EMOTION CHARGED SATURDAY (2nd Day) AT WDC WORLD OPEN CHAMPIONSHIPS

message to the members of World Dance Council (WDC).
December 12, 2010 at 9:14am

EMOTION CHARGED SATURDAY (2nd Day) AT WDC WORLD OPEN CHAMPIONSHIPS.

Any person privileged to be in the ballrooms today will have memories to last the rest of their lives.

It was incredible the atmosphere which built during the day with the music, the audience, the competitors, the coaches all bonding and becoming one unit to create an amazing emotional experience. Did the dancers inspire the audience or did the audience inspire the dancers is an enigma but certainly some magical and spell binding performances were witnessed with feelings spilling over. The applause from and the involvement of the capacity audience was amazing. If this ambience could be packaged and sold other organisers would be desperate to purchase.

There have been cancellations from some programmed entries as the cold winter took its toll (one personality took 13 hours to travel 30 kms or approx 19 miles). However there have also been many late entries which has compensated and proven the lengths to which dancers will go to compete where respected.

It was just before 9.00 a.m. Saturday when the ballroom was darkened with just creative lighting effects across the huge dance floor and everyone present was welcomed to the most exciting dance event in the world.

The first event was the Under 14 Disneyland Resort Paris Latin Championship. Sitting in the audience and showing their appreciation of the terrific dancing was Mr Donnie Burns, MBE, the WDC President (and what a fantastic job he is doing) and Mr Sammy Stopford the Amateur League Chairman.

Can you imagine being 13 years of age and knowing you were being watched and applauded by two of the greatest Latin dancers in our history and how inspired you would be? Men you can look up to and respect you know they have a deep love for dance and immense knowledge. You can aspire to reach the same heights as they achieved. This is one aspect which makes the WDC a truly unique organisation and another is that the adjudicating panels today contained people with a combined total 89 former World or British Open titles.

The audience is reminiscent of a Hall of Fame with so many great former dancers, champions and World Champions, some only recently retired from competitions but attending to show their support for the World of Freedom to Dance, Freedom to choose.
There is little doubt now of the ever increasing momentum and that this is the true future of dance.

In 2 days we have seen so very clearly calm, elegance, stylish, musical, artistic dancing with consideration for fellow competitors. The connection and body contact between the couples has been excellent as there is no desire to work only for speed and power. Faster, higher, further, stronger are not part of this dance vocabulary. To make the simplest elements beautiful is the greatest degree of difficulty not to set some tariff with tricks, etc., used to impress and fool those without in depth knowledge and experience.

It was a full programme including the Professional Rising Stars Ballroom, The Disneyland Resort Professional Latin Championship which is a WDC Super Word Ranking event, plus 8 Disneyland Resort events and 15 World Championships.

All through the day the excitement mounted as we watched one superb event after another until that special moment Carnival time!! The Maracas were passed out adding to the atmosphere and then after a short period of “fun” dancing the scene was set. Starting with the Professional Latin and continuing with the last 24 of the Amateur Ballroom.

The appearance of Riccardo & Yulia the newly crowned WDC World Latin Champions, Sergey & Melia, Maurizio& Andra gave added impetus to the evening and what a superb competition followed. At the end of the final Paso the audience were already on their feet showing their enthusiasm for the magnificent dancing and they remained standing throughout the final jive.

The Amateur Ballroom World Open Championship had many highlights with a very even standard that must have set the judges real headaches. The inspired final was eventually won by the 2010 UK Open and British Open Champions Andrea Ghigiarelli & Sara Andracchio (now Mrs Ghigiarelli) and we would like to congratulate them on their now having achieved a World Championship title. It was very clear that they enjoyed every moment whilst competing and receiving huge applause. In 2nd place was the No.1 ranked Chinese couple Yang Chao & Tan Yi Ling who also danced beautifully and received great support.

After the prize ceremony for each World Championship the national anthem of the winning country is played. It was wonderful to hear in addition to those of Russia, Ukraine, Italy, England (and the USA) the anthems of countries such as Cyprus, France, Netherlands, Switzerland and Wales. Each title holder will surely treasure that memory for many long years.

Sunday, the final day, promises to be another special action packed day in both ballrooms and filled with feelings and emotions. One cannot help but have huge pride to be part of an organisation which brings dancers from all over the world to compete together with freedom in friendship and to celebrate the beauty of dance, an organisation so sure in the loyalty of their members that they have freedom to dance where they wish.

What a tragedy for dance that those lacking confidence in the loyalty of those forced into their arms feel compelled to threaten, ban, destroy.

It is shameful that a dance connected organisation would wish to damage dance/dancesport in this manner.

swinganddance