By day, Bilkent's Dr. Barbaros Tansel is an eminent researcher in industrial engineering and operations. But come evening, he is transformed into a light-footed ballroom dancer, and he wants to show you how fun it is. This semester Dr. Tansel is teaching three different levels of dance classes to more than 100 students: beginners, intermediate, and advanced.
Dance lessons for beginners are held on Wednesdays at 6:40 p.m. at the B Blok Anfi of the Engineering building. Intermediate and advanced classes are offered on Fridays at 5:30 and 6:30 p.m. respectively at the Fitness Studio at the Student Union. The dances taught this semester include the tango, waltz, rhumba, cha cha cha, and swing. These dances combine esthetics with music, and display human motion with rhythm and style. To some, including Dr. Tansel, dancing is an intense form of meditation.
Dr. Tansel began to dance while he was a graduate student at the University of Florida (in Gainesville) in the U.S. He began specializing in ballroom dancing only during the last five years. He received his early training and instruction from Anna Stump, an expert in ballroom dancing from San Diego who happened to be visiting Bilkent four years ago.
During the last two years he has compiled various forms of advanced dance material from Dance Vision, a company in the U.S. specializing in ballroom dancing.
If you want to join the ballroom dancing fun,
please call Barbaros Tansel at ext. 1960
or register at the Main Campus Physical Education and Sports Center.
