It?s not exactly a baseball diamond in the middle of an Iowa cornfield, but there?s definitely an “if you build it, they will come” mystique to The Promenade DanceSport facility, located at 2605 Lord Baltimore Drive in Baltimore. Just ask owner Cindy Sumida, who runs the 5,000-square-foot dance emporium with her husband, Ed Timmerman.
“I started dancing myself about 10 years ago. I was going to a dance facility in Silver Spring three nights a week, and people were saying, ?We need a place like this in Baltimore,?” Sumida said.
She acknowledges that when the Promenade opened in January 2000, “it was a struggle; for the first five years, pretty touch-and-go, but we?ve gotten over the hump.” Today, the Promenade is one of the few dance facilities that can accommodate visiting dance instructors, classes and large dance events such as the recent Baltimore Ballroom Expo.
Patricia Sullivan, a former president and now a board member of the Mid-Eastern Chapter of USA Dance ? a nonprofit organization that is the national governing body for ballroom dancing and “DanceSport,” the competitive version of ballroom dancing ? says she agrees Maryland may be lagging.
“The mideastern chapter covers such a large area ? Northern Virginia, central Maryland and Washington, D.C. ? and frankly, we haven?t been able to find enough people in the Baltimore area to create a separate chapter,” Sullivan said.
More Info
For information on local dance facilities visit the following Web sites:
www.atlanticdancejam.com
www.ballroomatmaryland.com
www.atlanticballroom.com
www.mddancesport.com
www.usabda.org/index.cfm
