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My photos from Sunday night, the final night of the competition, are now up. They start here.

Sorry the pictures are blurry. Someday I am going to get a professional camera, I really am.

The final day of the competition was okay, not as exciting to me as the others. For one thing, it was pretty obvious who would win. For another, there was a surprisingly low number of entries in the Rhythm category. There were only 13 in all, which means there were only two rounds: a semifinal and a final (since 12-13 people can dance on the floor at once). There are usually twice as many. So, we only got to see two rounds of the top dancers. Not enough!

Jose Decamps was himself. He’s so much fun to watch — just look at his facial expressions in my pictures! It would be worth it to see him in a one-man show. I think he’s probably the most charismatic dancer we’ve had in any of the categories for a long time.

Placing second were Emmanuel Pierre-Antoine and Julia Gorchakova, another favorite couple of mine, who I feel I hardly got a chance to see. They usually dance on the sides of the ballroom floor and I was at a table in the middle, and it all just went so fast. There just wasn’t time to run around looking for your favorites with only two rounds. From what I saw of them they looked like their usual colossally entertaining selves.

And of course Arunas and Katusha won Standard. They are just like plush satin the way they dance, so liquid smooth, so rich and luscious. Every move they make just has this satiny sheen that makes you swoon. I will always cherish the chance to watch them perform live.

And Victor Fung and Anna Mikhed, who expectedly took second, were their usual charming selves. Those two make dancing look so fun, so immensely enjoyable. She always wears this sweet, dimpled smile that looks like she is going to burst out giggling; even has a hard time making that severe Tango look. They seemed to get the most audience applause, and were called to each side of the ballroom floor a couple of times, to take bows.

Anyway, I have more to say about the competition in general, but am too tired right now… I’ve gotten home around 4:00 every morning and this morning had to get up only four hours later for a dentist appointment. In the meantime, the MDS website has some videos up — unfortunately I think they’re mostly from last year… And big huge thanks to Parker for scoring us such excellent seats 😀

My pictures from the Pro Latin and Amateur Standard championships are now up; they begin in the album here.

Latin’s my favorite competition and it was a good night, although I was sad some of my favorites — Vaidotas Skimelis & Jurga Pupelyte, Andre Paramov & Natalie, Andrei Gavriline & Elena Kruschkova — didn’t show (although Gavriline was in the audience watching).

Sometimes, that’s good though, because you have a chance to focus on others. And, I don’t know whether it was that I didn’t have Vaidotas and Andrei to fixate on or that they just danced better than ever before, but Pavlo Barsuk and Anna Trebunskaya were ON FIRE! Pavlo gets this cute little evil imp, almost vampiric, expression on his face where his eyes widen considerably and he looks so serious, so hungry, so bloodthirsty even — and all of that energy just radiates downward throughout his body and it makes him so mesmerizing to watch. She was ravishing as well. Those two danced to win. And they almost did, placing second, even beating out two couples that normally place near the top, right after Riccardo Cocchi and Yulia Zagoruychenko, who were, as expected, excellent.

Riccardo, I now know from Blackpool, has a very endearing personality, which translates into a charming dancefloor persona. I love how they interpret rhythms, slowing down and even coming to a full stop at points in order to accent their speed. When a couple just dances fast, on the beat, the whole time, it’s almost too much; it lacks a certain variety and development. And Yulia is back to dancing on her toes and making her miraculous shapes again. When she does a spiraling sous sus, she looks like a ballerina she’s so far onto the tips of her toes.

Finished uploading pictures just in time to go back to Brooklyn for tonight’s round of fun! Here are the pictures I’ve added to the album thus far, of last night’s two main championships, Professional American Smooth and Amateur Latin. I still can’t believe Jonathan Roberts and Valentina won Smooth. They had excellent choreography — lots of variety with beautiful leg lifts and dramatic drops, but overall I still think J.T. Thomas and Tomas Mielnicki (current national champs in this event) moved with more fluidity and polish, and Jonathan had a couple of little, very minor fumbles with his footwork. I’m thrilled for J & V, but just a little surprised. J.T. and Tomas had a minor mishap in which J.T. was elbowed in the nose pretty badly. Caused quite a bit of bleeding and she had to take a little time out to tend to it. Certainly shook them up a bit at the moment, but didn’t seem to hamper their final round at all. It can be dangerous out there on the dance floor though!

When I was leaving the bar during a break, I heard someone call out “Swan Lake Samba Girl.” I initially thought it was my friend Parker being silly. But it wasn’t; it was a reader, named Ching, who nicely introduced herself and told me she reads my blog regularly and really likes it. She dances both ballet and ballroom as well — I think there is a lot of crossover — and is a professor. Anyway, it’s always so wonderful (albeit surreal!) to be noticed, and to receive such nice compliments. So, thanks, Ching, you completely made my night!