• Open Pro Latin Open Pro Latin
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It was a small affair with a 7-couple final in the Professional Latin competition, where the top three couples in the tour took the lead as well. Dmitry & Olena Nikishkin won all five dances, second overall went to Artur Tarnavskyy & Anastasia Danilova placing second in three dances and third in the paso, jive and third was awarded to Hayk Balasanyan & Emilia Poghosgan, they took third in the first three dances and placed second in the paso, jive. Sergiy Samchynskyy & Yuliya Besarab were fourth 5,4,4,4,5, but they were third only by one dance Riccardo Pacini & Sonia Spadoni shared some of those marks and almost placed third but in the end they were overall fourth place with these marks 4,5,5,5,4. Fifth place was awarded to Senso Makhaye & Agniezka Strojek 6,6,7,7,6, and seventh position was awarded to Pavel Cherdantsau & Svetlanta Rudkovskaya.

• Dmitry Nikishkin & Olena Shvets-Nikishkin Dmitry Nikishkin & Olena Shvets-Nikishkin
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The Latin front-runners, Dmitry & Olena, continued their winning streak in the Star International Latin Tour with total points of 132.71, winning this challenge, as you will see, basically by 2 points. Dmitry & Olena Nikishkin received the second best score in their solo getting a 90.71 overall from the judges. When it came to the audience they were third, despite an early lead in this category, but as you will see a hairline separated the top three couples in this department and they got 12 points for this effort. In the end their 30 points for winning all five dances in the group competition gave them a small lead but good enough for them to win this leg. But in the entire race this moves them up to 2nd.

• Hayk Balasanyan & Emilia Pogosyan Hayk Balasanyan & Emilia Pogosyan
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Second on this leg went to Hayk Balasanyan & Emilia Poghosgan with a score of 130.29 just a couple of points or so under the winning couple, Dmitry & Olena. They got the best solo score, a 93.29. Their popularity was also the best winning the audience favorite extra $500.00 and getting an excellent 15 points for this effort. However, their weak link was the five-dance event, here as you saw earlier, they placed third in three dances and second in two - 22 points good enough to capture second place overall, but not good enough to win the leg. However, Hayk & Emila continue to lead the tour overall.

• Artur Tarnavsky & Anastasia Danilova Artur Tarnavsky & Anastasia Danilova
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Third place in this second leg of the Latin tour was awarded to Artur Tarnavskyy & Anastasia Danilova, who placed second as you saw earlier in the five dance event and managed to get overall a 121.79 points. When it came to the tour portion their weak link was their solo performance. They were third overall with an 86.29 points awarded to them by the judges. They got 12.5 points from the audience and 23 points from their five-dance event a very good score but not good enough to push them further than third position. After this leg they have slipped from 2nd to 3rd overall, but just about 1 point behind Dmitry & Olena – a very small margin.

Two more couples made this leg tour final, Riccardo Pacini & Sonia Spadoni who placed fourth with 94.79 points and Senzo Makhaye & Agnieszka Strojek who were fifth with 73.71 points.

You can view the full overall scores here - should be updated later today.

The American Smooth was also a good event here at the Volunteer State Challenge and the winners were Matt Rivers & Maliwan Diemer winning three dances and placing second in the foxtrot. Second overall was awarded to Maksyn Lototskyy & Sarah Haworth 2,2,1,2, and third went to Michael & Lucy Fitzgerals 3,4,3,3.

• Open Pro Ballroom Open Pro Ballroom
• Open Pro Rhythm Open Pro Rhythm
• Open Pro Smooth Open Pro Smooth
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The Professional American Rhythm was also a fun heat to watch and here Andre & Natalie Paramonov placed first in all dances, Maksym Lototskyy & Sarah Haworth took all seconds and Jonathan Chen & Meilssa Kellor were third overall 3,3,3,3,4.

The Ballroom was a three couple final and here Vladislav Shakhov & Ekaterina Popova won all dances. Second place went to Pavel Cherdantsau & Svetlanta Rudkovskaya and third was awarded to Anton Domansky & Ersi Nie.

The Top Teacher for the entire Global Series 2015/16 was Clive Phillips and his student, Janice Stanton, was the overall Top Student as well as the top Female Student.  Eric Lanniger (teacher Kat Baumgardner) was the top male student.

With this the Volunteer State Challenge concluded. We hope to come back next year to the “music city” where entertainment is the middle name.

Volunteer Hosts Global Finale

This year Volunteer State Dance Challenge hosts Global Finale.

Nashville, TN, and the Volunteer State Challenge, are hosting the finale of the Global Series of competitions. This series, of which Volunteer is a founding event, is one of the older competition series. Tonight the year’s top awards will be presented.

So far the pro-am competitors have completed 3 of their styles – Smooth, Latin and Ballroom leaving the Rhythm to fill today’s program.

• Open B PA Ballroom Open B PA Ballroom
• Open B PA Smooth Open B PA Smooth
• Deborah Errico w/ Darius Michalski Deborah Errico w/ Darius Michalski
• Lynn Shanhan w/ Darius Mosteika Lynn Shanhan w/ Darius Mosteika
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For us the best two open scholarships have both been in the “B” age group and they have been in the Smooth and Ballroom. The Smooth produced a win for Lynn Shanahan w/ Darius Mosteika who placed 1,1,1,2. The runner-up was Wende Stambaugh w/ Ben Ermis 2,2,2,1. A strong gentleman competitor, Roberto Schipp w/ Shalene Archer was 3rd in all dances. In the Ballroom Deborah Errico w/ Darius Michalski was the winner in a very tight Rule 11 tiebreak. She placed 2,1,1,2,1T. Once again Wende w/ Ben was the runner-up and the other half of the tie with 1,2,2,1,1T. Ming Wang w/ Shalene Archer was 3rd 4,3,3,4,3.

• Matt Rivers & Maliwan Diemer Matt Rivers & Maliwan Diemer
• Pro RS Smooth Pro RS Smooth
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We also saw all of the Pro RS events last night. The American Style Smooth was the largest and produced a result where all couple finished in the same position in all dances. The winners were Matt Rivers & Maliwan Diemer. 2nd Maksym Lototsky & Sarah Haworth; 3rd Michael & Lucy Fitzgerald; 4th Brian & Lauren Baker; 5th Tyler Shultz & Rebecca Berryhill; 6th Sorin Obreja & Violletta Nicolay.

• Pro RS Latin Pro RS Latin
• Pro RS Rhythm Pro RS Rhythm
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The Rhythm had 3 entries and resulted in a win for Jonathan Chen & Melissa Kellor 1,1,1,1,2. Taking the mambo and 2nd overall were Christopher Wayne & Juanita Simanekova 2,2,2,2,1. Matt Wilson & Elena Gallegos were 3rd.

Two couples contested the Latin and the win went to Riccardo Pacini & Sonia Spadoni in all dances. 2nd were Stanislav Morozov & Ksenia Tashkinova. Anton Domansky & Ersi Nie were the only contestants in the Ballroom.

• Pro Showdance Pro Showdance
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We also saw the Open Pro Showdance and this went to the adagio team of Jay Holmes & Nia Nauman. Matt & Maliwan were 2nd and Stanislav & Ksenia were 3rd.

Tonight, here at Volunteer we will see the 2nd leg of the Star International Latin Tour, so be sure to tune in at home here on the Dance Beat website and vote for your favorite couple. Remember! Your vote counts towards the final score!