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“I Want to be Myself”: Donie Burch Talks Pressure to Be a Certain Ballroom Character
Donie Burch of Dancing Queens reveals more on her struggle to fit a "Latin" dance stereotype and how it impacts her self-confidence.
From the costumes to the makeup, a lot of work and preparation goes into ballroom dance competitions — and it isn’t always easy on the dancers themselves. Donie Burch of Dancing Queens is opening up more to The Daily Dish about the pressure to fit a certain look—particularly in the Latin ballroom category.
What Donie Burch Says About Ballroom Dance Looks
“It's like this fine line of trying to fit in just enough to where you're blending in and not standing out in a negative way,” Donie said in a new interview.
There are four main styles of competitive ballroom dancing: American Smooth, American Rhythm, International Standard, and International Latin. The cast of Dancing Queens competes in the Latin category, which features five dances including the Cha Cha, Samba, Rumba, Paso Doble and Jive.
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“In terms of Latin dancing there is this kind of very opulent, over the top, blinged out [look],” Donie said. “Besides if I looked like that or not, I don’t particularly like it. I’m not fond of that aesthetic.”
Donie said she prefers to put the technical dance moves first and the “persona” second — but that’s not what happens when the category is judged.
We saw Donie struggle with her body image and confidence during Dancing Queens, such as when she got a new dress for competition, but her partner didn’t think it was her most flattering look. She did a photo shoot in another new dress, hoping it would boost her confidence, but was unhappy with the results.
Despite the photographer telling her the pictures were beautiful, she said, "Wow, that’s really what I look like? That’s disgusting.”
“No matter how much I can dress up like what people think of as classic Latin dancer, like I’m just never going to look like that,” Donie said in the fifth episode of the series.
Donie explained to The Daily Dish some of the other dancers take the fact that they don’t look like the typical Latin dancer and go out on the dance floor and become a new character, but that’s not her.
“I don’t want to be someone other than myself,” Burch said. “I happen to like myself, and I want to be seen as myself. I don’t want to be seen as someone other than myself, which I think is a reason why a lot of people get into this sport, because you can transform into somebody different, but I don’t want to be someone different. I want to be myself dancing this style of dance.”
Watch Dancing Queens on Bravo Tuesdays at 9/8c and the next day on Peacock.
