DanceSport Talk

I'm so pleased that Michal Malitowski and Joanna Leunis finally won the UK Open Professional Latin Championships. They beat out Andrej Skufca and Katarina Venturini for the win on Thursday night. Joanna first caught my attention when she was still partnered with Louis van Amstel, and she has just continued to improve ever since. I've always enjoyed the energy and complexity of this couple's choreography. While risky, it has always been performed so effortlessly that it is a pure joy to watch them. Last year's crowd reaction when they didn't win showed that others have been feeling the same way about this dynamic couple. photos here

The IPDSC held it's inaugural Professional World Championship this past weekend. What a ride that was! For those who don't know what the initials stand for, it refers to a new "World Championship" professional title division created by the IDSF.

What happened? First, the WDC fought a battle of words trying to intimidate prospective competitors from taking part. Then, a couple of days before the event, Donnie Burns and company showed up with a lawyer trying to keep the event from happening. Then three top professionals further tried to intimidate couples by telling them that if they took part they would not be able to dance in the UK Championships next month, which wasn't true. In the end it came and went without further ado, but the participants were not recognized names so it doesn't really mean much for this year in the great scheme of things. What does matter is that it looks like a war is now officially on between these different DanceSport competition management groups and what they represent. It's a shame that it had to come to this, because Dance should be a visual expression of freedom and joy and romance, not visions of lawyers and judges.

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I was so saddened to hear that Canadian Ten Dance champions Sharone Levit and Julia Vokhmina ended their partnership January 10. I always enjoyed this couple. They were well matched physically and while Julia tended to look a little less confident at times, I thought they danced very well together. I first saw Sharone at the 2003 SnowBall Classic and his strength and presentation caught my eye immediately. Julia always had very striking costumes that were daring yet always elegant and classy at the same time. I wish them both well and hope they are able to keep dancing with new partners at the same level they've enjoyed recently.

2006 was quite a pivotal year in DanceSport. So many things happened, and so many partner changes took place, that everything feels fresh as we go into 2007.

Consider these partner issues:

• William Pino and Alessandra Bucciarelli retired in October.
  
• Domenico Soale and Gioia Cerasoli turned pro in October, leaving the door open for Arunas Bizokas and Edita Daniute as the new Standard World Champions.
  
• Just last week Russian Latin champions Denis Kuznetsov and Maria Tzaptashvili have gone their separate ways, with Dennis planning to become a coach and adjudicator.
  
• In September, Dancing with the Stars sensation Maksim Chmerkovskiy split from his professional partner Ekaterina Lapaeva.
  
• Slovenian champions Misa Cigoj and Anastazija Novojilova split in April, after five years.
  
• Also in April, Oksana Nikiforova teamed up with Eugen Vosnyk, after longtime rumors that she and Franco Formica were not going to continue.
  
• Kevin Clifton of England partnered with Rachael Heron in September. I look forward to great things from this couple.
  
• Riccardo Cocchi and Joanne Wilkinson ended their partnership less than a year after turning pro, after Joanne apparently decided to retire to become a coach and DanceSport judge.
  
• Andrei Mosejcuk of Germany teamed up with Izabela Janachowska of Poland who has only danced Latin for the past couple of years. This should be interesting. They'll represent Poland.
  
• Vadim Garbuzov and Kathrin Menzinger split in a messy division that taints her with a very mean-spirited brush.
  
• Evgeni Ryupin and Jana Pokrovskaya form a new professional Latin partnership, representing Russia.
  
• Poland's Blanka Winiarska has teamed up with Georgiy Korolyov in a new partnership representing Poland. I always liked her with Marek Fiksa but she's been hidden from significance since that partnership ended.

Remember these pivotal events:

• ISDF forms a professional division, the IPDSC.
  
• The WDC announces that it will host the 2007 World Pro-Am Championships, raising the hackles of NDCA.
  
• WDC and IDSF go after each other with World Champion title matches and WDC involvement in amateur sanctioning.
  
• Edite Daniute tests positive for a banned substance that was an undisclosed ingredient in a common weight control product.
  
• Mirko Gozzoli and Alessia Betti finally won the British Open Professional Ballroom title at Blackpool.

Yes, it has been an interesting year. Looking forward to what 2007 will offer up in the world of DanceSport.