A Study in Red & White!
Saturday in Provo

Red was a popular color for the ladies last night in the Marriott Center.  Although generally not so much in demand for ballroom gowns, there was a lot of red on the floor, including 3 dresses in the final.

As in the Latin the night before, the Amateur Ballroom was danced over 5 rounds before an audience that was larger than the night before.  While the ballroom perhaps did not generate quite the excitement we saw in the Latin, it was still, in the words of one judge after the event, “the best overall quality event (in this style) for the past 8 years or so.”

Once again the semifinal was a tough round for the judges, although to us it seemed that the choice for the final six was clearer than in the Latin, although there were perhaps one or two couples that could have also claimed a spot.

The duel for the Championship remained as it was in 2014 – between the two giants (both the gentlemen stand well over 6’) of this division – Andres & Veronica End and Oskar Wojciechowski & Karoline Holody.  What made this a little more interesting is that these two have not been head to head since this time last year as Karoline has been recovering from a foot injury.  As it turned out tonight, Andres & Veronica were the winners as they were in 2014.  Tonight they won all dances and had the majority of 1st places in 4 dances.  In the VW they had 8 firsts to Oskar & Karoline’s 7.  Andres & Veronica received mostly 1st and 2nd places, only judge Ken Sloan placed them lower, awarding them two 4th places and a 3rd place.  Oskar and Karoline also received mostly 1st and 2nd places although they did get a smattering of lower marks and judge Shirley Ballas ranked them 5,4,6,5,6.  Although they are of similar stature, these two couples have very different styles and we look forward to more battles throughout the year.

The rest of the final was more closely fought with marks going everywhere.  Coming out in 3rd place overall were Luca Balestra & Krizia Balestra 4,3,4,3,3.  They stood out as the couple with the most aggressive style in the final (or the competition for that matter), and as expected, we thought tango was by far their best dance.  In fact both Igor Litvinov and Ken Sloan placed them 1st in this dance and we can understand why.  Ruslan Kalyuzhnyy & Kseniya Sovenko were 4th, 3,5,3,4,4.  They are the antithesis to the couple above them showing soft, willowy dancing that fares well in the swing dances.

The newest couple to this division, Angelo Gaetano & Clarissa Morelli were 5th 5,4,5,5,5.  We were a little disappointed with their showing in the final.  They were stronger the week before at Vegas Open.  Perhaps it was the Provo altitude?  Closing this final were Marek Klepadlo & Liana Bakhtiarova with 6th in all dances, but certainly in the general mix as they received scores as high a 2nd.

Running opposite the Amateur Ballroom once again was the Junior II US Championship, this time in the Latin style.  The result gave us a “switcheroo” at the top.  Last night’s runners-up in the Ballroom were the winners tonight in the Latin.  Yusif Amsatr & Naomi Spektor won all dances tonight, but only cha cha and paso with the majority of 1st places.  We thought they were the best couple tonight. Erik Linder & Rickie Taylor, last night’s winners, took 2nd in all dances.  It was also a “switcheroo” for 3rd placed Kristers Smits & Sophie Shvartsman who fared far better in the Junior II than they had earlier in the day in the Junior I.  They placed 3rd tonight with 3,3,3,3,4.  D’Angelo Castro & Amanda Carbarjeles were 4th 4,4,4,4,3, and gave a more mature performance than we have seen from them in the past.  Max Firestein & Nicole Mitchedilidza were 5th, 6,5,5,5,5 and Carter Williams & Anika Baker were 6th 5,6,6,6,6.

Here’s what’s interesting here.  Just a few hours before Carter & Anika were the winners of the Junior I placing 1,2,1,2,1, whereas Kristers & Sophie took 2nd 2,1,2,1,2.  Obviously it was a different judging panel and these two young and talented couples have very different styles.  3rd in this division were Kevin Filipczak & Elizabeth Gotovsky 3,3,3,3,3.  We really liked the mature style of this duo.  Another rapidly improving couple, Jonas Terleckas & Ruby Castro were 4th, 4,4,4,4,4.  Audence darlings, Tyler Li & Anjelica Lowe were 5th 5,5,5,5,5;  Timofei Plekhanov & Dascha Jayne Wright were 6th, 6,6,6,6,7 and Anthony Tedesco & Katya Ivahno-Kalinuka were 7th 7,7,7,7,6.

Patrick Plozasj & Anna Kazmarski became double champions here as they also won the US National Youth Ballroom Championship to add to the U/21 Title they already had.  Results to follow.

Austin Josen & Nino Dzneladze were the runaway winners of the US U/21 Latin Championship losing only 3 first place marks from a total of 45.  We thought they could have been included in the final of the Open Amateur the night before, so we were not surprised by this success.  2nd spot went to Vladisalv Kvartin & Anna Maria Prokopovicova 2,3,2,2,2 and 3rd to the winners of the Youth Latin, Bumchin Tegshjargal & Michelle Klets 3,2,3,4,4.  4th went to Yevgenii Orlov & Marina Yerina 5,5,4,3,3;  5th Ryan Raffloer & Hanna Sverdlov 4,4,6,5,6;  6th Eric Ascione & Grace Anderson 6,6,5,6,5.

The US National Amateur Cabaret Championship is always a highlight, but this year we were disappointed that there were only 4 entries, although all were of good quality.  Each of the top 3 couples missed one lift keeping things nice and even!  The new champions are Josh David & Kelli Foster who performed a delightful “modern dance” piece with some nicely executed high-risk lift work.  The runners-up performed in a more traditional “ballroom adagio” style and again had some well executed lift-work, Benjamin Ralph & Kayci Treu.  A previous 2-time champion, Trevor Guthrie now dancing with his wife Emily, was 3rd and they also performed in a “modern dance” vein.  4th were Logan Barnes & Natalie Savage.

For the Pre-Teens it was Latin day.  The US National Pre-Teen II Championship went to Alex Sarkisian & Beanna Dzhaniashvilli 2,2,1,1,1.  2nd Easton Brotherson & Rylee Arnold 1,1,2,2,4;  3rd Kristian Alexander Evstigneev & Victoria Sepishvilli 6,4,3,3,2;  4th Matthew Bezzant & Kennedy Miller 4T,6,4,5,3;  5th Griffin Cooney & Josephne Taylor 4T,5,5,5,4,5;  6th Freddie Kleynburg & Elizabeth Shapshal 3,3,6,6,6.

The winners of the Pre-Teen I Latin had also won the ballroom the day before and they were Daniel Novikov & Natalina Chen  (The rest of the result coming soon).

Watch out for reports of many of these divisions from our expert Dance Beat contributors.  All coming soon in the members’ section.  So be sure to subscribe!

A Night with Wow Factor!

Friday night at the US National Amateur Championships (run under license from American Ballroom Company) in Provo was a night to make you go, “Wow!”

The headline event was the Amateur Latin and we had 5 rounds of great dancing.  The finalists from 2014 who were here received a by from the first round.  Right from the start it was clear that every progression from round to round was going to be a challenge.  Nowhere was this more apparent than in the semifinal where it seemed to us and to most of the judges that almost any one of the 12 couples could make the final.  In fact we were only one mark away from having a 7-couple final and then one more from an 8-couple final.

But in the end 6 couples were selected.  The champions from 2014 were able to easily retain their title winning all dances with a clear majority of 1st places – Ferdinando Iannaccone & Yulia Musikhina.  While they were clearly the winners they did not in fact receive perfect scores in any on the dances.  The two judges who clearly did not favor them were Valentina Kostenko who scored them 6,6,6,6,6 and Wendy Johnson with 5,5,4,4,4.  For the rest they received an occasional 2nd and the rest 1st places.  Speaking with some observers after the event, the only complaint we heard about this couple was that they spent too much time playing to the very vocal audience and not enough time dancing.

2nd in all dances went to Pasha Pashkov & Daniella Karagach.  They had the majority of ‘2nd or better’ scores in all dances but they also had some detractors on the judging panel, most noticeable were Eugene Katsevman, Ron Montez and Allan Tornsberg who all scored them in the lower half of the final.

It was a good night for Pasha Stepanchuk & Gabriella Sabler who took 3rd overall with 3,3,4,4,4 in a tight race with one of our favorites of the night, Tal Livshitz & Ilana Keselman who scored 4,4,5,3,3.  Both of these couples were on form tonight!

In 5th place were Artur Tarnovskyy & Anastasia Danilova (5,5,6,5,5).  After a rather lackluster semifinal round, from our perspective, they stepped it up for the final.  Closing the final 6,6,3,6,6 were the always elegant Alexey & Vlada Karaulov.

This was the first competition where many of these amateurs danced to the new, slower NDCA tempi.  We wonder how they liked them?

The new champions in the US National Junior II Ballroom that shared the billing with the Amateur Latin are Erik Linder & Rickie Taylor who won all dances with the majority of 1st place marks.  They have a nice soft style.  We were also very impressed with the runners-up, Yusif Amsatr & Naomi Spektor, who were 2nd in all dances.  The judges were undecided with this couple as they received 1st to 4th place in all dances.  3rd tonight were Murat Medzhidov & Valerie Dubinsky 3,3,3,3,3;  4th were Kristers Smits & Sophie Shvartsman 4,4,4,4,4;  5th Tyler Li & Anjelica Lowe 6,6,5,5,5 and 6th Daniel Melnik & Maria Volski 5,5,6,6,6.

During the daytime, the premier event was the US National U/21 Ballroom.  This resulted in an easy win for Patryk Ploszaj & Anna Kaczmarski who won all dances with almost all the 1st places.  The only judge to seriously disagree was Ken Sloan who scored them 3,2,3,2,4.  Michael Vorobiev & Sonya Tsekanovsky were 2nd in all dances, Samuel Hacke & Katarina Hermanova were 3rd in all.  With 4,5,5,4,5, Florin Vlad & Natalia Linda O’Connor were 4th; Stanislav Pavlov & Sandra Spernacka were 5th 5,4,4,5,6 and Gregory Rybakov & Ellen Anshelevich were 6th 6,6,6,6,4.

Running opposite this U/21 event was the US National Junior I Ballroom Championship.  Kristers Smits & Sophie Shvartsmann in their 1st final of two they made today were the winners in all dances and they had the majority of 1st places in all dances.  Also in two finals on the day, Tyler Li & Anjelica Lowe took 2nd here with 3,2,2,2,2.  Jonas Terlekas & Ruby Castro were 3rd with 2,3,3,3,3.  Timofei Plekhanov & Dascha Jayne Wright were 4th, 5,4,4,4,5;  5th Ivan Shneerson & Empria King 4,5,5,5,4;  6th Matvey Korsunkiy & Alisa Kashkeyvych 6,6,6,6,7;  7th Griffin Cooney & Josephine Taylor 7,7,7,7,6.

The Pre-Teen divisions were smaller, but both the US National Championships in Pre-Teen I and Pre-Teen II Ballroom were held today.  The winners of the Pre-Teen I were Daniel Novikov & Natalina Chen 1,1,2,1,1.  2nd went to Daniel Shtem & Avital Ayzerov 3,3,1,2,2;  3rd Daniel Evstigneev & Angelica Gloria Groysman 2,2,3,3,3;  4th Eric Kashkeyvych & Daria Andreyev 4,4,4,4,4;  5th Nathan Smith & Jocelyn Osmond 5,5,5,5,5.

Griffin Cooney & Josephine Taylor moved up from their 7th place in the Junior I to win the Pre-Teen II Ballroom, placing 1,1,1,1,2.  Runners-Up were Kristian Aleksander Evstigneev & Victoria Sepiashvilli 2,2,2,2,1.  3rd were Gabriel White & Lyubov Morgan 3,5,3,3,4;  4th Dave Firestein & Nicole Shterm 5,3,4,4,3; 5th Freddie Kleynburg & Elizabeth Shapshal 4,4,5,6,7;  6th Andrew Keck & Nicole Ascione 6,6,6,5,6;  7th Sam Peyton & Gem Hersh 7,7,7,7,5.

Xingmin & Katerina Lu were again the Champions in the US National Senior I Ballroom winning all 5 dances with the majority of 1st places.  2nd today were Thomas Yin & Kelly Cheng who also placed 2nd in all dances.  3rd in all were Turtle Brennen & Regina Paregis.  4th Gene Tseng & Hui Zhang 4,5,5,4,4;  5th Denis Kojinov & Jeanette Chevalier 6,4,4,5,5;  6th Lars & Holly Linder 5,6,6,6,6.  Lars & Holly also won the Senior II Ballroom Championship.

Winners and runners-up in the championship divisions all received cash from the NDCA to assist in their travel to the WDC Amateur League World Championships that are always held in Paris, France during December.

Stay tuned for more results from the Saturday sessions here in Provo.

Building Up Steam!

The United States National Amateur Championships in Provo, Utah are building up steam with great dancing and fabulous competition!

Last night at the BYU Marriott Center Sports Arena the competition began to heat up with the United States National Amateur Smooth Championships.  After a number of rounds the competition came to a finish with six couples in the lead. The competition was hard fought and the winners, Trevor & Emily Guthrie, won all dances, however, they did not win any dance with a majority of firsts.  The closest they came to a majority of firsts was in the foxtrot and Viennese Waltz where they took 9 firsts out of the 19 judges assigned to this task. Their two worst marks came from Igor Litvinov and Erminio Stefano.  Igor awarded them a sixth in the foxtrot and Erminio a sixth in the VW, but their overall lowest scores were awarded to them by Rita Algarra who awarded Trevor & Emily all fifths and a fourth in the tango.

Collin Williams & Ashley Nixon were the runners-up overall but not in all dances, they placed second in the foxtrot and VW but third in the waltz and tango. Their worst marks came to them from Erminio Stefano who placed them sixth in three dances but when it came to their VW he thought they were the best by far and awarded them a first. Third overall was awarded to Aaron Holmes & Katelyn Holmes.  Here the judges were very undecided they awarded them 4th in the waltz, 2nd in the tango, and third in the other two dances.

Charlie & Emily Roberts were fourth overall placing 2nd in the waltz and fourth in the other four dances. In looking at the marks we are not really sure the judges knew what to do with this couple.  In the waltz their best overall performance, they got a potpourri of marks from first to sixth place, that was a tremendous variety.  In the tango five judges though they should have won that dance and awarded them five firsts, their foxtrot was the only dance where they only got one first.

Fifth overall went to Sterling & Nicole Stolle and they placed fifth in every dance, and in sixth position was Adam Coker & Kyla Zenger and they took sixth in every dance.  

So far this afternoon, a highlight has been the US National Youth Latin Championship an event that started with over 80 couples.  The final was great and had the judges in a quandary.

The winners were Bumchin Tegshjargel & Michelle Klets and they won all dances but not all judges agreed.  They had the majority of 1st places (5) in the jive only.  In the samba they only received 1 first place but still won the dance.  Nadia Eftedal and Mary Murphy, were the two judges who scored them in the lower half of the final.

All the seconds went to Mike Monokandilios & Sophia Brodsky.  They had some 1st places in all dances – the most in samba and jive (4), but again they had some judges scoring them in the lower half of the final.  3rd spot in all dances went to who we had considered the favorites going into the event, Kinsley Lin & Michelle Yiu.  But this was not their day from the judges’ perspective.  4th fell to Jacob Murillo & Sydney Tormey 4,4,4,5,5;  5th to Eric Ascione & Grace Anderson 5,5,5,4,4;  6th Robert McShinsky & Peyton Munson 6,6,6,6,6.

Stay tuned tomorrow for the exciting US National Amateur Latin and much more!     

Southeastern States Championships 2014

Report & Photos by Chantal Leclerc

This year the Southern States Championships returned to its previous home at the Sea World Renaissance in Orlando.  

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A Lot of Everything!

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Saturday offered a lot of everything at Vegas Open – a lot of great dancing, a lot of people and a lot of partying!

The vibrant night session featured the 4 open professional divisions and 2 open amateur.  We saw US champions and finalists in almost all of the divisions.  It’s hard to pick a “best of” so let’s just look at them in order of performance.  All pro divisions were semifinals.

First up was the ballroom – now called the Brian Puttock Award in memory of the much loved US Icon who passed away last year.  Sue Puttock was there to judge and present the award and the organizers of the Vegas Open also presented her with an achievement award.

Artem Plakhotnyi & Inna Berlizyeva won all 5 dances and had a clear majority of 1st places in all dances.  Also clear was the runners-up position that went to Mikhail Avdeev & Olga Blinova who had the majority of ‘2nd or better’ scores in all dances.  Perhaps the most interesting race was for 3rd place and this went to Iaroslav Bieliel & Olga Tsikalyuk who scored 4,4,3,3,3.  They had scores all over the board including all 7th placements from 2 judges, Jennifer Booth and Mark Weiss.  We really liked their performance tonight, but were startled by the announcement following the results (see below).  The other half of this race was Andrew Begunov & Anna Demidova who placed 3,3,4,4,4.  They received 1st placements in all dances (unlike Iaroslav & Olga who received no 1st placements).  One judge, Sharon Savoy, placed Andrey & Anna 1st in all 5 dances.  5th in all dances went to Oscar Pefrinelli & Lenka Kovalcikova; 6th were Richard Tonizzo & Clare Hansen 6,7,6,6,6 and 7th, Stefano DiBrino & Bianka Zubovska

Watch out for Igor Litvinov’s report on this division in Dance Beat soon.

At the conclusion of the presentation for this division Olga Tsikalyuk announced her retirement from professional competition, we were somewhat surprised to see her go, but wish her all the best in her future endeavors.

Next up was the Rhythm and here we had an obvious form winner in Andre & Natalie Paramonov and they did indeed win all dances with the majority of 1st places.  The closest race was surprisingly in the bolero, what we consider one of their better dances.  In this dance they had 9 first places out of a possible 16.  The couple pushing them the hardest was Danas Jaksevicious & Yuki Haraguchi who were US finalists in 2013 but were off the floor throughout most of 2014.  They were 2nd in all dances and had 5 first places in cha cha, swing and bolero.  3rd, with 3,3,4,3,3, were Ivan Dishliev & Marietta Nedyalkova.  They received two 1st places marks, both from Ken Sloan.  Riccardo Papi & Sabrina Moretti were 4th, 4,4,3,4,4.  We thought this was a particularly relaxed and rhythmic performance from these two.  Aaron & Iryna DeSoto were 5th, 5,5,5,6,5, and Ryan Lockhardt & Danelle Newman were 6th, 6,6,6,5,6.

Carolina Orlovsky-Telona will have a report on this division.

The only reigning US Champions in attendance were Peter & Alexandra Perzhu in the Smooth and they were the easy winners taking the vast majority of 1st places in all dances, 14 out of 15 in the waltz.  The only other couple to take some firsts were Nick Cheremukhin & Viktorija who were 2nd in all dances.  Kyle & Allie Spinder took 3rd in all dances and Evgeniy Malko & Anna Shabazyan were 4th in all, the latter couple looking measurably more together since we last saw them.  5th in all dances went to Mariusz Zakreski & Lindsay Ray whose energetic performance was softened somewhat since we last saw them.  6th in all dances went to Peter Hahn & Jude Coraldi and 7th were Kyle & Christina Campbell.

Elizabeth Knoll will have the full report for Dance Beat.

We had another easy winner in the Latin.  Andrey Tarasov & Yulia Kuznetsova showed us their crisp, accurate dancing to take the overwhelming majority of 1st places.  Only 1 judge, Sharon Savoy, demurred, placing them 5,5,5,5,2.  The partnership of Sasha Althukov & Cheyenne Murillo were 2nd in all dances.  It is amazing to think that this young lady was so recently dancing pro-am.  Well done!  Sergiy Kvashyn & Olga Ginzburg were 3rd in all dances and really gave a great performance.  This man has such a lithe and rhythmic body.  One judge, Chantal Leclerc, placed them to win 1,1,1,2,1.  4th in all dances fell to Pavel Balykin & Meaghan Mendoza;  5th were Simeon & Kora Stoynov 5,6,6,5,5 and 6th, Maxim Kapitanikov & Natalia Fridmanovich 6,5,5,6,6.

Giocomo Steccaglia & Melissa Dexter will report on this division for Dance Beat.

The Open Amateur Ballroom gave us a good competition for 1st place.  NDCA US Champs, Andres & Veronika End held on and won all dances but they were pushed hard by recent immigrants, Angelo Gaetano & Clarissa Morelli in waltz where both couples took 4 1st places and by Marek Klepadlo & Liana Bakhtiarova in the foxtrot.  Angelo & Clarissa were 2nd overall 2,2,2,3,2 and Marek & Liana were 3rd overall, 3,3,3,2,3.  Ruslan Kalyuzhnyy & Kseniya Sovenko were 4th in all dances, 5th went to Jonathan & Hannah Baily 5,6,5,5,5 and 6th Tyler Wilson & Annie Seeley 6,5,6,6,6.

For us on the sidelines, the Amateur Latin was the hardest to call, but the judges had fairly clear winners.  Francesco Bertini & Sabrina Hanzi won all dances, all but rumba with a majority of 1st placements.  2nd in all dances were Ron & Liza Garber.  With 3,4,3,3,3, Andrey Voloshko & Kateryna Kyrylenko took 3rd.  We had never seen this couple before.  They started very strongly in the semifinal but faded somewhat in the final.  4th were Teleryck Iankiev & Natella Devitskaya 4,3,5,5,4.  We were a little surprised at those 5th placements for this couple.  5th were Stepan Yeritsyan & Nadia Kyrylenko 5,5,4,4,5 (Nadia also competed as a pro-am) and 6th, Trevor & Emilie Guthrie.

The Pro-Am Open Scholarships closed the afternoon session and were some of the strongest pro-am divisions of the week.  Sincha Sincahoen w/ Max Sinitsa won the A. Division 1,1,1,2.  2nd and 3rd in this division were decided by a Rule 10 tiebreak.  Kelly Morikawa w/ Jonathan Atkinson was the runner-up with 4,2,3,1 over Natalie Rezai w/ Slawek Sochacki 2,3,2,3.

Joanne Smith w/ Sharon Levit was the easy winner in the B, taking all dances with clear majorities.  2nd was Joanne Tatum w/ Mariusz Zakrzewski 2,2,2,2 and 3rd, Susan Haynes w/ Sergey Nekrasov 3,3,3,4.

Rising star, Sophia D’Angelo w/ Ilya Reyzin won the C taking all dances with clear majorities.  2nd was Sue Eldred w/ Artem Plakhotnyi 3,3,3,2 and 3rd Charlotte Carey w/ Kostadin Bidjourov 4,2,2,5.

In a tradition begun last year, the evening concluded with a rowdy party featuring Brent Mills, Mark Weiss, Eddie Melendez and organizer Mikal Watkins in an all star band for dancing and singing.  Paul Holmes even led the ensemble in a British version of “Ride Sally Ride.”  Perhaps the open bar lent tune to his vocals?

This was the biggest year so far for the Vegas Open and we’re sure it will only continue to grow if today’s extravaganza is any indication!

Dancesport’s Busiest Day!

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In what we think may be the busiest day at a dancesport competition so far in 2015, Vegas Open began at 7:00 AM yesterday with barely a break until the end at around midnight.  It was pro-am rhythm day and it was certainly all about rhythm yesterday. With many quarter-final and semifinal rounds at all levels.

For the professionals we switched to the international styles for the Rising Star divisions.  Vlad Shahov & Ekaterina Popova were the winners of the Ballroom, taking 1st in all dances.  They had the majority of 1st places in four dances but a couple were closer than we might have thought.  They won the waltz 6 to 4 and the QS 7 to 5.  There were 13 judges.  They had mostly 1’s and 2’s but did pick up 5th place in all dances from judge, Linda Dean.  Stefano Di Brino & Bianka Zubrovska were 2nd with 2,2,3,2,2 and they were the couple that took the majority of the 1st places not given to the winners.  Nick Cheremukhin & Viktorija were 3rd, 3,3,2,3,3, and they had 1st places in all dances except the QS.  4th were Christian Radvan & Kristina Kudelko 5,4,5,4,4;  5th Oleksiy Buravenko & Victoria Karzukhina 4,5,4,5,5;  6th Slava & Valeria Kostaniets.

Sasha Althukov & Cheyenne Murrillo were the easy winners of the Latin with a perfect score of 13 first places in the jive and samba and almost all firsts in the other dances.  It was a much closer race for second resulting in a 3 to 2 decision.  Maxim Kapitanikov & Natalia Fridmanovich were the victors placing 3,3,2,2,2 over Simeon & Kora Stoynov with 2,2,3,3,3.  With 4,5,4,4,4 Oleksiy & Carley Lytvyn were 4th.  Artjom Smigelju & Oxana Kashkina were 5th 5,4,6,6,5; Kirill Nikitin & Jenya Kanchukova were 6th 6,6,5,5,6 and Artyom Klimenov & Giulia Nuzio were 7th.

Kyle & Allie Spinder won the Open Pro Showdance.

The Open Pro-Am Scholarships were danced in the evening session.  In the B, Elena Cormio w/ Edwin Torres won all 5 dances.  2nd went to Anush Boyajian w/ Mariusz Zakrzewski 2,2,2,3,2 and 3rd to Bernadette Straatsman w/ Felipe Telona Jr. 3,4,4,2,3.

Sophia D’Angelo w/ Ilya Rezin did a great job to win all dances in the Open C.  2nd place fell to Nancy Rappoport w/ Sergey Shapoval, again in all dances and 3rd went to Pat Bodin w/ Antonio Conde, 3,4,3,3,4.

A very strong Nadia Kireyko w/ Daniel Vasco won all dances in the A followed by Jessica Sweeney w/ Jeremy Piling with all 2nd’s.  3rd in all was Nicole Huerta w/ Edwin Torres.Today is all about the Smooth for the pro-ams with another 7:00 AM start and tonight we look frweard to all the Open Professional and Amateur divisions.

Vegas Open over 8,000

This year’s Vegas Open is the largest in its history with over 8,000 entries.  The event began with the international styles – both ballroom and Latin – for the pro-ams.  This was truly a full day of dancing.

The largest of the open scholarships in both styles were in the C divisions.  The C Ballroom was the tightest event but the winner overall was Sally He w/ Enzo Zappia 3,2,2,1,1.  Close behind was Deborah Errico w/ Dariusz Michalski 1,3,1,2,3.  Taking the last of those 1st places and 3rd overall was Annie Chen w/ Denis Kutepov 4,1,3,3,2.  Marina Sanchez Torres w/ Andrea Faraci was 4th, 2,4,4,4,4;  Jeanine Cutter w/ Giocomo Agrello was 5th in all and Charlotte Carey w/ Kostadin Bidjourov was 6th.  This began as a semifinal.

The A and B Ballroom divisions were both straight finals.  Vinnie Miller w/ Denis Kutepov won all dances in the A.  Runner up, also in all dances, was Irene Lau w/ Mikhail Avdeev, 3rd went to Chritine Yang w/ Mariusz Zakrzewski 3,3,3,4,3 and 4th to Jenica Kalisch w/ Raffaele Sabato 4,4,4,3,4.

Michelle Peng w/ Mikhail Avdeev won the B, placing 2,1,1,1,1.  Erika Hristova w/ Artem Plakhotnyi won the waltz and was 2nd in the other 4 to take 2nd overall.  Laura White w/ Andrea Faraci was 3rd 4,3,3,3,3;  Joyce Lo w/ Guennadi Iakounine was 4th 3,4,4,4,4 and James Coltharp w/ Olga Chekhova was 5th.

In the C Latin Rhonda Lynch w/ Stephen McCann was a comfortable winner in all dances.  Debbie Wright w/ Mark Baker took 2nd with 2,2,3,4,2.  Sally He w/ Enzo Zappia added a 3rd place here to go with her win in the Ballroom, placing 3,3,2,2,3.  4th was Michael Roybal w/ Carly Lytvyn 4,4,4,3,4;  5th Janet Shemanske w/ Genadi Lulchev 5,5,6,5,6;  6th Olivia Hudson w/ Marcus Johnson 6,6,5,6,5.

Saina Hadden won all dances in the A, the smallest open scholarship of the night.  2nd went to Brittni Gonzalez w/ Ivan Dishliev 3,2,2,2,3 and 3rd to Vera Xu w/ Jakub Zeglin 2,3,3,3,2.

Cindy Mishlove w/ Vartan Zakhariants won all dances to take the B Latin.  Colette Marotto w/ Oleksil Lytvyn was 2nd in all dances and Jennifer Chan w/ Denis Podolsky was 3rd in all.  Joyce Lo w/ Guennadi Iakounine was 4th 4,4,4,4,5 and Olivia Hudson w/ Marcus Johnson was 5th 5,5,5,5,4.

There were also 2 Rising Star Professional events, both in American Style and both starting with semifinals.  Aaron & Iryna DeSoto had a fairly easy time with the Rhythm, winning all dances with a clear majority of 1st places.  We agreed with the judges that they were easily the best.  2nd spot went to Slash Sharan w/ Meghan Anderson 2,2,2,2,3 and 3rd to Jonathan Green w/ Rachel Neilson 3,3,3,3,2.

The Smooth was a little closer but the winners were Mariusz Zakrzewski & Lynnsay Ray, home town favorites.  They won 3 dances and placed 2nd in foxtrot.  They had the majority of 1st places in the 3 dances they won.  Winners of the foxtrot were Adrian & Hannah Dydynski and they placed 2nd in the remaining 3 dances.  3rd spot in all dances fell to Slava & Valeria Kostaniets.

Today is even busier than yesterday with the pro-am Rhythm heats beginning at 7:00 AM and continuing throughout the day.

“Kiss Me Honey, Honey, Kiss Me!

It was a blast from the past to see legendary Paul Killick dancing with world Cabaret and Latin icon, Hanna Karttunen, in the show at Heritage.

Educating Maryland!

Report by Didio Barrera
Photos by Timeline Media

As I mentioned on our blogs at www.dancebeat.com, this year’s Maryland Danceport Championships was an education when it came to professional dancing. 

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