This year, like every other year, people were still dancing at the after party and as always the food served to all the attendees was out of this world and we are all one pound heavier for it. But the main reason we all come together is the dancing, the quality is always amazing in all levels from pro/am, amateur and professional, it’s all good and with close to 10 thousand entries the competition in all levels was fierce.
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All the open professional events were excellent. The Professional Smooth as always almost everywhere on the planet nowadays is always a main attraction and here it was no different. The winners were Nick Cheremukhim & Viktorija Barasihina who won all the dances with a majority of firsts in all dances. The strongest wins were in their waltzes where they won with nearly perfect scores, in their slow waltz 12 out of fifteen judges marked them first and in the Viennese waltz 10 out of fifteen judges awarded them first place marks. For us they too were the clear winners - their musicality and their interpretation of this style is stellar and we can see why they almost had perfect scores from the judges in a number of their dances.
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Fourth in all dances went to a fairly new partnership and one that if flourishing fast - Alexandru Munteanu & Stephanie Betts. This partnership for us is made in heaven - two beautiful dancers with tremendous potential, we can see why they are racing up to the top fast. Fifth in all was awarded to Ihor Chubishev & Diana Zhosan and sixth was Sergei Solodov & Ekaterina Maslennikova.
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Third in all dances was awarded to Andrey Kitsun & Nicole Prosser, this is a couple full of talent but for us still a little uneven in their work, for them to be able to make a break over the last two mentioned. Fourth went to Kostiantyn Samarskyi & Margarita Golubeva who also has some tremendous potential and talent but once again they are not as clear and even as the two couples on top. Fifth overall went to Mikhail Kolosov & Elina Semka 5,6,5,5,6, and sixth was awarded to Kelvin Ong & Masha Kozobrod 6,5,6,6,5.
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Third place was awarded to Ryan & Danelle Lockhart. Their work is very clean and easy to understand so we can see why they had a solid third place finish, however, it lacks a better delivery. Perhaps understanding a little more what they are trying to accomplish in each dance might help their case. Fourth went to Vladislav Krupskii & Tara Fanzo 4,4,4,4,5. Not not sure why they got placed so high; they are quite talented but their performance to us seamed a little green and uneven at the moment. Fifth place was Vasyl & Khrystyna Voinarovskyi 5,5,5,5,6, and sixth place went to Jeffrey Ruben Benarao & Therese Andre Quilaton 6,6,6,6,4.
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This field is amazing Dave Firestein & Kennedy Eaton placed fourth overall 4,3,4,4,4. They are quite young and they have so much potential we can see them moving quite fast up the ladder, their samba truly impressed the judges, and with a little more work and understanding they could be the top couple to beat not so long from now. Fifth place in all dance was awarded to Idan Daich & Anastasia Sinyauskaya and sixth were Oskar Krimus & Shayna McDonald.
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We were slightly desapointed with the performances for The Best of The Best in the amateur field. We thought the routines were all a little too long (less is more people) and the interesting content was missing from a lot of the routines, they were just dances. The winners of the best of the best were Austin Joson & Liza Lakovitsky.
We must congratulate the organizers Andrei & Elena for always taking such great care of all your officials and for such a fantastic job in organizing the Paragon. The care in the prize presentation, the food and the parties was fantastic as always. Congratulations on your success with almost 10 thousand entries and we still had a fabulous time!