Melia -

November 5, 2010

Riccardo and Yulia Cha Cha in Japan

Above is a video of U.S. Latin champions Riccardo Cocchi and Yulia Zagoruychenko dancing recently in Tokyo at the World Superstars Latin Dance Festival. This is an annual festival (there’s one for standard ballroom as well), where the top Latin and ballroom dancers are invited to perform a showdance in each style. I’ve always wanted to go, but have never been able to. I’ve heard it’s prohibitively expensive! But I almost always buy the DVDs of the performances (they’re usually available from DanceVision), which come out a couple weeks later.

According to this write up, the Latin performers this year included, in addition to Riccardo and Yulia, my favorites Sergey Surkov and Melia, and Slavik Kryklyvyy and Anna Melnikova, as well as current world champs Michael Malitowski and Joanna Leunis. Some year I must go!

May 27, 2009September 20, 2022

SURPRISE SURPRISE … NOT

Joanna Leunis and Michael Malitowski won the Latin Pro Championship tonight at Blackpool (for the second year in a row now). Riccardo Cocchi and Yulia Zagoruychenko came in second, Franco Formica and Oxana Lebedew in third, Sergey Surkov and Melia fourth, Maurizio Vescovo and Melinda Torokgyorgy fifth, Markus Homm and Ksenia Kasper sixth.

Am fairly pleased with the results I guess… though unsurprising of course. At least Michael and Joanna didn’t win across the board; Riccardo and Yulia placed first in Jive. I like Joanna and Michael and think they’re an excellent pair; I just don’t want the judges to make all others wait until they retire to advance.

Expecting a bit of commentary from Eleanor and Becca soon!

Update: Eleanor says:

“Last night was the best comp I have ever been to! Although the result is never gonna be what I want it to, there is something that made me very happy! Riccardo and Yulia placed 1st in the Jive! If I were to have my way then Maurizio wouldn’t be there but what can you do? The only other bad thing about the whole thing was that Riccardo and Yulia were in the same heat as Sergey and Melia so I usually had to choose between the two! Otherwise it was absolutely the best comp I have ever seen. Now I have to drag myself out of bed and hope I still have a voice. Xx Eleanor.”

[I personally like Maurizio though he can be a real ham 🙂 Not my favorite, but I am always very entertained by him. I haven’t seen him and Melinda dance in a while. And I don’t think I’ve ever seen Markus Homm and Ksenia Kasper?… Also, I wonder what happened to Peter and Kristina Stokkebroe? I guess that’s how Homm and Kasper got a place on the winners podium. Will be very interesting to see what happens next year when Slavik and Anna join the fracas!]

May 24, 2009

BLACKPOOL DISPATCH #2: Team USA Wins the Team Comp and Sergey & Melia Are Married

(photo from DanceBeat, taken by Andrew Miller)

Team USA won the team competition last night, as Eleanor and I had expected. Italy took second, Germany third and the UK fourth. We were beaten by Italy in Waltz and Germany in Jive, but other than that, we placed first in all dances. And — Eugene Katsevman and Maria Manusova were our second Latin couple! Go them! I was waiting to see who it’d be since Andrei Gavriline and Elena Kruyshkova retired and Anna Trebunskaya and Pavlo Barsuk seem, very upsettingly to me, to have broken up. I loved them, but oh well. Apparently with our introductory number, the Latin couples came out and did a Tango and Quickstep, then the ballroom couples did Jive and Cha Cha. According to my dispatch from Eleanor, and DanceBeat, it wowed the crowd! (Our second ballroom couple, as usual, was Victor Fung and Anna Mikhed). Eleanor also says Yulia and Riccardo are very good at Standard.

Visit DanceBeat and DanceBeatWorld for full reports.

Also, there seems to be no mention of this on DanceBeat, but Eleanor reports that Franco Formica (from team Germany) looked “mmmm” in tights and no top 🙂 Sounds very ballet!

Update: Aha, am reading up on DanceBeatWorld and seeing it WAS ballet! Formica impersonated Nureyev during their little opening introductory number! Fun! (The German team’s intro consisted of impersonations of Hollywood stars, but DBW calls Formica’s the greatest hit!; do read DBW for the rest: apparently in Italy’s opening number, the men acted as dogs and the ladies their handlers, champ Mirko Gozzoli being the unruliest dog of all, all over the stage and balcony! And England’s theme was the Circus, replete with acrobats and unicyclists, some of the senior champs of yesteryear — think Len Goodman-esque — dressed as animals. I love it.)

In another dispatch from the first day of Congress lectures, Becca reports of Sergey and Melia’s:

“Oh my GOD. Their lecture was the best I’ve ever seen in my life! They are so perfect, and they just got married too!”

Aw, I didn’t know that. Congratulations to them!

May 23, 2009

BLACKPOOL DISPATCH #1: Congress Lectures Day 1

Eleanor writes:

“Just a little something about today for you. Best lectures [see post below for definition] were given by Max [Kozhevnikov] and Beata, and Sergey and Melia. Max spoke about how he gets his ideas for showdances and they performed their Charlie Chaplin number.

Sergey and Melia spoke about Rumba and did some gorgeous demos to different pieces of music showing the different interpretations. Then there was the Chrisanne one, which I featured in … am just thankful that 99.9% of the dance world don’t know who I am because I have a feeling the DVD is going to be embarrassing.

Also the World Exhibition champions, Greg and Natalie, gave a fab final lecture.

Just waiting for the team match to start now, Germany instead of Japan. US will win by miles in my opinion!

Eleanor x”

Thanks Eleanor!

So, I haven’t seen Max Kozhevnikov and Beata’s Charlie Chaplin dance, but looked it up on YouTube here. Look at that fancy footwork for Max! I seriously love Max in this! I didn’t know they were dancing together (and I think it’s only for showdances not for competition) but I like them together!

So sorry I missed Sergey and Melia’s lecture. I love Rumba, and I love theirs and would have savored seeing their different interpretations. I think I will try to buy the DVD this year if it’s not too expensive — also to see the Chrisanne show (which I’m sure won’t be embarrassing to anyone 🙂 )!

And so tonight is the team comp (see prior post for more info on that too). I guess the four teams are the UK, the US, Germany and Italy. The way the team match works is that each country’s two best couples in each dance style – -Standard and Latin (so four couples total) take turns dancing two rounds of each individual dance (Rumba, Cha Cha, etc., and same for Standard). The scores are then added together and the country with the highest scores win that dance. Then, the scores for all nine dances are added together and the country with the highest score overall wins. I agree that the US will probably win, since we have two of the top couples in the world in each dance style — Riccardo & Yulia in Latin and Katusha & Arunas in Standard, whereas none of the other countries have top dancers in both (just one or the other). Last year was the first year the US ever won, by the way. We’ll see.

May 23, 2009

MISSING BLACKPOOL

The Blackpool Dance Festival has begun and for the first time in four years I’m missing it. So sad. I felt like I needed to save on expenses this year with the recession and all, and I was disappointed that my favorite, Slavik Kryklyvyy, likely wouldn’t be competing again, and I was aggravated with the predictability of last year’s results and figured I’m going to get frustrated all over again. So, I decided to take a year off.

But, thankfully, two wonderful young ladies from England, Eleanor and Becca, who I met from this blog, are going to do some little write-ups on the goings on later this week. They are fans of Sergey Surkov and Melia, so they’re rather perfect for this blog 🙂 In fact, today, they are modeling in the Chrisanne ballgown show in the pavilion, along with Melia!

(Here’s a picture I took in the past of the runway)

Chrisanne boutique in the pavilion.

I’ll also be keeping up via Dance Beat.

Today and tomorrow are the increasingly popular daytime Congress lectures on things like technique, performance quality dancing, and ballroom dance history by the top pros of today and yesterday, and tonight is the ridiculously exciting but somewhat goofy country team competition. The two most important nights of the week will be Wednesday and Friday, Wednesday being the Pro Latin and Friday the Pro Standard. I’ll be rooting for Sergey and Melia of course, along with the top U.S. couples Riccardo Cocchi and Yulia Zagoruychenko in Latin, Katusha Demidova and Arunas Bizokas in Standard.

Standard champion Mirko Gozzoli from Italy giving a Congress lecture,

after giving a demo of mouthwatering splended perfection with partner Alessia Betti.

Former champs the charmingly funny Luca Baricchi, with his partner Lorraine, doing the same.

American team’s elegant team comp intro from two years ago.

And last year’s. Still not sure where we were going with that what goes on in the teepee theme…

I’m excited though to be in NY for all of ballet season, for the first time in a long time this year. Between ABT and NYCB I don’t think I’ve missed a day of ballet in the past week.

But, still, it’s always nice to go away. Some of my favorite pics from the past:

(an unusually warm May day in the northern sea-side town)

Riccardo Cocchi rocking it out with his former partner, Joanne.

Karina Smirnoff when she last competed.

Sergey and Melia the first time I saw them dance and the first time they placed in the finals. Kind of funny, it looks a bit like he’s spanking her here 🙂

On the train ride from Manchester to Blackpool. Sheep! I know, why do Americans always take such pictures? It’s like we don’t have any such animals here…

Curry dinner from Taka Dance’s Japanese restaurant, which they set up in the base of the Winter Garden for the duration of the festival.

Slavik with Elena Khvorova, last time I saw Slavik compete.

Max and Yulia’s advert page in the program the year they made the top six.

The nearby beach. Pretty but cold.

Cheesy, Vegas-y “Eiffel Tower” that houses a lot of casinos and pinball machines, along with pseudo-Vegas-type shows.

Day trip to Liverpool, in between Latin and Standard finals.

The always happening Ruskin Hotel where people like Maks Chmerkovskiy can often be found.

Arunas and Katusha in last year’s finals.

January 23, 2009

U.K. Championship Results are In!

Results from the UK National Championships, held this week in Bournemouth (and one of the most prestigious in the world) are now up.

Sergey and Melia take third in Latin!!! Woo hoo! They must have been so happy! And I’m so happy for them!

Slavik and Hanna didn’t do so hot though — they received a disappointing 6th place. Oh well, better next time.

Other placements were predictable:

Continue reading “U.K. Championship Results are In!”