Coaches

Ikaika Dowsett

Ikaika Dowsett is a top teacher and award winning international ballroom dance coach since 2002. He specializes in international ballroom competitions. He has numerous titles in standard ballroom and produced over 30 national champions in 10 years. His coaching methodology is systems based and he enjoys coaching the dancers to think about frameworks, understand body mechanics, nutrition and cross training, and how to think like an athlete.

 

Rhett Grant

Rhett Grant has been a coach for the Cal Ballroom team since 2018. He specializes in Latin. He has several national titles in Latin, teaches Latin technique, and offers private lessons to the team.

 

Student Teachers

Standard

Kat Smoot joined the team in Fall 2019 as an undergrad, and returned in 2021 as a PhD student in plant biology. She has a background in ballet, tap, and jazz, and enjoys socially dancing bachata and Lindy Hop. Feel free to ask her any of your houseplant questions, but be warned it could easily turn into an hour long lecture.

Swati Garg began ballroom at Purdue University, and currently competes with Kat. The pair have placed at national competitions and won Bronze Standard at the USDA National Championships in 2022. When not dancing, Swati can be found drinking coffee, coding, or avoiding Kat’s botanical classifications of fruits speech.

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Latin

Saejel Mohan joined Cal Ballroom in 2020 and is excited to help lead the team. She’s is premed and a Scorpio, but don’t let that scare you– she’s actually super nice.

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Lynette Zhang began ballet from a young age, and continues to practice and perform ballet while also competing with the team. A master of pointing the feet, she placed in all her events this past season.