had an idea. He wanted to share his love and interest in ballroom dancing with others so he decided to organize an introductory class. After taking out a newspaper ad advertising the class, to his delight, ninety registrants responded. With this much enthusiasm, he started a seven-week course in the basics of ballroom dancing at the Beckel Hotel Ballroom.
Upon completion of the course, most of the students wanted more, so together with a YWCA staff member, Clancy organized the YWCA Adult Dance Club. The Club's goal was to provide the basic fundamentals of ballroom dancing to new groups throughout the year. Then after completion of the training, participants were eligible to join the club.
In the beginning, the club was loosely organized. The officers spent most of their time planning and promoting dancing, boating trips, holiday parties, and picnics. The big events of the year were the Medal Ball in the spring and the President's Ball in the fall.
By 1971-2, the Dayton dance community had grown significantly. The desire for more frequent dances grew. Then finally, three couples from the YWCA decided to create an organization dedicated to sponsoring a monthly dance schedule and formed the Dance-tonians. Other groups were to follow.
In December of 1992 we changed locations to the Two-steppers Club. The new location had more rooms, more privacy and a main dance area that offered congenial atmosphere to promote the social interaction we were striving for. We continued at this location until January of 2007 when we changed locations to Hara Arena. After flooding had occurred in 2011, severely damaging the wood dance floor at Hara, the discussion began to search for an alternatives location.
Since January of 2012 we have been located at Arbor Hall where we continue to follow the tradition started by Clancy so many year prior. We continue to offer the same high level of dance instruction and social gatherings at an affordable price.
Since its founding, the Club has had a profound impact on the Dayton Ballroom Dance scene. Several of our students have branched out to teach ballroom dancing at their own studios and many couples have married after meeting at our club. Over the last 50 years, the Club has pursued its original goal of promoting ballroom dancing in a relaxed, social atmosphere. No other dance club in southwest Ohio offers an hour and a half of professional dance instruction, instuctor demonstrations, followed by a mixer and then an hour of good dance music for practice.
