Comments on the Event and couples

David Medeiros welcomed all dancers at The Volunteer State Challenge July 26-28th, held at the beautiful Loews Vanderbilt in Nashville.

Latin Tour “Does” Music City!

Yesterday night at the Volunteer State Challenge the second leg of the “Star International Latin Tour” took place.

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Good Night for Nick & Viktorija

Last night at Volunteer State was a great night for Nick Cheremukhin & Viktorija.  They won both the Open Professional Smooth and Ballroom. 

First up was the Ballroom – an event with 3 high-quality entries.  Nick & Viktorija placed 1T,2,1,1T,1 in a close 3-way decision.  The runners-up were Sergiy Samchynskyy & Yuliya Besarab who placed 1T,1,2,3,2 and 3rd were Martin & Liene Reinbold 3,3,3,1T,3.  Nick & Viktorija are comparative newcomers to the Ballroom field so this was an impressive win against two high-quality opponents.

In the Smooth, their more accustomed style, we felt they were easy winners and indeed they had a huge majority of 1st places in all dances although they did get a couple of scores lower.  Comfortably 2nd in all dances were Mark Short & Alyssa Kark.  A ‘Rule 11’ separated 3rd and 4th places with the result falling to Dennis Woods & Amber Reich (4,3,4,3) over Dave Hannigan & Maggie Toth (3,4,3,4).  5th in all dances were Jimmy Mulligan & Dani Atkins and 6th Michael & Suzi DeSante.  The event started with a semifinal.

The Open Pro Rhythm finished in the same way as the Rising Star the night before.  Maks Lototskyy & Sarah Haworth were once again the winners and they won all dances.  They had the majority of 1st places in all dances, but swing was a close call as they had 7 first places to the 6 of runners up, Erwin & Iwona Rybccynski who were 2nd in all dances.  3rd were Christopher Wayne & Juanita Simanekova (3,3,4,3,3);  4th Rex & Rachel Jones (4,4,3,4,4) and 5th, Blake Glaskox & Kelsey Medeiros.

Volunteer State 2014

The Volunteer State, a Global Spectrum event, is underway right now at the Lowes Vanderbilt in Nashville.  The hotel has undergone quite a facelift since last year – the whole bar area is new and the guest rooms have all been upgraded.  The ballroom with its chandeliers is very elegant as always.

Over the first 2 days the pro-ams have completed their events in Smooth, Ballroom and Latin.  The bronze divisions were the largest.

It was a good day for the gentlemen students and teacher Shalene Archer in the Ballroom as her students won 2 of the Open Scholarships.  Ming Wang won all dances in the A and Rick Brooks won the B (1,1T,1,2,3).  2nd in the A was Wende Stambough w/ Ben Ermis (2,2,2,2,3) and 3rd was Danielle Mege w/ Jari Muller (3,3,3,3,2).  In the B Karen Weber w/ Maks Lototskyy was 2nd (3,1T,2,1,1), Cindy Blanchard w/ Tibor Kerekes was 3rd (2,3,3,3,2) and Jackie Johnson w/ Ben Ermis was 4th.

In the Open B Latin Scholarship Kush Smith w/ Tibor Kerekes was the winner in all dances.  Jan McElroy w/ Andriy Velychko was 2nd (3,2,2,2,4), Marguerite Daniels w/ Erik Pali took 3rd (4,3,4,3,2) and Anna Prusinski w/ Robert Surowiec was 4th (2,4,3,4,3).

The evening before Alla Neystadt w/ Eric Pali won all dances in the Open B Smooth Scholarship.  Wende Stambaugh w/ Ben Ermis was 2nd in all dances, Bonni Silfer w/ Jeremy Gatlin was 3rd and Charlie Carboneau w/ Kelly Bartlett was 4th.  

There was also a “Solo Scholarship” that attracted over 20 entries. The winner of this was Talia Wong w/ Krisztian Timar.

All of the Rising Star Pro divisions were held on Friday night (although there were no entries in the Latin.)  The largest event was the Smooth with 6 entries.  The Winners, all dances, were Dennis Woods w/ Amber Reich.  2nd in all dances were Dave Hannigan w/ Maggie Toth and 3rd were Jimmy Mulligan & Dani Atkins.  Jimmy & Dani also won the Open Showdance.

Maks Lototskyy & Sarah Haworth won all dances in the Rhythm.  2nd in all were Erwin & Iwona Rybczynski and 3rd in all Christopher Wayne & Juanita Simanekova.

There was only 1 entry in the Ballroom – Nick Cheremukhin & Viktorija.

“Wow!”  It’s the only word! Wow, is the word to describe Saturday night at this year’s Vegas Open.  Great dancing, great atmosphere, great live music and to top it off, a fabulous party!

Check out the videos of the professionals by clicking our video link on the home page! (SuperShag)

Halloween In Indianapolis
Global Finale!

U.S dancers could be found in all corners of the country on Halloween weekend as 3 events were taking place in different parts of the country.  I was in Indiana attending the North American Imperial Star Ball which also hosted the finale of the Global Dancesport series.  Hosted by David Medeiros and Julie Stadler at the Sheraton Indianapolis at Keystone Crossing, the competition ran smoothly and in good spirit, thanks to the help of music director Rick Popp and Mark Brock using the opportunity to practice his karaoke styling.  The only place this weekend I am pretty sure where you could do an international VW to "We Are The Champion", original version!!

I would like to mention some of the pro/am competitors who were at the top of their game this weekend.

In the Bronze Smooth category, Alicia Richhart dancing with Christopher Spalding, Cheryle Russo dancing with Josh Tilford, Tom Travgott dancing with Shalene Archer and Charlie Carboneau dancing with Kelly Bartlett.

In Silver Smooth, congratulations to Stacey Tilford dancing with Josh Tilford and Judy Renau dancing withBen Ermis.

Open Smooth "A" went to Karen Jacob dancing with Christopher Spakding and the "B" to  Wendy Stambaugh dancing with Ben Ermis.

Rhythm
In the Bronze, Alyssa Ivanson dancing with Tony Didier, Peggy Lavinski dancing with Aleko Khutsidze and Tim Bolin dancing with Shalene Archer.
Silver, Chris Wilson dancing with Emilia Goldberg.
 
Open, Sophia D'Angelo dancing with Ilya Reyzin.  Sophia was also the recipient on top overall lady for the Global tour.

Ballroom
Bronze, Stacey Tilford dancing with Josh Tilford, Nancy Farrell dancing with Andrea Stefano.

Silver, Dawn Phillips dancing with Jari Muller, Donna Torsney dancing with Ben Ermis.

Open, Joyce Lo dancing with Guennadi Lakounine, Sherry Borchelt dancing with Andrea Stefano.

Latin
Bronze, Peggy Lavinski dancing with Aleko Khutsidze, Elizabeth Callahan dancing with Gert Roslander
Silver, Karen Rembold dancing with Gert Roslender

In the Pro category it was a very successful weekend for Roman Malkhasyan & Viktoriya Kleyman, they won the RS Rhythm and Smooth, the Open Rhythm and came in second to Adrian & Hannan Dydynsky in the Open Smooth.
 
The Open Ballroom winners in all dances were Michal Towliszew & Tiffany Fung followed by Pavel Cherdantsau& Svetlana Rudkovskaya who also won the Showdance.  

Also a good show for Jason Rivers & Elisa Seja who won the RS Ballroom and came in 2nd in the RS Smooth.

The Open Latin went to Dmytro Kovalenko & Nina Kovalenko.  
But none of these dancers were happier than Josh Tilford who was the overall recipient of the top teacher price for the Global tour taking home $10,000!

Congrats to all, and thank you to David and Julie.