Tag: Sergey Surkov

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Blackpool Pics


I’m having some internet connection problems (Time Warner can’t come out till the end of the blasted week!), but am trying to post as many pictures as I can between crashes. I’m updating (have about 300 in all, but am trying to narrow it down to 100-150), but here is my photo album thus far.

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Oh, Katusha! Jose!

 

Well, I had really wanted either Arunas Bizokas and Katusha Demidova or Jose Decamps and Joanna Zacharewicz to win, but I understand why Andrei Gavriline and Elena Kryuschkova (pictured above, photo by Jeffrey Dunn from America’s Ballroom Challenge site) did. As host Ron Montez said, they are by far the couple with the most experience dancing together. The judges value that longevity and commitment, and they’re the most used to each other. While I thought their Rhumba long program was a perfect representation of that dance, flawlessly executed with a very difficult lift, where he rolled her not only down but up and down again all in the same breath, I still can’t help but be a slight bit bored by them. Still can’t figure out why. On the other hand, I’m not in love with Standard and yet I can’t take my eyes of Katusha.

 

The minute she and Arunas leave the floor I’m sad and want them back. To me it says something that I’m not in love with their dance style but they still take my breath away. And she looks so much better with him than with her former partner, Jonathan Wilkins. Their long program just blew me away, from their frame, their sweep, their elegance — they’re a world class couple and it shows. Of all competitors in tonight’s championship, Katusha is the highest ranked internationally, placing second with Jonathan last year at Blackpool. Andrei and Elena didn’t even make the semifinals.

I loved Jose Decamps too — no one does the Mambo like he does. No one! No one does those crazy lightening fast-jumps and has all that liquid upper body action. The Afro-Cuban styling at the beginning with all that back movement and those rib-cage isolations — that was insane! It’s like he’s a rubber band! The man has no vertebra. The problem with them as a couple is that I think he outperforms Joanna by miles. She’s a good dancer, but he’s so much better that there’s a lack of balance. He can’t help it of course. He shouldn’t dance down. Who was his last partner; does anyone know? I know he was once with Cheryl Burke, but that was a while ago, I thought. Well, my advice to the top Rhythm people is: Joanna and Emmanuel Pierre-Antoine should get back together, and Jose needs a new partner.

And J.T. Thomas and Tomas Mielnicki: I like them a lot and I know how much she loves Broadway theater-style dance. They constructed a perfect foxtrot / cabaret routine, with each dance shown in equal measure and some nice connections between them. But I just think Broadway dance doesn’t look right unless it’s on a stage. With singing. And a loud, live band. I preferred their short routine, the creative combo of Argentine and Standard tango.

And all those “ballroom cameos” in the exhibitions — how fun! Max Kozhevnikov and Yulia Zagoruychenko on twice made my night 😀 I love that “Rhythm Section” routine. It’s a classic for them and it never loses its charm. I love her razor sharp precision. She just nails every movement, and I love how they play with the rhythms and switch back and forth between them so fluently. I think he’s a wonderful guy, but I do think she outdances him. So, though I’ll miss them as a couple, I think their split was for the best, and I can’t wait to see her with her new partner, Riccardo Cocchi.

And what a treat were Valentin Chmerkovskiy and Valeriya Kozharinova! Ooh, he’s just so sexy! He reminds me a bit of (top pro dancer) Sergey Surkov. Valentin and Valeriya are an amateur couple, as are the last couple to perform, Anna Demidova and Igor Mikushov. Both do well in amateur comps, particularly the latter couple. Couples like these are what I mean by competitive amateur dancers who have sponsors, dance full-time, and are nearly as good as their pro counterparts. You’ll recognize the last names of Valentin and Anna — they both come from big dance families 🙂

I really enjoyed Ron Montez. He was very good at explaining what the judges looked for and what was good about each couple. And he taught you some vocabulary as well. I learned a lot from him, particularly in the Standard and Smooth divisions, which I don’t know as well as Latin. I hope he returns next year.

Finally, I have to say, I’m so glad they did that little segment on John DePalma, the announcer. If you ever go to a competition in the U.S. — and everyone should! — his voice will become so familiar to you, you’ll be hearing it in your sleep for days. I always wondered about him, where he came from and how he got this job, so now I know! He’s at practically every comp in this country; those words, “Who’s your favorite couple, ladies and gentlemen?!” — Haha, I haven’t been to a championship in a while now (had to miss the New York Dance Festival this weekend, sadly…) but his voice and his words kind of bring me there anyway.

Uh, I’m sad it’s over for another year… They need to televise far far more of these.

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Vaidotas and Jurga Take Second With Splendidly Evocative 70s Style Showdance :)

 

Sorry it’s taken me so long to get this Ballroom Challenge post up!!!

I loved Vaidotas Skimelis and Jurga Pupelyte’s retro hustle-y disco-y Cha Cha / Samba! He moved so well; I’ve never seen his hips move like that! The routine had a great sense of humor and charm. I loved his bouncing around on one leg, the other extended out, their excellent lift sequence, the 70s-style costumes, and that great, very disco-y death spiral they ended with. All so Studio 54; all such fun!

 

Funny because Anna Trebunskaya and Pavlo Barsuk did a retro routine as well; theirs more jive-y and from the 50s-60s, although I felt theirs didn’t have as much spark and fun period flavor as Vaidotas and Jurga’s. At Blackpool last year there was a very popular lecture on the history of Latin dance, where the speaker used several currently competing dancers to demonstrate the looks and moves of the past, tracing them to the present. It was so interesting to see how the dances have changed over the years, becoming faster, the footwork more intricate and the movement much sharper. And with each decade you could see outside popular cultural influences; the 70s period replete with hilarious Saturday Night Fever moves. Of course we laugh now, but back then it was brilliant the way contemporary dance meshed with classical ballroom. It made me wonder what period we’re in right now? Hip hop? The movements are so sharp, so staccato, I wonder if Hip Hop (the club dance of our day) and break dancing have had something to do with it?? Hmm. Anyway, I just thought I’d include a couple of my pictures from that lecture here:

 

Here is the 50s style. How adorable is that dress! The couples danced so slowly compared to today, they danced much farther apart from each other (it being the 50s and all) and everything was very “cutesy,” meaning, the hips were less connected to the lats (back muscles), so it looked like the butt was kind of shaking cutely on its own instead of the hips being compelled to move by the shoulder blade forcing the lats down and compressing the lower back into the hip socket. (Remember the perfect Rhumba walks exhibited by Yulia Zagoruychenko in the opening exhibition? The hips are more connected to the rest of the body now; whereas back then it was more like the dancers were walking toward their toes, lightly, and, with their hips uncontrolled by the upper body, it made for a rather dainty booty-swaying action).

Here’s the cute 60s style Cha Cha, the couples still barely touching each other to maintain “a safe distance.” See how her entire body sways to one side though?

Here’ the 70s couple with their hilarious costumes and John Travolta arms.

 

And this couple — my love Sergey Surkov and his Melia 🙂 — demonstrated the contemporary Rhumba. See how, in contrast to the 60s couple above, her body is straight, only the hip slightly beginning to settle to one side? Now, the active parts of the body move one at a time, first the foot takes a step, then the shoulder pushes down on the lat muscle, pushing down on the lower back, which compels the hip to settle. It’s much more stylized, more controlled, and more subtle than the hip-swaying / entire-body-swaying movement of yore. And much harder!

Anyway, back to America’s Ballroom Challenge.

 

I loved Delyan Terziev and Boriana Deltcheva’s “Money Money Money” routine from Cabaret. And I love that they used the newer, Alan Cumming version of the song! I loved the way Delyan moved his back, the way he curved his shoulders up and over so he was hunching intentionally awkwardly at times. He kind of inhabited the decadence of Weimar, the corruption of money, in his body, the way Cumming’s Emcee did in the play. And her dress and bob were cute and she did the seductive Sally Bowles well too. I thought this was one of their better routines and I was sorry the judges didn’t rank them higher.

 

I also noticed, both in group and solo routines Andre Paramonov and Natalie like I never have before. Maybe they come across better on camera than in person since they’re a bit smaller than the others?… I don’t know, but he dances with a lot of character and charm, shows a lot of expression on his face, and she has beautiful extensions and ballet-based technique. Some of those lunges and the dip she’s doing in the picture above were breathtaking.

 

And I just want to say something about Ilya Ifraimov and Nadia Golina, who did this robotic thing that reminded me a bit of Gary and Rita Gekhman’s techno Standard showdance from a couple of years ago. It wasn’t my thing as I’m thinking it wasn’t for a lot of people, but the judges placed them first because in the showdances they seem to value creativity and uniqueness over all else. This, I think is where Jonathan Roberts was coming from with that rather odd-looking routine he created for Marie Osmond on Dancing With the Stars last season that he received so much public scrunity over. These competition judges go wild for these kind of odd-looking routines, sometimes the more out of the ordinary the better.

 

And finally, the winners, Andrei Gavriline and Elena Kryuchkova. I find their showdances to be rather bland, actually. Andrei used to teach at my old studio, so he’d perform in the showcases first with his students in the student section, then with Elena in the pro portion. Pasha and Anya though were always the main draw, their showdances having loads more flavor, cool tricks, and just overall pizzazz, though they were never ranked as high as Andrei and Elena in the comps. I think Andrei and Elena have excellent Latin technique and a quiet, subtle charm, but, while understated works in group dances, it doesn’t for showdances. I do think they deserved to win the overall.

 

It’s very weird, but I feel that Andrei on his own is one of the most amazing dancers I’ve ever seen. And on his own he seems to have a decent amount of charisma. But together they’re lacking in that department, and that’s extremely nonsensical given how in love they are and how much attention he showers on her, both during dance and outside the ballroom (I’ve seen them together a lot and they’re always all over each other!) Ballroom dance is all about partnership, though, so they have to learn how to have appeal as a couple. How do you teach that: how to have charisma when dancing together? All I know is, they need to take it up several notches if they ever want to achieve real popularity with the crowd. If that’s what they want.

Going over my notes, as far as the group numbers: I love that the camera guy focused so on Vaidotas and Jurga. Thanks camera guy! I guess others find them charismatic as well… I liked Anna and Pavlo’s close, cheek-to-cheek Argentine tango handhold at the beginning of their Cha Cha. It was different. Anna also had some great moves, some beautiful ronde de jambes en l’air (one leg circling the air), particularly coming out of a deep lunge. I liked Natalie’s beautiful Rhumba splits, which she did several times, making good use of her long legs and flexibility. I loved Delyan and Boriana’s costumes, the cherry red making them stand out brightly. They’ve moved up a notch, by the way, regularly surpassing Ilya and Nadia in the standings now, very unusual in Latin.

That’s another thing: Ron Montez kept saying he had high expectations for Anna and Pavlo, thinking they’d be at the top and possibly even winners, since they’re a new couple who’s shot up the charts recently. He should know though, unless something has changed since his day as a champ, that precisely because they’re a couple new to the finals, they would place at the bottom. Those are the ironclad rules of ballroom dancing that make these competitions so frustrating. Pavlo and Anna placed in the finals because Max and Yulia didn’t compete (Yulia, by the way, is not retired, as Montez said; only Max Kozhevnikov, her old partner with whom she danced in the exhibition, retired. She is now dancing with Italian dancer Riccardo Cocchi, but wasn’t yet ready to compete with him when this competition was filmed); last year Pasha Kovalev and Anya Garnis’s departure from competition allowed Vaidotas and Jurga into the finals. It was a given therefore that Vaidotas and Jurga would place fifth, Pavlo and Anna sixth, being the second-newest and newest respectively. That’s just the way things work. I could have told you the finalist positions before the comp happened, as could anyone who regularly attends these things.

One last thing. For anyone who tuned in a bit early and saw the end of the McNeil Lehrer Newshour where Mr. Lehrer was talking about the New York Times article arguing PBS was no longer necessary, here is that article. Regarding this show in particular, the writer, Charles McGrath, argues that PBS is now, in an attempt to get audiences, copying the networks by putting on a dance competition of their own. Mr. McGrath obviously didn’t know that this was a real competition, not a reality show of the kind seen on the networks. He also wasn’t aware that these PBS ballroom competitions have been around now for well over a decade. It’s true that they went off the air for a couple of years due to lack of funding. But they have long been a mainstay of public television. Dancing With the Stars has been around for, what, two years now? I don’t think America’s Ballroom Challenge is doing any “copying.”

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Ohhh, Vaidotas Vaidotas Vaidotas!

I know, it doesn’t exactly have the ring of “Oh, Marcelo Marcelo Marcelo!” does it? Hehe, oh we so love our Eastern European dancers and their ever so fun names (and their ingenuousness at not even thinking to Americanize them…)! But, though he looks nothing like him, Vaidotas Skimelis (whom I’ve been on about here and there throughout the comp) actually kind of reminds me of my favorite ballet dancer, mainly because of their large sizes and the kind of virility that almost naturally entails. I mean, large bone structure is difficult with Latin because speed is so important to the style — and certainly Vaidotas’s jive will never look anything like winner Max Kozhevnikov’s. But still, I like his size — as I do Marcelo’s — there’s something so sexy and romantic about a big hunk of a guy, right 🙂 Plus, difference is good! Who wants all the dancers to look the same whether it’s Latin or ballet — boring, I say!

One of the not horrible things about Pasha and Anya leaving (at least for now) the competition world is that it made room for Vaidotas and his lovely plum-haired partner, Jurga Pupelyte, to be seen, to make it to the top ranks, where they most definitely belong. I only wish he didn’t live in California! As one of the only non-tiny Latin dancers, he’d be perfect size-wise for me as a teacher. But of course I shouldn’t even be thinking of private lessons because they are too expensive! So, good rather that he lives all the way out in California…

Anyway, here are a few more pics of my favorite couples and other stuff I did in Florida:

Emmanuel Pierre Antoine and Julia Gorchakova, a super fun couple with creative routines and great show quality whom I wanted to take American Rhythm, but who ended up placing third.

Matt and Karen Hauer, semifinalists in American Rhythm and second-place finishers in the National Mambo championships, who teach at my former studio. He does do a mean Mambo, I think second only to Jose DeCamps’s, and they’re young and in love and cute and their dancing reflects all that 🙂

America’s sweethearts, Anna Mikhed and Victor Fung, second-place, as always, in International Standard. Okay, they may not be as perfect technique-wise as Jonathan Wilkins and Katusha Demidova, but they’re the king and queen of charm, those two.

The adorable Anna Trebunskaya (from Dancing W/ Stars) and her new partner, Pavlo Barsuk. They placed sixth in the finals, which is excellent for them.

Hehe, am I a paparazzi in the making or what? Here’s her hubby Jonathan Roberts (the brown-haired guy here, also of DWTS) intently watching her. She’d look out in the audience for him and he’d give her a little wave and a wink and she’d smile like she was on cloud nine. So cute!

Very sexy Latin couple that I like a lot, Nikolai Shpakov and Tatiana Banko. Friends keep telling me Nikolai (who resides in NY) would be a good teacher for me … But of course I am not listening since I can’t afford ballroom lessons anymore…

Aw, the just-displaced now former National Latin champs Andrei Gavriline and Elena Kruychkova. They are an immensely good couple and no one flies across that dance floor like Andrei. He’s truly beautiful to watch; so slender and light-footed his feet sometimes look inches above the parkay. And I certainly don’t think it’s impossible for them to get their title back at some point in the future; I just think others need to be given a chance as well. And this was simply Max and Yulia’s year.


Speaking of the new champs… look at Yulia’s gorgeous arch! How is she even supporting herself like that?

An American Smooth couple I like, Eulia Baranovsky and Stephen Dougherty. I actually thought they’d win, but they placed fourth or fifth. So, I was off on that! I think that couples like these two and the winners J.T. Damalas and Tomasz Mielnicki are bringing the life back into what was becoming a rather staid and boring style. The Smooth championships, placed between Latin heats though they were, were actually really exciting to me for once.

Another Latin couple, Andrei Strinedko and Olga Kinnard, who caught my eye big time this comp. A lot of women wearing these shiny gold dresses this year… What I really love about this photo though is that they are doing my very favorite Latin dance step in all of life, a Samba roll in shadow position. From here, they’ll arch far back together in beautiful unison, then they’ll bend way forward from the waist and then back again making a circle with their upper bodies while doing a hip-rolling side step across the dance floor. It’s hard because you have to be in perfect harmony or you’ll step all over each other’s feet or bop him in the crotch with your butt or whack him upside the face with your arm (I know all of this because…) , but gorgeous when done properly 🙂

Another proud paparazzi photo of mine 🙂 This is Nick Kosovich who designs the dresses for Dancing W/ Stars (and he appeared in the show a couple of seasons ago — partnered Tatum O’Neal). When he was on the show I thought he was a bit nerdy-looking, but after seeing him in person at the last few competitions, I realized how good-looking this man actually is. Tall dark and handsome Aussie! He’s retired from competition but at Blackpool did this James Bond-styled showcase with his partner, who I’m pretty sure is his wife 🙁 and they really blew me away, which is highly odd since they’re Standard dancers. Anyway, the fact that he is so gorgeous makes my former stupid “breast” experience with him all the more embarrassing… (he was the “Austrailian guy” / “LeNique guy” — as I later found out — in this post).

More Latin favorites of mine — Delyan Terziev and Boriana Deltcheva, who placed third, moving up a whole three notches from last year! Good for them; they’ve been working very hard and they deserve it. To me, this couple is one of the most artistic. She moves just like a spider and she’s just bewitching. She kind of reminds me of a Latin, raven-haired version of ballerina Janie Taylor, with her kind of ethereal, goddess-like sexiness.

Andrej Skufca and Katarina Venturini from Slovenia who competed in the Open-to-the-World Latin category on Saturday night. This is the competition I was hoping my favorites Slavik Kryklyvyy and Sergey Surkov would participate in, as they did last year, but oh well. Andrej and Katarina (4th in the world in Latin, right behind Slavik & partner Elena) were the only top couple to compete, so it was rather boring; they easily took first. For some reason, Max & Yulia didn’t stay and compete in this category, like they did last year. Not sure what happened. Maybe they were too tired. I hope no one was injured … that’s happened before in competition, couples injured during last-minute practice. Anyway, I loved Katarina’s bright emerald dress. Looked spectacular with her carrotty hair (which I personally love, though I know that opinion is most definitely not shared by all 🙂 )


Look who this is!! They had the hallway leading down to the ballroom lined with blown-up pictures of former champions. This one’s of Tony Meredith and Melanie Lapatin (choreographers from SYTYCD) in their heyday, circa 1995! Look how young he is — such a little cutie!


Ewwwwww!!!! It was some ungodly hour of the morning and comps were still going on (judging by the rows behind us, I think many departed the ballroom already, save us insane diehards) and I, not being a late night owl, am half dead here, no makeup and flat as a pancake hair thanks to the lovely Florida humidity. Plus the angle gives me a quintuple chin. Oh well. Michele, my roommate for the comp, is being herself 🙂

Okay, I am almost done, I swear. I took one day off from comp-spectating and went to Epcot Center. I’ve never been to Disney World though, growing up in Phoenix, went often to nearbyish Disneyland as a child. So, of all of the parks, I chose Epcot because I figured, not to sound like a dork, but I so loved the “It’s a Small World” ride at Disney as a kid, I figured I’d have the most patience and respect for one that introduces children to the world beyond our borders. But I found it disappointing, and this picture epitomized why. It was so Disney-fied — the cartoons completely overtook the exhibits. Everything was so cheesy, not at all educational. “Viva Donald”?? Great way to introduce kids to a foreign language. Maybe I’m misremembering things and my child’s mind over-glorified them, but, a bunch of silly dolls though they were, that Small World ride really made me promise myself that I’d go to Argentina, Holland, Spain, etc. one day. The dolls were so sweet and their costumes so beautiful. And everyone singing that song in their native language sounding so mellifluous — definitely made me so curious to hear more (and I did take a ridiculous amount of foreign language classes in high school and college). And who wouldn’t be enthralled with Africa by that nutty laughing hyena! I don’t know, maybe if I went on that ride again, I’d feel differently, but it definitely gave me an appreciation for foreign culture as a child. I can’t imagine this doing the same at all. Kids are too busy laughing at the stupid cartoon characters, and the adults buying all the horrendously cheesy souvenirs.

A great celebration of Italian culture for sale. It was like you paid $75 just to be able to buy a bunch of souvenirs. I don’t get it…
This guy demonstrating how to extract pearls from oysters in the Japanese souvenir shop was okay. Demo was interesting and the guy pretty flamboyant.

Returning to NY. Could they have blurted over the loudspeaker one more time at the Orlando airport that the alert level had been raised to orange / four, and we were all to exercise great caution in leaving bags unattended, etc. And then there had to be some crazy hurricane off the coast of North Carolina. I’m a nervous flyer man! Fellow fearful flyers have recommended Valium, but I don’t like drugs. I much prefer alcohol. In case of emergency, you can always talk yourself out of being drunk; not the same if knocked out cold by prescription medication! This wine, by Best Cellars, was pretty good.

Anyway, okay I’m done, I’m done! Thanks for humoring me and my ballroom fetish, you guys 🙂

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Places to Score Great Ballroom Videos, Particularly Those Containing Pasha and Anya :)

April had recently asked me where she could get a video of the Dance Times Square showcase I’d blogged about earlier containing Pasha and Anya’s brilliant performances. I directed her to contact the studio itself, as they usually have a professional videographer at the showcase. However, the videos have in prior years included only the student showcases, presumably to prevent choreography-stealing. But, in the last couple of showcases the student performances have been so interspersed with the professionals’ that the videographer has just included them all on the DVD. Anyway, if anyone contacts DTS about the videos, just make sure you ascertain that Pasha and Anya’s pro showcases are on there! Don’t worry; they won’t mind if you ask — they understand!

It occurred to me, though, that there are other places you can find videos of Pasha and Anya dancing, along with other stars of the dancesport world 🙂 Two years ago, in May 2005, they competed at the Blackpool Dance Festival in England and placed second in the Professional Latin Rising Star category 🙂 🙂 🙂 . Quasar Videos makes DVDs of three of the competitions that take place there each year: the Professional, Amateur, and Professional Rising Star. I found the 2005 Pro Rising Star on this website. You can probably order directly from Quasar as well. They’re expensive though (I think they’re around $100). These are live filmed ballroom competitions, so all of the finalists are on the floor at once — they’re not individual showcases like on SYTYCD. But, for people who’ve never seen one, these ballroom competitions are so cool! And Anya had THE most gorgeous costumes that year — one white, one black! It’s too bad that they don’t include all of the competitions on one DVD (meaning Professional and Rising Star Pro) because you’d get to see all of the most awesome dancers (like my loves Slavik Kryklyvyy and Sergey Surkov 🙂 ). But you will still see some breathtaking ballroom dancing — both Latin and Standard.

They also competed in the Ohio Star Ball two years ago (2005), and that was filmed and shown on PBS as “America’s Ballroom Challenge.” If you missed that earlier competition when it aired on PBS (it was from 2005, not last year — they had to miss last year because of an illness), you may be able to purchase a DVD of it through PBS or ABC. If you’re able to get a hold of that one, you will witness how popular Pasha and Anya are with the dancesport crowd. People were NOT happy when they didn’t take one of the first three spots — even Marilu Henner (host) remarked to Tony Meredith (co-host), “wow, this is the most passionate reaction we’ve seen all night!” Annoyingly (I was obviously there that year), the producers did a bunch of “sound clips” — I don’t know if that’s the proper term, but they had a judge walk around the floor while the audience first was completely silent, then on her second walk we all chattered, then on her third we screamed and cheered like a bunch of lunatics. So, when they edited, they took out the fans wildly screaming, “Pasha” “Anya” “Pasha and Anya,” during the comp and replaced it with the quiet sound clip! Anyway, good thing about that competition is that it includes all of the top Latin dancers in the country, such as Andrei Gavriline and Elena Kruyshkova, and Yulia Zagoruychenko and Max Kozhevnikov.

Okay, I’ve rambled on long enough. Hope this helps!

Also, don’t forget about the petition 🙂

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I Am Goin’ to Nationals!

Just got my plane ticket for Nationals, coming up at the beginning of September, in Orlando, Florida, where I’ve never been! I was actually pondering saving money and not going this year, but my friend, Michele, blasted some sense into me: it’s going to be far too exciting a year to miss. Am now trying to fill out above form to reserve my event tickets — $70 for Saturday night comp and $60 for Thursday and Friday night each — I do wish it wasn’t so expensive, but at least they’ve moved the competition to a cheaper hotel; last year it was in swanky Palm Beach, and the only hotel in the vicinity was the, basically, ten–star one in which the competition was held.

So, no alligators this year 🙂 (Last year, I took a brief excursion from competition madness to visit the Everglades)

Anyway, this is going to be a big year. Because of a couple of important retirements, new champions will be crowned in two events: American Rhythm and American Smooth.

I’m hoping Emmanuel Pierre-Antoine, my former teacher and an excellent dancer, will do well in Rhythm. Well, I know he’ll do WELL, but will he win is my big question?!

 

Or will the king and queen of rhythm be Emmanuel’s former partner, Joanna Zacharewicz and the super cute Jose deCamps?

 

We’ll know Thursday, September 6th, late late LATE night (these competitions are definitely for night owls)

The highlight for me though is always the International Latin. It’s always a showdown between these two:

current national champs Andrei Gavriline (my favorite American man) and Elena Kruyshkova, and

 

my favorite American woman, Yulia Zagoruychenko, and her partner Max Kozhevnikov.

They also have an open-to-the-world category, in which dancers who are not American residents or citizens can compete. Last year I was just in heaven — my two favorite Latin dancers in the world competed in that category: Slavik Kryklyvyy, who is just about my favorite dancer period (excepting this one of course of course:) ) (Slavik’s dancing here with Elena Khvorova)

and Sergey Surkov (parterning Melia).

 

Oh, I hope so so SO much they compete again this year. I’m thinking Slavik may not, may have only competed last year because he’d just broken up with his old partner, Karina Smirnoff and was testing out a new partnership before the really important world comps, but I really do hope he shows at this one. Otherwise, I’m stuck waiting until next May for Blackpool to see him again…

Two people I’m fairly sure who won’t be there are the couple I always long to see of course: Pasha and Anya, who are, sigh, off to bigger and better things these days… Of course I’m so happy for them, but it is sad knowing I’ll likely not see them compete at one of these events again. I’m thrilled though that so many opportunities are opening up for professional ballroom dancers. The same couples win these competitions year after year after year. And, while it’s always fun for us spectators to watch, I can imagine how frustrating it must be to be a professional dancer knowing you’re likely going to place exactly where you have been for the past umpteenth years.

Anyway, unrelated to the USDSC, here’s some interesting stuff I found on the net:

1) Boris Willis has created a funny little “manly dance” for me, apropos of all my blogging on Bad Boys of Dance and Ted Shawn’s Men Dancers, etc. etc. etc. Thanks Boris!

2) The artist David Michalek, who made those Slow Dancing films I was going on about forever, has linked on his site to a bunch of us bloggers who covered the exhibit. So very cool to see artists taking bloggers so seriously and considering us to be our own little form of press! And, I noticed by reading down his list of bloggers that Alex Ross, classical music critic for the New Yorker, posted a couple of pictures of the event on his blog, one of which intentionally includes both Midsummer Night Swing and Slow Dancing together like many of mine do. I’m glad someone else found the two events coinciding with each other interesting. He describes them, though, as “juxtaposed surreally” with each other in the photo. I’m still interested in why people think it’s odd that an exhibit of filmed dancers should coexist with people actually dancing, that people could enjoy both the physical experience of dancing themselves and of watching dance. To me it seems ideal, not surreal, to have these two events co-occur.

3) Root Magazine, based in San Francisco, is having a little thing on burlesque right now. There’s a write-up on a group that has its origins in Samba, which I found interesting. Root’s editor also deals with the feminist issue, which makes me happy.

4) And, finally, as I’m sure most people already know but I was a bit late to discover (oops 🙂 ), there’s a blog devoted to SYTYCD called, appropriately, Blogging So You Think You Can Dance. It’s really pretty good: they have links to practically everything extant on the internet dealing with the show, and they give detailed, fairly objective write-ups of what happened each night (which is great for me since I’m always out and missing it!) Thanks guys 🙂

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Depressed, Missing Slavik and Sergey, and Suffering TAC Headache…

Sorry no posting for the last couple of days. It took me forever to get home, first because of a several-hour-long plane delay, then over an hour-long cab wait at Port Authority (to which I took a bus from JFK). And I’m still so tired. I didn’t get much sleep the entire time I was there (in Blackpool), and it’s now really catching up with me. I’m just kind of depressed, missing Slavik Kryklyvyy and Sergey Surkov and all of my favorite Latin people…

Slavik is such a ham, as I realized for the first time this competition. The only other time I’ve seen him dance live was at U.S. Nationals in Florida last September when he competed in the open-to-the-world category, and there, he didn’t play so to the crowd since it really wasn’t his people. Here of course, everyone went completely nuts screaming and cheering the nanosecond he stepped onto the floor so he really hammed it up. How do I choose these guys? Marcelo, Jose, now this one… guess I’m just naturally attracted to a certain dancer-personality type …

Although Sergey seems more quiet, like a David Hallberg. No hamminess, no crazed fanfare, just great dancing, near flawless technique, and intense passion for his very pretty partner… It’s funny because, at one point during finals, Joanna Leunis and Michael Malitowski were dancing very close to Sergey and Melia and I could see from afar that the way Michael threw Joanna out to his right into a lunge, she was going to brush Sergey’s left side. She kind of reached out and playfully petted his left shoulder to let him know she was there, and he was so focused, as he always is, on Melia, I thought oh no, Joanna’s totally gonna disturb his concentration! He did seem a little surprised, but not too much so — obviously he’s used to dancing on a very crowded dance floor after all! After the round was over, still close to Michael and Joanna, he kind of tenderly patted her on the shoulder as well. It was cute. He seems kind of shy. Very attractive 🙂

Hehehe, do you think he’s mad at me for this pic?!?! I nearly dropped my camera when he shot me this look 🙂 Isn’t he cute — doesn’t he look kind of like Keanu Reeves?! He and Melia were meeting fans and autographing posters at the Chrisanne boutique in the shop pavilion, which I blogged about earlier, but here is a better picture. Sorry about the crappy cell phone pictures, by the way. It was the only way I could blog without worrying about an insecure wireless connection for my laptop. I’ll get a better cameraphone the next time!

Anyway, it was just so exciting to be there and I feel like none of my world favorites come to the U.S. competitions and so I don’t know now when I’ll see them again. I hate to think of having to wait another whole year… Now on top of being tired and depressed, or perhaps because of one or both of them, I have another one of these horrid headaches, which means, after the pain, days of being all woozy from the meds…

Anyway, I managed to get all of my pictures downloaded, although the captions are not all up and some names are spelled wrong and there are typos galore… all of which I plan to have fixed by this weekend, at the latest. Unfortunately the pictures this year are not as good as those last year, mainly because I couldn’t get a very good seat up close to the action, so everything is from afar, and pics of the finals in all competitions are from all the way up in the balcony, so you can hardly make out most of the dancers’ faces… It was insanely crowded, so it meant reaching up and over heads, snapping away haphazardly and hoping the picture came out okay… Another thing that kind of depressed me though I guess it shouldn’t. I should be happy that “Dancing With the Stars” and all of these shows have made ballroom dancing so popular that the number of amateur entries basically doubled and it was so crowded you could hardly move, but … I don’t know, it just meant I could hardly see any of the action.

I’m going to be talking about this likely for weeks to come, and posting things as I remember them, but here are a few more quick highlights:

bryan and carmen Bryan Watson and Carmen taking their final ballroom floor walk en route to the judges to receive their final first-place Latin champions trophy. So sad. So many retirements this year in dance in general…

Max Kozhevnikov and Yulia Zagoruychenko being called to the floor to receive one of their two finalist awards: they placed sixth in Rhumba I think fifth in Jive. Max was so cute when their number (198) was called as finalist! He ran out onto the floor and started jumping around pounding his fists into the air like a cute little kid. Yulia ran up behind him and grabbed him from behind. He then remembered her and turned around and hugged her.

Same EXACT actions from these two:

Victor Fung and Anna Mikhed

Victor Fung and Anna Mikhed who, for the first time, made finals in Standard Ballroom in three of the four dances (excluding waltz). He ran out in his tux and tails, jumped around pounding the air excitedly, then she ran out behind him in her ballgown, and had to tap him on the back before he turned around and remembered, oh yeah my partner, she helped too, really should include her in the euphoria… Ballroom men!!!!!

It was a great Blackpool for America this year. With Anna and Victor making finals in Standard and Max and Yulia in Latin, and Jonathan Wilkins and Katusha Demidova placed second overall in Standard.

jonathan and katusha

Okay, that is all for now… more later…

Also, I went to see ABT‘s Sleeping Beauty last night but will blog about it after I see it again, with another cast, later this week.