The Wrap

26th Singapore International Ballroom Dancing Championship

by Dallas Williams

The 26th running of the Singapore International Ballroom Dancing Championships was held at the newly refurbished Suntec City Convention Centre and while the venue itself failed to live up to expectations the talent displayed by competitors was superb.

Spectators were treated to huge fields, (the largest in many years), in both the Professional and Amateur Open sections. Semi Finals and Finals for the Open Events were held during the Evening Program providing the perfect backdrop for the multi course Chinese Banquet and while I myself did not have time to partake in the dinner I have been told the catering was exceptional.

The competition was overseen by VIP guest Mr. Hiro Amano, President of the Asia Pacific Dance Council. Mr. Amano joined a distinguished panel of Adjudicators whose experience covered no less than 15 countries. The Chairman’s role fell to Mr. Don McRobert from Melbourne, Australia.

Earlier in the day’s program we watched the development of tomorrows champions, this was in the form of Solo Dance Competitions by children in the Under 9 and Under 13 years of age categories. The Competition Organisers should be applauded for including these events into an already crowded Running Order, this is where development starts.

The ‘Graded’, Pro-Am/Teacher Student events all ran smooth even with some couples having to dance multiple times because they had entered over several age categories. At one stage we added an extra Round to the Pre-Amateur Latin because the amount of couples that took the floor exceeded expectations. A new Final was immediately scheduled and everyone was happy.

The night session was of course highlighted by the Semi Final and Final Rounds of both the Amateur and Professional events and with the large entries these rounds were exciting. The professional Standard alone started with 19 couples representing over 10 countries, this boiled down to a final 6 in which Mathew Rooke and partner, Jelena, finished victorious winning all 5 dances. Second place on this occasion went to Japanese couple Kota & Nami Shoij.

The Professional Latin Title was claimed by Sven Ninnemann & Nina Uszkureit from Switzerland, (winning all five dances), while second place was awarded to Australian Couple Andrey Gorbunov & Karla Gerbes.

A new feature for the Singapore International was the introduction of an International Teams Match. Each Team consisted of 4 couples, 2 Amateur and 2 Professional covering both the Standard and Latin. This event attracted 8 Teams from 6 Countries ... Australia, Hong Kong, Thailand, Malaysia, Russia and of course Singapore. Each couple danced twice so it was quite a spectacle seeing 8 couples at a time dancing for their country and because no Team was dominant over all four couples the results were very mixed. In the end Russia was the winners which was probable a good thing as in the Audience was Russia’s Ambassador to Singapore.

So if you missed out on the 26th Singapore International there is always then 27th running of this great event next year so start planning your trip now.

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