WDM Blog

Swedish Dance Masters 2011

2011-10-26T10:48:00.000+01:00

Great weekend at the Swedish Dance Masters - Over 300 social dancers of all levels - 3 line rooms covering all levels - And a Swing Room too - Thanks to Goran, Asa and their team - And thanks to everyone for the awesome hospitality & friendship. A great crowd cheering on the competitors, while the social dancers finished off a great weekend of dancing doing recaps in the workshop room.

The choreographer team did a great job:

Rachael - Footsteps, a brang new catchy Swing/Charleston dance - Also Domino & Free Fallin' - And Mr. Mysterious (Quite a crowd already doing that one but lots wanted to learn it too), Purr Kitty

Niels Poulson - Love 2 Dance (Out of York) & Dirty Dancer (Out of Chicago)

Guyton Mundy - This City - Also Jump In Da Line - And blasts from the past Shake & Playa

Will Craig - Without You - Also 2 Nite - And Soul Food by request

Nicola Lafferty - Life Could Be A Dream, Looking Good & All Or Nothing - Great Improver dances that Intermediaties enjoy too.

With Will, Jamie, Dave & Sam DJing it was none stop dancing.

The social dancing with a big crowd brought a wider mix - Lots of dancers all levels Beginner through Advanced - The most popular dances were something like as follows :

Easy:
-Something In The Water
-Make This Day
-Danza Kuduro
-My Pretty Belinda
-I'm No Goodll
-1234
-Knee Deep
-Don't Drink The Water
-Wonderland Waltz
-Hello Dolly

Notably Toes, Crazy Foot Mambo, Tennessee Waltz Surprise, Bosa Nova, Go Mama Go, Gambling Man, Rhyme Or Reason, Little Red Book, Walkaway Joe, Blue Night Cha & Rub It In a still floor-fillers - Many more too. Others on the up included Lazy & Crazy Girl - Check out a fun catchy dance called A Minute Away From You - Been around a year or more apparently but first time for me - Awesome track :-)

Intermediate Mainstream :
-Move A Like
-Alabama Slammin'
-Rolling In The Deep
-Party Freak
-The Flute
-Chicken Walk Jive
-No No No No No Not So
-La Luna
-Haba Haba
-Bumpy Ride

Notably Bittersweet Memory, Everything I Do, Burlesque, Playing With Fire, Jesse James, Broken Heels, Amame, Drip Droppin', Irish Spirit, Knocking On Heavans Door & Mojo Rhythm still floor-fillers - Many more too, Craig's waltz Know Me By Now very popular. Others on the up included Devotion, Rock Your Body, Mr. Mysterious, Melon Heart, Lonely Again, Wet, The Stomp, Fundamental Things, Bright Lights, Wet & Remember Me.

Newline:
-Perfect/My Motivation
-Lady Luck
-That Kinda Lovin'
-2 Nite
-Talkin' To The Moon
-Raise Your Glass/Papi
-Don't You Remember
-Won't Let Go (Malene & Jannick's)
-Throw The Dice
-Still Got The Blues/Blue Sky
Notably Let It Be, You're Amazing & SOB still floor-fillers - Many more too - A Walk On The Wildside is really popular too more so than the UK - A great dance :-) - Check out a cool looking catchy/funky dance called Stealing Apples - Looks great :-) Others on the up included Meant 2 Be, Start Over, Be A Little Selfish, Down With The Trumpets, Descarada, Prejudice, Never Enough, Show Me The Love, Soul Food, Not Drunk Enough & Freak A Little More

As ever loads of classics too :-) Favourites included Somebody Like You, Chill Factor, Have Fun Go Mad, Doctor Doctor, Live Laugh Love, Break Free Cha & Stitch It Up - On Saturday night in keeping with the theme we did an 80's style Islands In The Stream & Black Coffee too !!! :-)

The competition was well attended with loads coming out to support those competing, with Guyton having everyone in stitches laughing as he Emceed, and the Duo's being a particular highlight! :) Shows on the Friday and Saturday included: Rachael & Guyton performing their winning 2011 Line Dance Showdown routine for the first time since they won; Rachael performed Speechless; Nicola & Sam danced a 2-Step & NC2 Solo & Couples medley; Guyton, Will & Niels performed a dance to Where do We go From Here by Pitbull.

As ever the food at the Stenungbaden Yacht Club was fantastic and the staff ever-so helpful. Many thanks to the Event Directors, hotel, SDM Team and attendees for making it such a fantastic event.

Changes to the Competition Structure at Some World Dance Masters Events

2011-10-26T10:12:00.000+01:00

To create a greater atmosphere and provide a much improved service to our competitive dancers, their families and spectators, World Dance Masters will be implementing a revised structure for some of their events.

World Dance Masters will offer an enhanced Awards Ceremony at specified events. This new ceremony will help to create a far more memorable occasion for our competitors and their supporters, making each event a special night to remember. By starting events slightly later in the day, the competition will run until late afternoon. After the competition has finished, a break will be given for dancers to go and eat and prepare for the evening Awards Ceremony.

On return, the Awards Ceremony will be transformed into a bigger spectacle, including a more carefully constructed ceremony, demonstrations, social dancing and a little party once the awards are finished.

By changing this aspect of some of our events, we hope to encourage a more exciting atmosphere during our awards and during the evening. We feel that breaking up the awards ceremony with demonstrations and social dancing, will provide a more enjoyable event all round. Finally, finishing off with a Celebration Party will give competitors, families and spectators time to let their hair down and enjoy the company of all the friends that they meet at our events.

This revised structure will be introduced on a trial basis and will be reviewed after a short time, taking into account customer feedback. Please note only events that state via their respective Facebook and WDM website pages that they are adopting the new structure will be included in this trial, so please ensure you check. The first event to use the new structure will be the UK Masters 2011 in Blackpool Tower Ballroom (10th December)

If you have any direct questions regarding this release, please email our Communications Director Jamie on jamie@worlddancemasters.com.

World Dance Masters 2011

2011-08-16T11:22:00.002+01:00

World Dance Masters 2011 really was a spectacle. With newly added choreographers and a HUGE prizes added to the Choreography Competition on our social side / increased prizes, new staff additions and a huge increase in competition on the WCS side / new renegade, mum & dads dance off, and higher representation of international competitors on the competition side, it was a truly magnificent weekend. Plus of course the launch of our SOLO STYLE® initiative.

In total across the event we welcomed dancers from 17 Countries (Austria, Australia, China, Columbia, Denmark, England, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Netherlands, Scotland, South Africa, Sweden, Switzerland, USA, Wales)

WARM UP PARTY

Over 250 attended the Warm Up Party in Copperface Jacks on the Thursday before the event started. People boogied the night away until nearly 2am and took part in the Pre Event Quiz, with the eventual winner Catriona Cameron from Scotland winning 2 bottles of Champagne and £25 cash.

SOCIAL

The social side of WDM 2011 consisted of hours of social dancing and lots of workshops from some of the most popular choreographers on the circuit. With DJ's Big Dave Baycroft, Ireland's Tommy Weafer in the Competition Room and from the USA Louie St George who did stints in both the Competition & WCS Room plus the late night slot until sunrise in the hotels Copperface Jacks club, it was an eclectic weekend. Each day kicked off with a Zumba® workout to get everyone warmed up for the day to come.

We had 3 great days of workshops - focusing mainly on New Releases with something for everyone:

Joey Warren

Throw The Dice - a phrased ADV fucky dance that was a huge hit

Descarada - Joey's recent US hit

Kate Sala

Love On Top - a lovely smooth 64/4 INT to Beyonce (great track)

Easy LA - Kate's recent release

Shaz Walton

Not Drunk Enough - a 32/4 HIGH INT Pop Cha

Hold On! - another lovely smooth Pop Cha

Johanna Barnes

Let It All Out - a beaty fun 64/2 INT funky Pop Mambo (a big hit)

Meant 2 Be - a 48/2 HIGH INT waltz to Pink (an even bigger hit)

Robbie McGowen Hickie

Feel Alright - a 64/4 INT Cha

The Stomp - a really cool and different Pop Cha

Rob Fowler

Breakthrough - a neat 32/4 funky West Coast

Whiskeys Gone - a classic and catchy Country Polka

Joyce Plasket (WDM 2010 Choreography Competition Winner)

Dance Like A Freak - a 64/3 INT to a great track by 'Mo'.

Rachael McEnaney

Free Fallin' - a wow ADV West Coast (John Mayer - Live version). No sheet for this as it was hot off the press - A HUGE HIT

Dee Musk

What About My Dreams - a Pop Cha

Falling In Love Tonight - Smooth

Craig Bennett

Under My Skin - a funky West Coast

Love Don't Run - a country Nightclub

Scott Blevins

Fangbangers Cha

Hold On Tight

5-10-15 Swing

The WDM International Choreography Competition on Saturday Morning, with MC Rob Fowler, Head Judge Dee Musk and judges Johanna, Joey, Shaz, Kate, Craig and Robbie - a good crowd enjoyed close to 50 entries across 3 categories - and the winning 3 dances were genuinely all incredibly popular. The Category winners were:

Beginner/Improver

Midnight Mix by Sandra Speck [UK] (Video)

32/4 IMP to a Paul Bailey track [Beaty Country Cha]

Intermediate

Haba Haba by Helena Jeppsson [SWE] (Video)

Phrased/4 EASY INT to a Stella Mwangi track [catchy Pop Cha/Samba]

Advanced

Monster In The Mirror by Kirsten Matthiessen [DK] (Video)

a 64/4 ADV to Usher [Funky Pop West Coast]

Monster In The Mirroe was the eventual 'Grand Champion', so you'll see Kirsten on the staff at World Dance Masters 2012 in Blackpool, and the Line Dance Showdown 2012 in Boston which was part of her prize! All submitted scripts can be downloaded from our website by clicking here.

As ever it was a very diverse range of dancers in attendance leading to many current/classic, modern/traditional, improver to advanced, funky/pop/country, competition/social requests, with people from all over the World enjoying lots of dances. Some of the most popular current social dances over the weekend regularly filled the floor including:

The Flute / Rolling In The Deep / All Of Me / Gambling Man / 1234 / Lady Luck / Still Got The Blues / Only Girl / Perfect / My Motivation / On The Edge / Born This Way (and Don't Be A Drag) / Party Freak / Beyond Your Eyes / Wrong Side Of The Road / Dirty Bit / Party Rockin' / Telepathy / Talking To The Moon / Hurts Instead / California King / Midnight Swing / Soul Food / Wobble / Let It Be / Raise Your Glass / Papi / Bittersweet Memory

So many more classics, old and new, the these were the current floorfillers. Some of the more recent dances on the up being danced too included:

Mr Saxobear (Daniel) / Alabama Slammin' / Mr. Mysterious / Somewhere With You / That Kinda Lovin' / More A Like / 2 Nite / On The Line / Dr. Flame / No Scandal / How Your Burlesque.

WEST COAST SWING

World Swing Masters was more fun than ever before. Lee nearly exploded on Monday Morning when Louie St George played the last song at 7am, but breakfast, and straight into airport runs!

The social dancing was plentiful with DJ's playing a wide range of classic & new WCS music until dawn every night. The shows were a real spectacle (see later in the blog).

Our workshops for the weekend were from Arjay Centeno, Jennifer DeLuca, Samantha Buckwalter, Robert Cordoba, Deborah Szekely, Lee Easton, Fabienne Henshall, Brennar Goree, Torri Smith, Matt Oakley & Leeanne Oakley, Ronnie Debenadetta, Brandi Tobias and included:

Friday

Beginner Track Part 1 / Arjay & Jen's signature style / Building off your Basics Learning to 2-Step / Working The Slot

Saturday

Shag in your Swing / Beginner Track Part 2 / Build it from Scratch / Keep it Simple, Keep it Leadable / More 2-Step / Fun Musical Play with Arjay & Jen

Sunday

Miracle Whips / Beginner Track Part 3 / The Floor is your Friend / Everybody 2-Step / Choreography

WCS competition really has developed at WSM and what a turn out we had for Novice (Tier 3 for the girls) and a very strong Advanced division. Congratulations to all that entered, we were so happy to see so many of you participating, especially those that were new and from overseas. We gladly awardsed nearly £2000 in prize money as well as trophies, and passes to some of the coolest events around. Results were as follows:

Jack & Jill Novice

1 Damien Favier & Elizabeth Redfearn

2 Kevin Town & Lauren Carter

3 Levente Friesz & Jacoulet Maella

4 Miguel Ortega & Bella Scholtze

5 Ekow Oduro & Susan Minor

6 Joachim Armbruster & Patricia Rogan

7 Graham Nimmo & Virginie Duplay

8 Rob Lawrence & Coleen Man

9 Rob Day & Danielle Rowe

10Pim Van Grootel & Tiina Aaalto

11 Juho Paivonen & Stephanie Chivers

12 Fabrice Beaux & Hannah Day

13 Joe Foster & Rachel Martin

14 Ross Carlin & Agnieska Maczka

15 Gerry Burke & Andree Mullings

Jack & Jill Intermediate

1 Stanley Seguy & Kate Lovegrove

2 Stanley Seguy & Fabienne Henshall

3 Thomas Escaravage & Naomi Hulbert

4 Alexandre Biesse & Sydney Smyth

5 James McLaughlin & Michelle Fletcher

6 Olivier Duplay & Virginie Escaravage

7 Olivier Duplay & Rachel Martino

8 James McLaughlin & Laetitia Blanchet

9 Thomas Escaravage & Caroline Pillar

10 Alexandre biesse & Carole Stroud

Jack & Jill Advanced

1 Steve Hall & Heather Mcphearson

2 Lee Easton & Jo Jephcott

3 Arnaud Perga & Celine Sully

4 Paul Harris & Sarve Didar

5 Eric Alhomme & Sue Lambell

6 Steve Hunt & Dora Alhomme

7 Neil Crosbie & Caroline Amblard

8 Peter Fradley & Johanna Barnes

Novice Strictly Swing

1 Favier Damien & Amandine Biesse

2 Ekow Oduro & Lauren Carter

3 Kevin Town & Agnieska Maczka

4 Rob Day & Rachel Martin

5 Christophe Boyer & Christine Chen

6 Fabrice Baux & Katherine Ledger

7 Levente Friesz & Susan Minor

Open Strictly Swing

1 Steve Hunt & Sarve Didar

2 Steve Hall & Kate Lovegrove

3 Alexandre Biesse & Jo Jephcott

4 Stanley Seguy & Laetitia Blanchett

5 Thomas Escararage & Virginie Escaravage

6 Arnaud Perga & Maelle Jacoulet

7 Neil Crosbie & Heather McPhearson

8 Olivier Dulpay & Virginie Duplay

9 Peter Fradley & Michelle Fletcher

Our Champions Jack & Jill didn't run as planned.... BUT our Pro's got together and put on one hell of a Jam for us. Starting with a random partner dance, onto double trouble and finishing with 4 way steals - it really was amazing and showed the standard we are all working towards. See a video here.

This years WSM event was also our first year as an International Member event of the AANCE Tour - we are the exclusive UK event! Good Luck to our AANCE Tour qualifiers.

COMPETITON

Well, the World Dance Masters Championship part of the event really was the best we've had. Dancers from across the globe competed, many for the 1st time at a Championship event, for a World Title. With dancers from UK, Ireland, Sweden, Switzerland, South Africa, France, Germany, Netherlands, Columbia, China it was the most international competition we've hosted to date.

Friday brought around Pro-Am & Solo heats with our Pro's James MacLachlan, Fred Whitehouse, Sam Robins, showing our competitors off in style. Solo heats meant some of our dancers had to dance several times bringing our Novice division down from nearly 20 dancers! Our dancers were also treated to a Samba masterclass with UK Latin & Ballroom champion and professional dancer Crystal Main. Friday evening had a new addition - the Mum's & Dad's dance off! Such fun to watch our often spectator only parents really get to strut their stuff on the floor. Our winners were:

Saturday's competition kicked off with Pro-Am finals and Couples leading into Solo Semi-Finals, followed by Duos/Quads/Teams & Cabaret. This really showed our dancers creativity in choreography and musical interpretation. It is always a joy to see this, and our Senior & Showcase Duo's got a huge round of applause from our audience who were extremely entertained.

Sunday was Finals day - with our Solo competition coming to a climax. You could feel the tension in the air as our dancers fought it out displaying great passion. The atmosphere in the dressing rooms and staging area was electric. During our Sunday Finals we held our first Solo Open Freestyle Renegade Division. The idea - each competitor who wishes to enter pays a £5 entry fee - A mix of 3 tracks is played and the dancers get 1 listen before they have to get on the floor and freestyle. The eventual winner voted for by the judges takes all the money taken. Our 2011 winner was Emma Daly who took home £100 Cash!

Following our Finals we closed the ballroom for an hour whilst we prepared for our awards, but not before a final show, the Division 1 Allstars Medleys! This has become a staple of the Sunday at WDM, showcasing our top dancers ability to entertain and interpret a mix of musical genres along a theme - 'The Movies' for our Juniors, 'The Songs of Queen' for our Adult Males, and 'The Songs from Burlesque' for our Adult Females, what a great show.

Onto our competitor parade, we brought every one of our competitors out on to the floor to celebrate in a confetti filled ballroom. And then came the award ceremony. There were tears of joys, lots of smiles and camera flashes! Congratulations to everyone.

EVENING SHOW
Friday
First up for our show were Torri & Brennar performing a Shag routine - very very fast stuff! Next was Robert & Deborah with a lead & follow WCS, something they do so well! Third was our own Sydney Smyth dancing a Solo routine. This lead us to some special guests - the Quan Jian Line Dance Group all the way from China - it was their first time at the event or in the UK and it was a privilege to have them at the event and perform. Finally Ronnie & Brandi danced an impressive Swing routine bringing our show to a close.

Saturday

Our Saturday WDM Circus kicked off with a stunning WCS performance from Arjay Centeno & Jennifer Deluca who wowed the crowd with an energetic and acrobatic routine. Closely followed by Brennar Goree & Torri Smith performing their winning US OPEN Classic Routine. And finally the Masters Elite Circus Show Team! This was an amazing routine choreographed by our own judges Jodie Seedel and Crystal Main. The team had all in all around 6 hours to get the show together from the start of the weekend, in between competing, judging and working. We think you'll agree it was spectacular. Check out our website or Facebook for videos

A huge thanks to everyone who attended and supported the event, and to our staff, volunteers, dancers, and parents. We look forward to seeing you next year back at the Winter Gardens in Blackpool [17-19 August].

Midland Masters 2011

2011-06-01T17:08:00.000+01:00

Midland Masters always takes place in the fabulous Kings Hall in Stoke-on-Trent, a 100 year old venue of grandure. The team have now got setting up for our day qualifiers down to a fine art, so we all arrived and set up in record time.

The queue was already forming outside at 08:40am, even though doors weren't to open until 10am! The team for the day were Judges Zoe Powell, Sydney Smyth, Fabienne Henshall, Nicola Laffferty & James Maclauchlan with Leigh Welch apprentice judging, Scorer Sam Robins, DJ Jamie Whalley, Floor Co-ordinator Abbie Ingram, and on the door Elizabeth Lafferty. A special thanks to Charlotte O'Connor for being the photographer for the day.

As we entered our Pro-Am divisions the light flooded into the hall. The days Pros were Lee Easton, James Maclachlan, Sam Robins and Gemma Harrison-Watkin. It was great to see our dancers circumnavigate the floor, obviously they are getting excited for World Dance Masters 2011 in August as the standard is forever increasing.

On to the solo divisions and we had heats. Some of our youngest dancers had to dance up to 4 times (so thats 12 dances) to get to the final. It was incredibly difficult for our judges and this was apparent on their faces. Finals progressed and were stunning. We have to say a big WELL DONE to 2 of our newest dancers who were not only competing with World Dance Masters for the 1st time, but competing at all for the 1st time! They did fantastically :)

Nicola did a quick teach of the fun and novelty dance 'The Wobble' to Wobble by V.I.C. This dance has taken the USA by storm so if you can, try it out.

Following all the dancing and awards were went into our evening social, with competitors and families sticking around and dancers travelling from the local area and sounding counties! We danced til late with requests galore, and with sure a diverse mix of dancers it was such a delight to have so many differing requests. Golden Oldies, Top Ten, Competition dances, REALLY Golden Oldies (Jamie's been dancing for 18 years and these were the 1st ones he learned!) and more.

A big thanks to all who attended. Don't forget the upcoming German Masters, Irish Masters and East Coast Masters and make sure you're attending World Dance Masters 2011 - the best value for money event of the year!

Bon Accord Masters 2011

2011-04-06T23:38:00.001+01:00

Our most Northern event in the UK is the Bon Accord Masters which is Peterhead (above Aberdeen for those of you who don’t know). We arrived at the Palace Hotel – no not the same one as Worlds :p – in plenty of time the day before the event started.

On the morning of the competition doors opened at 10:00am to a stream of customers. Nicola was partaking in a little fundraising for St Vincent’s hospice, raising money for a sponsored Zumbathon (See the bottom of this blog)!!! We also had merchandise on sale – limited edition World Dance Masters hoodies! (If you’re interested in purchasing one, contact jamie@worlddancemasters.com to see if we have any left in your size )

We started the day with warm ups as everyone got settled in for the day, kicking off with Pro-Am at 11:30am. Our Pros for the day were Sam Robins & James McLachlan. The rest of our event staff: Judging Pro-Am were Competition Director Nicola Lafferty, Fabienne Henshall & apprentice judging Abbie Ingram, who were joined by James for our Solo Divisions with scorer Sam Robins, DJ Jamie Whalley, floor coordinator Shirley Taylor, photographer Catriona Cameron & Iris Stein on the door. Our dancers of all divisions wowed the room, dancing Waltz, Cha-Cha, WCS, 2-Step & ECS.

Following the Pro-Am divisions we went straight into our Solo finals. There’s a great warm, friendly & relaxed atmosphere in the ballroom at the Palace Hotel and this showed with lots of smiles on everybody’s faces. We finished Dance 1 for a short break for dinner, starting again at 2:30pm for Dance 2 – Waltz or Nightclub.

Again a short break after Dance 2 in which Nicola taught her new dance to a great WCS track – “Stuttering” by Loick Essien featuring N-Dubz, that was very well received and led straight into Dance 3 – Funky or Showdance. This is the division that lights up the room and brings everyone alive, clapping and cheering.

Jamie then taught a novelty dance called “Kabouterdans”. Some old skool dancers might remember this from around 2002/3 – such a laugh to be had, especially if you move places during the chorus. That led nicely into our Junior and Teen Duos who impressed us greatly. Onto the Awards and this really REALLY was a close competition. In one of the divisions, 3 dancers essentially tied for 1^st place! Great job everyone

After a short break for dinner we resumed with our evening social at 8:00pm, keeping everyone dancing until 11:30pm. A pleasant mix of classic & top 10 dances, competition dances, and party tracks kept everyone entertained, whilst both recapping “Stuttering” and “Kabouterdans”.

The WDM Team would like to thank all our event staff & volunteers, our competitors, parents and dancers & the Palace Hotel Peterhead for their hospitality. Remember to check out Stuttering, and most of all please give whatever you can to Nicola’s fundraising efforts. Contact the fundraising team on 01505707635, email lorraine.valentine@svh.co.uk or check out the Zumbathon Facebook Page.

European Dance Masters 2011

2011-03-23T08:31:00.001Z

Well, what can we say except WOW?! The event, the photos, the videos, the competition, the dancing, the Flashmob, the feedback; European Dance Masters 2011 was a resounding success all round.

Before we go any further, we'd like to thank each and every person who supported our event - it really does mean the world to the WDM Team.

Now to the nitty gritty - the event itself!

General Setup

We began to set-up the hotel on Thursday morning, double checking rooming lists, bringing all equipment into the venue and generally just getting in the correct frame of mind for the weekend ahead. Alongside us was the ProDanceFloors Team preparing to lay the fantastic dance floors. Due to the design of the Britannia Adelphi Hotel, each panel of flooring has to be brought up a flight of stairs, through a corridor, down a ramp and down more stairs to be laid - PHEW. The PDF boys did a fantastic job ensuring that the floors were down in time for the start of the event - thanks boys :)

After an evening of Sam double and triple checking everything, Friday arrived. Airport runs, lost luggage, eating arrangements and more! No sooner had Friday started was it 18:00 and time for wristband collection and competition registration to open. People began arriving in a steady stream to get their band in time for the big kick of at 20:00.

Friday Evening

Friday at European Dance Masters is a relaxed but exciting warm-up and welcome to the event. 2 rooms open - WCS with Euro Swing Masters in the Lobby and Beatlefest 2 social dancing in the Ballroom. At 22:00 Lee Easton and Fabienne Henshall taught the Flashmob routine to 'DJ Got Us Fallin' in Love' by Usher and Pitbull. This has been taught at several of our events and follows on from our performance in Blackpool at last years UK Masters and Xmas Party. The plan was to perform it in Liverpool City Centre the following day. The workshop was very well attended with everyone, even if they weren't familiar with WCS, having a go. It was great to see the interaction and crossover between our competition, social and WCS dancers :) Following the workshop we continued into a relaxed night of social dancing and requests with the Beatlefest room open until 02:00 and the Euro Swing Masters room staying open until 03:30!

Saturday Daytime

Saturday morning was the first time all 3 rooms of the event were open, and everyone came together for a little warm-up. MORNING ZUMBA! Our Competition Director Nicola Lafferty led everyone in a warm-up to get the blood circulating and everyone pumped for the rest of the day.

In attendance for the weekend was photographer Jay Brooks taking some promotional shots for WDM. Jay has photographed, amongst others, Kayne West, JLS, Ellie Goulding, Little Boots, Simon Pegg, Daft Punk, The Bafta Awards, Danny Dyer and Kings of Leon! Our event photographers were Jacqui Fowler and Jamie Whalley.

European Dance Masters Championships

Our European Dance Masters Championships were represented by 9 countries this year and the dancing was a magnificent sight to behold. Our dancers excelled themselves as usual showing that the standard of our competitions really is the highest in the industry.

Competition DJ for the weekend was Jamie Whalley with Sam Robins as scorer. Our judges for the weekend were World Champions and Internationally recognized judges: Jodie Seedel, Rachael McEnaney, Sydney Smyth, Emily Drinkall, IDTA Professional Zoe Powell, Competition Director Nicola Lafferty and our special guest judge - Strictly Come Dancing Showdancer, UK Latin/Ballroom/Ten Dance Champion Crystal Main!

Saturday began our Pro-Am competition with our Professional dancers Sam Robins, Lee Easton, James McLauchlan and Fred Whitehouse - they showed off their students who, in turn, demonstrated their incredible abilities. Following the Pro-Am competition were the solo heats, followed by Duos and Quads. Again, and we never tire of saying this ever, the standard is simply incredible, especially from our younger dancers who show a maturity and talent far beyond their years. We had a break for 30 minutes to go out of the venue into Liverpool City Centre to perform the Flashmob - See Below.

We held our Pro-Am, Duos and Quads awards on Saturday evening so everyone didn't have to wait until Sunday for their results (Sam's super efficient at scoring now!).

Beatlefest 2

As with a lot of the events he does, DJ Big Dave stayed at the decks the entire weekend, making sure everyone was catered for. In our social and workshop part of the event, held in the Lobby, Choreographers Rob Fowler, Guyton Mundy, Craig Bennett and Rachael McEnaney taught some great dances:

"Love Your Flavour" to Baby Get Down by Tomi [Link to Follow]

"Mmm Dada" to Turn Around 5 4 3 2 1 by Flo Rida

Perfect to Perfect by Pink

"Born This Way" to Born This Way by Lady GaGa

"Raise Your Glass" to Raise Your Glass by Pink

As part of the social weekend we had a Magical Mystery Game. At the end of each workshop a question was read out and once all had been answered a room would be revealed. The first person to get to the room would win a bottle of champagne and a Beatles box set worth £250!!!! Read on to find out who won. Social Dancing was only interrupted for everyone to take part in the Flashmob (See Below)

Euro Swing Masters

Euro Swing Masters 2011 welcomed Pete Green (of Where's Westie fame), Elizabeth LaGue, Sean McKeever and Courtney Adair from the USA [Minus their luggage for the 1st day] as well as UK favourites Lee Easton, Fabienne Henshall and James McLauchlan, teaching not only WCS but a little Country 2-Step and Nightclub 2-Step as well.

Saturday Workshops included 'Playing Footsie with your Partner', 'Shaping Your Swing' and 'Connection with Direction'. J&J and Strictly Swing prelims were held on Saturday evening following the Flashmob - See Below.

Flashmob

If you weren't in attendance or haven't seen it - check out the video on YouTube here! We attracted a great crowd who were all intrigued and excited to see what was going on. If you have any videos of the Flashmob, you can send them us so we can make a compilation. Go to www.wetransfer.com and upload your video(s) sending to samuel@worlddancemasters.com.

Saturday Evening

Saturday night was social dancing in 2 ballrooms, again with our Swing dancers taking over the lobby and social dancers and competition dancers taking over the Ballroom.

The climax of Saturday evening was the show - An incredible display of talent, dedication and performance. First up was our Competition Quads who danced their own choreography to United State of Pop by DJ Earworm. This was followed by Pete Green and Liz LaGue who performed a WCS Lead and Follow. Next to take to the floor was Division 1 dancer George Hodson who performed a Street Dance routine, closely followed by Lee Easton & Fabienne Henshall dancing a beautiful Nightclub routine. Superstar World Champion and Masters Judge, Emily Drinkall, took to the floor to perform a Samba line dance. Next to take to the floor were Sean McKeever and Courtney Adair who danced a classic WCS routine. Finally the WDM Elite Show Team featuring Crystal Main. WOWZERS! You can check our videos of all the performances on our YouTube Channel www.youtube.com/worlddancemasters.

Following the show, social dancing and freestyle continued until 3am in the Ballroom and 430 in the Lobby.

Sunday Daytime

Following a late night it was time for an early start for our dancers! Again it was time for MORNING ZUMBA this time with Sydney Smyth who not only led the routines but got involved on the floor and had everyone running around the room.

European Dance Masters Championship

Sunday brought with it what we'd all been waiting for - the finals of the solo divisions. These divisions were unbelievably hard for our judges as the standard and talent on show was beyond belief. For finals day we were treated to 4 different Emcees - Rob Fowler for dance 1, Craig Bennett for dance 2, and both Lee Easton and Guyton Mundy for dance 3! Interspersed between the 3 dances both Nicola and Rachael taught 2 new competition dances in anticipation of the new dance releases coming up (see website for more details). And if that wasn't enough our dancers were treated to a Cha Cha technique workshop from Crystal Main - a highlight of the weekend for many. Following a short break it was time for awards, announced by a lady who worked tirelessly all weekend and took numerous different roles, Rachael McEnaney! There were smiles and happiness all around as we crowned our new European Champions!

Beatlefest 2

Dances taught on Sunday, which were all well received were:

'Messy Little Rain Drops' to Messy Little Rain Drops by Cheryl Cole

'Can't Handle Me!' to Club Can't Handle This by Flo Rida

"Renegades" [Link To Follow]

"Whole New Thing" [Link To Follow]

The Magical Mystery Competition Winners were Carol Baker and Chris Atkinson winning a bottle of champagne and the Beatles box set worth £250!!!!

Euro Swing Masters

Sunday’s Swingtastic workshops kicked off with Pete and Liz 'Use after Function', followed by 'Seamless Transitions' and 'Let the music be your guide'. The Jack & Jill and Strictly Swing finals took place on Sunday evening.

Sunday Evening

Closing Party

Following the close down of the Competition and Swing ballrooms, it was time for our favorite part of the event - the closing party. Now it's not our favorite because it's the end of the event, that couldn't be further from the truth. It's our favorite because everyone is simply so relaxed, at ease, and enjoying themselves.

All attendees mixed on the same dance floor, maximising floor splits and really having a great laugh. Dave and Lee kept everyone dancing for hours and hours and hours, including line dances, WCS, party tracks and novelty songs and even more of the same again. Finally it was time for bed at 04:30am!

What a weekend. Again, we’d like to thank all the staff mentioned above in this blog as well as our Event Sponsor ProDanceFloors (www.prodancefloors.com), Door Staff and Security John, Elizabeth, Laraine and Andy, vendors ProDanceFootwear and Tynedancer, the Britannia Adelphi Hotel and finally you!

Southern Masters 2011

2011-02-16T22:18:00.000Z

This year we had a change in venue for our annual Southern Masters competition. The newly renovated Old Regent Ballroom in Stanford-le-Hope, run by the incomparable Frankie Cull & Shawnee Young, was our destination. With the World Dance Masters (WDM) Team based in different locations, we travelled from all around the country from Blackpool, Manchester, London and Glasgow to reach our destination.

On arriving at the venue (once we’d found it due to Sam’s rubbish SatNav), a lovely entrance invited us upstairs to a very impressive space, just perfect for our competition. Frankie & Shawnee were very accommodating to the team, helping in every way they could.

We opened the doors at 10:00am to a stream of waiting guests outside who soon made themselves very comfortable – the venue is great with a large dance floor, superb lighting and a friendly and fun atmosphere. If you haven’t had chance to visit, we strongly recommend you do.

The day started with a Zumba warm up from our Competition Director Nicola Lafferty who had our dancers (and even a few mums, dads and grans) up getting a little out of breath with a fantastic 3 track warm up routine. Everybody was now fully ready to take to the floor. Our team for the day were judges Nicola Lafferty, Jodie Seedel, Fabienne Henshall & apprentice judging Leigh Welch, with MC Lee Easton, Scorer Sam Robins & Jamie Whalley doubling up as DJ and photographer.

The competition started with our Pro-Am dancers taking over the floor and showing what they had to offer. Some amazing dancing skills from Newcomer to Advanced were displayed. Next up was dance 1 of our solo competition, and if you’ve never been to a WDM event before, the competition really does have to be seen to be believed. Our Rugrats & Primary divisions are often more closely fought than our top Allstars division, and Southern Masters was no exception, with our youngest dancers excelling themselves.

Following dances 1 & 2 we had a West Coast Swing workshop with Lee & Fabienne. This was to teach the Flashmob WCS routine to ‘DJ Got Us Falling in Love’ by Usher and Pitbull. If you haven’t seen the Flashmob, or indeed West Coast Swing then take a look at www.worlddancemasters.com, our Facebook page (Search for World Dance Masters) or YouTube to see what it’s all about.

After a short break we went into dance 3 of the competition, Funky and Showdance. This is always a joy to see as everyone, dancer or spectator is really pumped up. The atmosphere was electric. With all the solo competition over it was time for our Duos. ‘Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy’ by Bette Midler, and ‘Canned Heat’ by Jamiroquai were the songs used for our competitors to showcase their own choreography – a real treat. Our awards ceremony wrapped the competition up nicely with everyone winning a trophy & certificate and qualifying for the Euro Dance Masters 2011 Championships in March, and completing one of the required two qualifiers for World Dance Masters in August.

A short break in the early evening for the team to enjoy a nice curry (yum yum) and onto the evening social hosted by Frankie himself. The night started off with some great golden oldies including the likes of ‘Swing It’ (Nicola’s very favourite dance ever), ‘Smooth Criminal’ and ‘MJ Moves’ with Jamie in his element remembering practically all of them! The social had a fantastic mix of beginner to advanced dances, partner & circle dances, a little west coast swing and even more of the latest top 10.

The WDM team then took to the floor to perform a show – a west coast swing routine from Lee & Fabienne, a Duos routine from Hannah Day & Danielle Louise Rowe and finally the Masters Elite Show Team medley that they performed at the Crystal Boot Awards in January. The atmosphere was electric the whole day long, helped by the lighting, acoustics and feel of the venue – Frankie really has excelled himself. It was a great evening. To find out more of the venue visit their website www.theoldregentballroom.com.

The World Dance Masters Team would like to thank Frankie & Shawnee for making us so welcome, all our competitors, their friends, parents and families for attending and supporting the event, and every social dancer who attended the evening party.

Welsh Masters 2011

2011-01-17T00:06:00.001Z

Welsh Masters 2011 was the first Welsh event Masters have held for several years so we were all very excited to be back. This year, the event was in Barry Island – made famous by BBC comedy serious ‘Gavin & Stacey’, so we were star spotting too!

Arriving at the venue, Barry Island Sports & Social Club, we set up for doors to open at 10.00am; most of Sam’s time was spent messing around with (sorry – technically adjusting!) the lights to set the stage and banners with just the right atmosphere. The trophies looked awesome.

Event staff for the day were Judges Sydney Smyth, Paul Culshaw & Competition Director Nicola Lafferty with apprentice judge Abbie Ingram, scorer & photographer Sam Robins & DJ Jamie Whalley. A special thanks also goes to Charlotte O’Connor for manning the door all day. We kicked off with a Zumba workout from Sydney Smyth – competitors, parents and spectators alike joined in and soon everyone’s pulses were racing as they danced through 3 high energy routines. Zumba is a great way to warm up our competitors ready for the day’s competition, and also a fun easy form of dance that non-dancers can join in and have fun with.

Following the Zumba and competition warm-up music it was time for our dancers to take to the floor. From Rugrats & Primary to Advanced & Allstars, we had dancers from every division – some competing with Masters for the very 1^st time. Dance 1 was followed by a WCS Flashmob workshop with Sam & Nicola.

If you haven’t seen the WCS Flashmob look out for the video coming soon to our Facebook page. We performed it at UK Masters in December in Blackpool and are planning to perform it in Liverpool City Centre at European Dance Masters in March – make sure you’re there.

Back to the competition, Dance B came and went without a hitch, and with lots of smiles. Following Dance B was a Latin/Street dance workshop with Paul Culshaw. This was a complex & fast routine but as always, our dancers never faulted and relished to opportunity to get their teeth into some great choreography from Paul.

Dance C was a hi-light of the competition, as our younger dancers got to show off their high energy funky routines and we got entertained by our older dancers performing their showdances. Nicola then taught a Newcomer level Nightclub line dance to the beautiful Country version of ‘Home’ by Blake Shelton and we had a recap of all the workshops that had been taught during the day.

It was then time for awards, with competitors receiving trophies and certificates and in the case of our Primary dancers, teddy bears too!

We closed for a few hours to allow the team to eat – KFC (yum yum) and opened again at 7.30pm for our evening social. As ever we had a wide range of dancers at our social, competitors, intermediate dancers, advanced dancers, parents and friends so there was a very wide range of dances. From the latest top 10 to golden oldies from the early 90’s and everything in between. If you haven’t been to a Masters evening social event you should, we try as much as we can to play all requests and to cater for as many different people as we can.

The social finished up at 11.00pm with everyone tired but happy! It was then time for the team to pack up and head to bed. We’d like to thank everyone who came to support the Welsh Masters, and hope to see you at one of our upcoming events: Southern Masters & French Masters in February and European Masters & Southern Swedish Cup in March.

Blackpool Tower Ballroom 2010

2010-12-20T17:41:00.001Z

It would be incorrect to state the day of the UK Masters & Xmas Social in Blackpool Tower Ballroom started early on Saturday 11th December, as for the Masters Team the day started months before in preparation. The actual day brought about feelings of relief at being able to see the finishing line, yet at the same time those of regret that it’ll be over for another year (anyone who has run an event before should be able to relate to this strange sensation).

It all officially kicked-off at 05:30, when the dedicated Masters Team arose from their beds, prepared themselves and made their way to the famous Blackpool Tower Ballroom for 07:00. The Ballroom itself is so spectacular that decorating too much would be an injustice. The Team basically had to set-up trophies, the DJ & Scoring desks, Registration and work with the Tower Representatives on the lighting. Everything was ready to go for doors opening at 09:30.

Dancers from England, Scotland, Wales, Ireland and even the Netherlands began fluttering in to witness the only Line Dance event each year to be held in this most beautiful setting. By 10:30 there were 268 people in the Ballroom ready for the 2nd UK Masters Competition to begin. Competition started with a very special Pro-Am session, danced entirely to Christmas Songs (a musical challenge only Nicola Lafferty could manage), by more than 30 competitors and an array of very capable Pro’s. After the Christmas cheer was officially brought to the Ballroom through this wonderful selection of music, it was time to run our first Solo Heats of the day.

All dancers at the 2nd UK Masters were judged by a panel of international qualified dancers; Nicola Lafferty (Competition Director of World Dance Masters), Ronnie DeBenedetta (UCWDC Masters Champion), Jodie Seedel (Star of Strictly Dance Fever), Emily Drinkall (UCWDC Superstar), Fabienne Henshall (UCWDC Superstar) & Lee Easton (UCWDC Superstar). Our MC for the day was the wonderful Rachael McEnaney and the DJ was Big Dave Baycroft.
Once our judges had seen our Pro-Am and Heats danced, it was time for a very special surprise. A super-special guest had travelled from the North Pole just to see our extremely talented dancers and present them all with little gift. The atmosphere grew to a peak just in time for the 2nd UK Masters Finals, providing an electric environment for dancers young and old to experience.

The competition was, once again, an amazing standard. Sometimes we sit in our little chairs at home and think about the day that passed, comparing it to five years ago. The development in ability of all the dancers at Masters events has been incredibly tremendous! The scoring proved how close these divisions are, with quite a few ties throughout the competition. We even had a splendid new Cabaret Team who treated the audience to a performance of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. The Umpa Lumpa’s stole the show…

The competition finished by 19:15 and our new UK Champions had reaped their rewards (all results are now available in the Results section), but the day was far from over. In thirty minutes the event would transform from a Competition to a Christmas Party with Rachael McEnaney and Dave Baycroft. The array of dancing was something to behold, we had everyone from Beginners to Advanced in the Ballroom, all being catered for terrifically by DJ Dave. Rachael taught two dances over the evening, Since You Brought It Up and Dynamo, both of which went down exceptionally well with all levels of dancer.

The atmosphere on this festive evening summed up exactly what we wanted to achieve; all types and levels of dancer enjoying what they love the most in undoubtedly the most spectacular ballroom in the country. As 00:30 approached DJ Dave pressed on with the music, pushing our Get-Out limits to maximise as much time as possible in the Tower Ballroom. Eventually, as 00:45 hit, we closed down for the evening and said goodbye to Blackpool for one more year.

Fret not. We have already confirmed with the Tower Management Team for next years event. We’ll be back, bigger and better than ever, on the 10th December 2011. We are also issuing a Pre-Payment System, helping dancers and guests pay for their tickets before December (and Christmas!) approaches. With our Pre-Payment system you can select your tickets and pay them off over several months, paying it off in full by October and therefore meaning the only costs before the event are travel and accommodation (if needed). Click here for more details!

The next event for us is the Welsh Masters in January 2011. The first event of the New Year in Barry, with Competition during the day followed by an evening of social dancing and requests. We look forward to seeing some of you there!!

Merry Christmas to all our guests, competitors and parents. We wish you all the very best for 2011 and look forward to seeing you at any of our events.

Swedish Dance Masters 2010

2010-10-31T13:02:00.001Z

Swedish Dance Masters 2010 looked set to be a fantastic event. Event Directors Göran and Åsa had again set up an impressive line up of guests including Swing King John Lindo, Sam Robins, Nicola Lafferty, Shaz Walton, Lee Easton, Fabienne Henshall, and Mr Guyton Mundy, as well as World Famous DJ Big Dave. Also in attendance were special guests Carey Parson from the USA & Team Unique Vision from Finland along with Hollands Pim Van Grootel, Norways Arild Lekanger, Nicolas Cort & Benny Jeppsson DJing in the beginner room, Zumba instructor Marlene Björkdahl and from the Masters Team was Jamie Whalley. A truly international event we're sure you'll agree.

For some of the team the weekend started on Friday morning... you guessed it... very early - 4:30am in Sam & Jamie's case. Everyone had arrived safely at the gorgeous Stenungsbaden Yacht Club by 4pm on Friday, ready for the event to kick off at 6pm. Swedish Dance Masters takes the form of not just a competition but a social & workshop weekend, featuring a main line dance room, a West Coast Swing room holding workshops and Jack & Jill competition, Beginner line dance room, secondary workshop room with the addition of street dance, body isolation & Zumba workshops this year, and of course no weekend event would be complete without SHOWTIME!

All of the workshops were well supported; with everyone enjoying what was on offer, with even some inexperienced dancers tackling some of Guyton’s advanced choreography. The beginner room was especially busy, with a full dance floor for the majority of the weekend. Teaches for the weekend were as follows:

Guyton Mundy

You're Amazing [Int]

"Just The Way You Are" - Bruno Mars

Imma Be [Adv] ("523" - Guyton Mundy, Pim van Grootel, Will Craig, Daniel Trepat & Ryan Lindsey)

"Imma Be" - Black Eyed Peas

Club Can't Handle This [Adv] (Guyton & Carey Parson) Script To Follow

"Club Can't Handle Me' - Flo Rida ft. David Guetta

Ooh I Like It [Int] (Rachael McEnaney & Ryan Lindsey)

"We No Speak Americano (I Like That)" - Yolando B Cool, DCup, Nabildon (UK radio edit)

Let Me C It [Adv] (Guyton &Will Craig

"Let me C it" - Get Cool, featuring Petey Pablo, From the "Step up 3D" Album

Shaz Walton

Written In The Stars [Int]

"Written in the Stars" - Tinie Tempah ft. Eric Turner

2012 [Int]

"2012" - Jay Sean Feat Nicki Minaj

Nicola Lafferty

Hip To Be Square [B]

"Hip To Be Square" - Huey Lewis & The News

Sweet & Simple [B/Imp]

"How Sweet It Is" - Michael Buble

Fabienne Henshall

Lady Madonna [B] Script To Follow

"Lady Madonna" – The Beatles

Friday kicked off straight into the swing of things (get it) with both a workshop from John Lindo in the West Coast Swing room that was full to bursting, as well as the 1st of many teaches from Guyton. Dinner followed - the exquisite food we raved about last year was just as nice this year. Some changes to the dining room, but still the same great taste. Following dinner, the workshops carried on in succession in the main line room and WCS room until 11:00pm when it was Showtime.

And what a show it was. 1st to the floor were John, Lee, Nicola & Fabienne who performed a Lead & Follow WCS routine, ending with Johns legendary multi lead! Next up, the man that needs no introduction, Guyton. Back by popular demand, he was joined by the very talented Carey Parson, displaying some poppin', lockin', breaking and some impressive moves. Everyone was wowed. Following this was Lee & Fabienne performing their 2 Step routine. If you were at Worlds 2010 you will have seen this wonderful routine. And last but certainly not least Team Unique Vision. TUV are the undefeated World Dance Masters Cabaret Champions presenting some of the most creative & intelligent choreography our judges have seen. They performed their winning Zombie routine from Worlds 2009. After the show, we had a midnight workshop with Shaz, then social dancing until around 4am!

No sooner were we in bed than the alarm clocks went off to be up for Breakfast and a start to the day with the choreography competition. Judged by Shaz, Lee & Guyton and MC'd by Jamie, this year we had an impressive 22 entries. Winners in each category were:

Beginner
Got U - Stig Ekstrom

Intermediate
Not The Same - Helena Jeppsson

Advanced
Carrickfergus - Malene Jakobsen

All of the winners got the chance to host their own workshops later on Saturday and teach their dancers. Scripts for all of the choreography entries can be found on our website HERE

Following the announcement of the winning entries, it was overdrive for workshops with a quick succession of workshops in Beginner, Intermediate, and Advanced line dance, West Coast Swing, Zumba with Marlene & Body Isolation with Carey, both of which were packed. Dancers couldn't get enough of the diverse offering. With a stop at 1:30pm for lunch then straight back into workshops in all 4 rooms, it was a real dance fest, only slowing a little for DJ Benny's Golden Oldies 2 hour special - there's SO many dances we'd forgotten we loved, it's like falling it love with line dancing all over again.

Dinner at 7:30 followed by lots more social dancing and the Saturday show. A pre show warm up performance at 9pm came courtesy of Team Unique Vision, who performed a new Werewolves routine in amazing costume and make up - the effect was stunning. Then on to the main show at 10:30pm. First to the floor was Sam & Nicola performing a Cha Cha, closely followed by Lee & Fab dancing their latest WCS routine to 'Walking in Memphis', receiving rapturous applause. Next came Guyton & Carey dancing their latest dance 'Club Can't Handle This' along with their Swedish Crew of dancers, lots and lots of fun. Then it was the turn of the Masters Team together who performed an excerpt from the Worlds 2010 Show Team routine. If you didn't catch this at Worlds it is a MUST SEE - you can see by clicking here. Again as the night before, show time was ended with TUV who performed their Worlds 2010 winning Pirates routine, a haunting performance. A selection of videos of the shows is on our Facebook Page. Again open dancing carried on until 5am - we all had very tired feet by the end of it.

On the social line dancing side of things the weekends two most requested floor fillers were Snap Your Fingers & Shoes Of Another Man - Others hits included Rain Against My Window, Dog-Gone Blues, Drip Droppin', Broken Heels, Time To Play, Wakira/Wak Waka, Pack Up, Amame, Mojo, Ease On Down, Hands Up, Time To Swing, All Summer Long & Plan B with Playing With Fire was still huge too as it is most places. Because of the workshops Guyton's You're Amazing & Shaz's Written In The Stars were especially popular - And the Country big hits were Louisiana Swing, Rhyme Or Reason, Quarter After One & Bobbi With An I - Night Clubs rule too - Popular recent ones including Everything I Do, Haunted Gave It All Away, Jesse James & Trouble Is with a few doing Rachael's Don't Miss A Thing. Also there was a long list of classics too including Holding On To Yesterday, Poetry In Motion, Guardian Angel, Feel, Evergreen, With These Eyes & Where We've Been.

There were also quite a few floor filling 'Euro' dances too - As well as We Speak No Americano the most popular included NoNoNoNoNo Not So, Mi Rowsu, Cry Me Out, Blue Sky, Respect & Wade In The Water.

As we said before the Beginner/Improver room was very well supported, with favourites including Brazil, People Are Crazy, Chica Boom Boom, Under The Sun, Singing The Song, Walking In The Rain, Fujjiama Mama & Don't Kill The DJ - Craig's latest waltz Know Me By Now was much requested too - At the other end of the spectrum popular requests included Cyclone, Sentimental, Tik Tok Drop, Stoked, Oh Ruby & Private Dancer - Lots of Guyton & Shaz's dances too, especially Guyton's SOB & Shaz's Hypnotized.

Classics of all levels too - The floor was full for the likes of Irish Stew, Crazy Foot Mambo, Bosa Nova, Zjozzy's Funk, Higher & Higher, Stitch It Up, Chill Factor, Not Like That, Charanga to Pot Of Gold, Ja Da Boogie, Shakatak, Caught In The Act, NIMBY, Black Horse, Stop It, Hold Your Horses/Ice Breaker, We're Alive, Doctor Doctor - Through to classic competition event favourites like Swing Your Chains, Slow Burn, Chill Factor, SXE, Jukebox, Deeply Completely & Have Fun Go Mad.

Sunday meant we arrived at our competition. WCS workshops, Beginner room and social dancing carried on throughout so everyone had an option. The competition was great. 1st was Pro-Am. Sam danced with his students non-stop throughout until everyone had shown what they could do. Next was the line competition, dance A, B and C in close succession to finish in time for lunch. The standard is always improving, and we always enjoy seeing our Swedish dancers compete with the biggest smiles on their faces - check the photos on our website if you don't believe us.

Following lunch was award time and a great conclusion to a fantastic and successful event. We would like to thank Göran and Åsa and everyone involved in putting on such a fantastic event.

1st Masters Day of Dance incorporating Northern Masters 2010

2010-10-13T06:32:00.000+01:00

This year’s Northern Masters was definitely something a little different. We wanted to try something new, so we introduced the 1^st Day of Dance to the Northern Masters 2010. Based upon the idea of offering even better value for money for our dancers AND spectators, we introduced a time-utilised day of competition and workshops, literally providing a full day of dance for all our attendees.

These were not standard workshops though, they were picked and decided upon by notion of offering dance styles that the competitors don’t usually, or might never have, enjoyed. We had Zumba (the latest latin fitness craze sweeping the WORLD!), West Coast Swing, Mambo, Jazz & Social Line Dance (something a lot of competitors don’t get to enjoy that regularly).

The day began at around 06:00 for the Masters Team, who all arose to make the journey to The Dance Studio, Preston, Lancs (ran by the delightful and always helpful Julie & Colin Carr). After setting up, doors were opened at around 10:00 and the guests settled into their favourite seats and prepared for the day. After some initial warm-up music the first workshop started – ZUMBA! The floor was full and it was very entertaining. Qualified Zumba Instructor Nicola Lafferty took to the stage for around 40 minutes while competitors, spectators and parents enjoyed a thorough workout. Some of the tracks used were C'Mon & Dance (a merengue/hip hop track), Los Campeones del a Salsa & Baila Pa Emonciona - Calypso, No Americano & finally a cool down to Breath by Faith Hill.

The Pro-Am practice music followed and then continued into our Pro-Am competition, straight into Dance A of the Line Dances. The dances used for this competition were the same as Worlds 2010 so everyone got to the bust out the moves they already knew. Remember that all the dances will change for UK Masters in December! After Dance A and Pro-Am had concluded we started with our second workshop, a very special West Coast Swing session taught by Nicola Lafferty & Sam Robins.

In this workshop Nicola & Sam taught a small, 32-count swing routine to Usher’s DJ Got Us Falling in Love which is going to be used to conduct a Flash Mob in Blackpool Town Centre on Sunday 12^th December 2010, the morning after our event in the Blackpool Tower Ballroom. For more information on this Flash Mob, click here. Find out what a Flash Mob is, where and why we plan to do it and find a video of the routine to learn so you can join in! We’ll be teaching this at all of our next events so that everyone can participate!

After this we had another fabulous display of talent when we proceed with Dance B of our competition. This event had everything in the competition stakes, competitors new and old (some first time dancers with Masters and some of our new Division 1 graduates dancing for the first time); the standard of competition was proving to be as amazing as always. Next we had a Latin workshop from IDTA Instructor Zoe Powell. Zoe (and reluctant partner Sam, who knew nothing about the next dance form or the routine that was about to be taught) took to the floor to teach the dancers and parents about the Mambo! Sexy, sassy, and pretty fast, everyone enjoyed this 30 minute insight into one of the more technical Latin dances to 'Johnny's Theme' from the Dirty Dancing soundtrack.

Back to the competition. The dancers finished of their work through Dance C, bringing our competition to and end but with still two workshops left! The next workshop was taught by Strictly Dance Fever finalist & Division 1 World Champion Paul Culshaw. Paul took to the stage to teach a Jazz number to a great DJ Earthworm track - the Sean Kingston Beautiful Mashup'! It was great to see not only experienced dancers on the floor learning this but also social dancers and parents. It definitely brought a sweat on to all those who participated.

The final workshop of the day came from The Dance Studio's very own Julie Carr who taught a new 48 count 2 wall high intermediate dance by Dee Musk called Fall Apart to a great track by the same name from Sarah Connor which went down well - You can view the script here, and video here. The final part of the first aspect of the 1st Day of Dance was the awards. Some very close divisions in this competition proved that the standard of dance at Masters Competitions keeps getting better with the gap between levels ever narrowing!

After a small break we re-opened the doors for the evening social with DJ Jamie & DJ Sam, which went on until 23:30. The dance requests were very VERY eclectic, old and new ranging from No Salvation and Murder My Heart to T-Bone Shuffle & Lamtara Rumba, from I Run To You, Drip Droppin', Haunted & Hot Out Of The Box, to Deeply Completely, Do Your Thing, Now or Never, Brucie, Tik Tok Drop, Stupid In Love and much much MUCH more, finally being brought to an end by DJ Sam getting everyone in the Christmas spirit by doing the Tush Push to All I Want For Christmas (Is You) by Mariah Carey! Only 74 sleeps to go!!!

We'd like to thank everyone for their support on this experimental day. We have an amazing time and the feedback we have received has been great. We'll definitely be introducing more of these workshops at future events so keep your eyes peeled for more information. For more information on the UK Masters Flash Mob that we will be conducting please click here.

World Dance Masters 2010 - Competitive Line Dance

2010-09-29T08:18:00.000+01:00

World Dance Masters 2010 took place between 6-8 August 2010 at the 4* Grade II listed Palace Hotel in Manchester, UK.

Preparation

For the World Dance Masters Team the “Weekend” started as early as Tuesday! Transporting lighting & sound equipment, computers, paperwork plus MUCH more to Manchester and preparing for what was to be an amazing weekend ahead. Wednesday was the 1^st Official day we could access the venue and the majority of the spaces we were to occupy, so without hesitation or hindrance we descended on the Palace Hotel early to ensure everything was set as soon as possible.

Pedro Machado and his 3 man Pro Dance Floors Team (http://www.prodancefloors.com/) arrived by 10:00am to start unloading, marking and laying the 5 ProDanceFloors we were to have laid in the Grand Room, Whitworth Suite, Buckingham Suite, Directors Suite and Palace Room. Whilst they forged ahead in record time, we were busy planning with the hotel the logistics and planning of the event. Believe us when we say these events are a true team effort and that an unbelievable amount of time & planning goes into it.

No sooner had Wednesday started then it was already Thursday morning. This started with Sam giving Jamie a lovely morning wake up call at 07:00am (URGH). With lots to do we were all of a sudden a flurry of activity, Sam with his iPhone in one hand, Blackberry in the other, Walky Talky headset on and 12 dozen things flying through his mind. DJ Big Dave & his wife Pauline (http://www.bigdavegastap.com/) arrived with even more sound equipment, which had to be transported around the venue and set up. Thank goodness for the lifts! The whole team worked hard all day, Nicola Lafferty, Elizabeth Lafferty, John Lafferty & Sydney Smyth spent all day ensuring all the material was ready to go and the event was ready to go flawlessly as possible.

Airport pick ups, check ins, sound and lighting equipment setup, prop deliveries & set up, registration set up, seating, trophies, dressing rooms, balloons and more. PHEW! And that’s just the start. By now the ProDanceFloor boys had done themselves proud and had all the floors down and fixed in place. 18:00 was nearing and that meant one thing – Masters Elite Show Team practice. As we’re sure any of our Show Team will tell you, at our larger events, they literally have 3 to 4 hours to learn & master the choreography, and often it’s changing as they are learning it. A difference this year was the performance’s choreographers – Superstar Champions Jodie Seedel & Emily Drinkall. To say it was such a professional job is an understatement. The Show Team sweated getting the choreography perfect and we are sure it showed as we had unprecedented positive comments about the Variety show. Many Thanks to Jodie and Emily for doing such a fantastic job.

Warm Up

As many of you will know, and some of you won’t, for the 1^st time in it’s 8 year history, World Dance Masters 2010 held an Official Warm Up party in Copperface Jacks under the venue. This was a phenomenal success. With around 75 people expected, we actually had 176 attendees! Hosted by Jamie Whalley, Ed Lawton, Danny Last, Pedro Machado & Rob Fowler this was an 5 hours of fun, dancing, games and singing to get everyone ready for the weekend ahead. The Quiz went down a storm with the eventual winners being ‘Drunken Feet’ from Buckie, Scotland.

Followed by Pedro storming round the room with vodka jelly babies, LOTS of line dancing, west coast swing dancing and general boogieing the night away was the order of the night. Along with the great party tracks – Oops Upside Your Head, Time Warp, Hand Jive, Macarena, Grease Medley and many more.

The evening finished at 02:00am with everyone happy and craving their bed, however a select few stayed up and carried on the party in Tempus bar upstairs.

Competitive Line Dance – Grand Room

Friday

The 8^th World Dance Masters competition kicked off on Friday with warm up from 10:00am. In the new venue it was a very surreal experience after 7 years in the Winter Gardens but our dancers took to the new set up like ducks to water. In a change to previous years, we had male and female changing areas that lead directly to the staging area with seating, hanging rails, tables and mirrors, WC and water tanks available to all competitors. This was met with great enjoyment as competitors from different divisions, background and countries interacted, some for the very 1^st time.

Judges for the weekend were Competition Director & Head Judge Nicola Lafferty, along with Danny Last, Jodie Seedel, Emily Drinkall, Sydney Smyth, Rachael McEnaney, Scott Blevins, Bridget Zerah, John Lindo, Charlotte Macari, Jenny Stephenson, Deborah Szekely, with Bruno Vastel scoring, Floor Co-Ordinators and comp runners Zoe Ruston, Jacqui Fowler, Anita Redfern, Marie McNally, Shirley Taylor & Elaine Fox & competition DJ’s Jamie Whalley & Tommy Weafer. All topped off with charismatic Emcee Pedro Machado.

With new lighting rigs, enhanced sound equipment, Stylish award displays plus Pedro’s Thrones, the stage was set like never before. The competition started with an electric atmosphere that wasn’t to let up for the entire weekend. First up were the Line Dance heats with dancers competing to get to the Semi-Finals on Saturday. And what a fierce competition it was. Pro-Am couples heats were up next one after the other circumnavigated the Championship size ProDanceFloor with ease. This was a tough job for our Pros – some of whom had to dance 30 times in a row so we’d like to give a special thanks to our Pros for the weekend – Samuel Robins, Lee Easton, Fred Whitehouse, James Mclauchlan, Nic Bartlem Anne Buchan & Tiina Aalto.

Everything finished on schedule and the Friday competition ended on time to break for dinner. The hotel has a beautiful restaurant with tasty food and great service.

Nighttime brought about social dancing in not only the Grand Room but also in the Whitworth Suite (See Social Line Dance section later in the Blog). All the ballrooms closed at 21:30 for the Showtime! And what a show it was on Friday night (See Showtime section later in Blog)

Following the show, dancing continued until well into the morning, when as the Grand Room closed at 3am people could retire to bed or carry on the dancing and partying in Copperface Jacks in the Late Night Swing Room.

Saturday

After a very late night, it was time for a very early morning. Breakfast was served from 07:00 to 10:00 so it was grab some food followed by dashing to the Grand Room to warm up. Lots of chatter and gossip from the night before reverberated around the room. Warm Ups over it was Semi Final day!

We always say this, and it will surely be repeated later in this Blog, but the standard of dancing at our events NEVER ceases to amaze and astound us, and this year was no exception. The judges had such a hard time judging all divisions, in particularly all the younger divisions where our dancers and their parents obviously put a great deal of time and effort into what they do. Keep up the good work everyone, you are the future!

Again, with our phenomenal dancers, great DJ and judges, we once again kept to schedule and everything ran smoothly. As we stated earlier, the dressing rooms were proving to be a major hit, giving everyone the change to warm up, breathe, fully engage themselves and really enjoy the competition. Something that was new this year was bringing all competitors one by one to the floor from the stage – something which everyone seemed to enjoy, as our DJ and floor coordinator will tell you there was lots of chatter and laughter backstage from the competitors.

Saturday closed nicely for dinner ready for the Mardi Gras Party!!!

Now, every year for the last 8 years, World Dance Masters has a theme on the Saturday night, but never in its 8 year history has everyone made so much effort to be part of the party and for that we say a huge thank you. Rob, Danny, Jamie, Sam and Nicola were at the door to welcome everyone with masks and over 1000 bead necklaces as they entered, but not that many people needed masks as they’d brought or even made their own! The array of colours, styles and looks was amazing.

Saturday night’s atmosphere was INCREDIBLE, that’s the only word that can be used. With a room full of masked dancers it really was a Mardi Gras Party. Again as on Friday the other rooms closed at 21;30 for the Saturday Variety Show which as you’ll read in the Show Time section was our most impressive and best received to date.

As usual, dancing carried on well into the night, but not before crowning our King and Queen of the Mardi Gras, The senior winners were John Riddoch and Mary Farrel and our Junior winners were Josh Fowler & Emma Findlay. Dancing carried on well past the stated closing time of the schedule, finally finishing at 3:45am, but still enough time to join Swing Masters in Copperface Jacks until 6am!

Sunday

FINALS DAY!!! With a packed room as friends and relatives came for the day to see their loved ones compete, the room was electric. One by one our dancers proved what we have long known – we have the best competitive line dancers in the World. We’ll reiterate that the standard is simply incredible and that each and every competitor should be extremely proud.

As the competition drew to a close and the room cleared it was a mad rush for the Masters team who had an hour to set the room for the awards (and Sam had to change into his Tuxedo). Running a little over time, the room was opened to see our dancers all in costume flood the room in anticipation. Trophies, medals, plaques and flowers on the stage, it looked stunning. But before the awards could begin there were 2 new additions to the Masters competition.

Firstly, our Division 1 Allstars had this year been given a Showcase Medley to perform. This is a pre determined, cut piece consisting of 3 songs in different genres, all from the TV Shows Glee. The dancers have to choreograph their own routines, in which there are no rules. They can wear what they like, use props and can perform aerials. And the best way we can try and convey what happened: WOW. These dancers personified greatness on the floor, giving it their all and getting the crowd on their feet giving a standing ovation.

Secondly, the competitors parade. Rachael did the unthinkable and called out the name of each and every competitor as they took to the floor with their countries flag – a major feat as you’ll see in the video. With everyone in high spirits, confetti canons were let off in the final celebration of a successful competition before the awards took place.

Award time – some surprises and tears of joy, everyone congratulating each other. Competitors won trophies, medals, and beautiful bright sunflowers courtesy of Venus Florist (http://www.venusinmanchester.co.uk/).

Show Time

Friday

Friday’s Showtime at World Dance Masters is usually centered on West Coast Swing, and this year was no different. Fantastic and superb performances from Paul Warden & Catriona Wiles dancing a smooth WCS, Brennar Goree & Torri Smith performing the Carolina Shag, Lee Easton & Fabienne Henshall dancing their Country 2-Step and finished off with Robert Cordoba & Deborah Szekely, who performed a WCS routine to one of the most famous WCS tracks – “How Long Can A Fool Go Wrong” a sight to be hold with their incredible musicality.

In an addition to the WCS this year, we were also treated to a pirate’s themed performance by Team Unique Vision from Finland who were competing in the Cabaret division which was added to the show which was very well received, and our Showcase Duos competition with duos from England, Scotland and Sweden competing to “Fame”. Check Facebook & YouTube for videos of each performance.

Saturday

Saturday’s show time kicked off with Mr Guyton Mundy from the USA with the kids crew performing a Street Dance to “Imma Be” by The Black Eyed Peas, followed by Jenny Stephenson’s Studio #1 performing a Street Dance routine, with some of the boys taking their tops of for Beyonce’s “Single Ladies” which had the room in fits of laughter and applause. Not to be outdone Guyton called Jenny out for a dance-off, a great sight watching these 2 power houses of street dance battling it out…Until that is, Jenny brings out her secret weapon, 7 year old Star Spooner. Star battled for her life and finally defeated Guyton who was bowing down to her as the crowd went wild.

Closely following this was Emily Drinkall who performed her Superstar winning Cha Cha with such presence on the floor. A couple who mix line and swing in their careers, Lee and Fab were to take to the floor, performing an exclusive routine especially for Masters. And we weren’t to let up, Sydney Smyth performed her 1^st Place Masters Invitational routine to “Popular” from the hit musical Wicked, which a little help from Mr John Lindo. John then performed a West Coast Swing lead and follow with Rachael McEnaney AND Deborah Szekely AND Catriona Wiles. Is there no end to that mans talent? A popular couple for the weekend, Brennar & Torri performed their 2009 US Swing Open Young Adult 1^st Place routine to “White House” by Vanessa Carlton, a winner from the start.

Finally it was time for the Pièce de résistance – The Masters Elite Show Team. This is always the highlight of the performances, showcasing the huge amount of talent we have within our event. And as we’ve said before, with such little time to perfect it, it’s always amazing to see how polished the group routine is. With so much positive feedback, rapturous applause and continuing buzz on Facebook and YouTube it is undoubtedly our best Show Team demo to date.

Close Party

Following on from the Official Warm Up Party, we also had an Official Close Party, with everyone from competitors, spectators, social line dancers, west coast swing dancers, event staff and everyone in-between letting their hair down. Copperface Jacks was opened at 11pm with DJ Ed Lawton, with the Social Line Dance room staying open until 1am, and Buckingham Suite till 3am, there was something for everyone, and once all the other rooms had closed, Copperface Jacks ran until 05:30am when it was finally time to call a close to the whole event.

If you have any constructive feedback, positive or negative, the only way we can improve our events is via your direct feedback. You can fill in our online survey HERE or contact us through the website HERE.

Finally, we’d just like to say Thank You to anybody who attended and to EVERYONE for your continued support. Make sure you check out Facebook and the website extra regularly to ensure you’re getting the latest up to date information!

Happy Dancing

World Dance Masters

World Dance Masters 2010 - Social Line Dance

2010-09-29T08:17:00.000+01:00

World Dance Masters 2010 took place between 6-8 August 2010 at the 4* Grade II listed Palace Hotel in Manchester, UK.

Preparation

Pedro Machado and his 3 man Pro Dance Floors Team (www.prodancefloors.com) arrived by 10:00am to start unloading, marking and laying the 5 ProDanceFloors we were to have laid in the Grand Room, Whitworth Suite, Buckingham Suite, Directors Suite and Palace Room. Whilst they forged ahead in record time, we were busy planning with the hotel the logistics and planning of the event. Believe us when we say these events are a true team effort and that an unbelievable amount of time & planning goes into it.

No sooner had Wednesday started then it was already Thursday morning. This started with Sam giving Jamie a lovely morning wake up call at 07:00am (URGH). With lots to do we were all of a sudden a flurry of activity, Sam with his iPhone in one hand, Blackberry in the other, Walky Talky headset on and 12 dozen things flying through his mind. DJ Big Dave & his wife Pauline (www.bigdavegastap.com) arrived with even more sound equipment, which had to be transported around the venue and set up. Thank goodness for the lifts!The whole team worked hard all day, Nicola Lafferty, Elizabeth Lafferty, John Lafferty & Sydney Smyth spent all day ensuring all the material was ready to go and the event was ready to go flawlessly as possible.

Warm Up Party

Followed by Pedro storming round the room with vodka jelly babies, LOTS of line dancing, west coast swing dancing took place in what was probably the 1^st major amalgamation of both line and swing dancers boogieing the night away. Along with all requests were the great party tracks – Oops Upside Your Head, Time Warp, Hand Jive, Macarena, Grease Medley and many more.

The evening finished at 02:00am with everyone happy and craving their bed, however a select few stayed up and carried on the party in Tempus bar upstairs.

Social Line Dance – Whitworth Suite & Directors Suite

Social commentary courtesy of DJ Big Dave

Friday

First up Friday Rob taught a funky Zoomba beat one called “Cha Cha Your Body” & a cool West coast called “Quoyote's Twist & Groove” And Kate taught a lovely waltz called “Emotions” - Awesome track.

You'll have heard mention of the others perhaps recently - All quite new though - All well received. Rachael's Snap Your Fingers, Peter & Alison's Commander/Don't Give A Blank, Scott's Trouble Is, Craig's Pack Up, Dee's Fashion & Shaz's The Club Is Alive - Love them all :-) Dance of the day from the DJ Booth was Snap Your Fingers.

Andrew DJ'd the 'Social Room' until around 11pm - And then we danced until late in the main ballroom - Earlier in the ballroom Irish Tommy DJ'd & Guyton & Will taught a cool new funky dance, which was a hit with the social & competition dancers alike - Let Me C It (Get Cool).

Saturday

We managed to get up to get things going at 10.00am Saturday morning!!
Andrew was in the workshop room looking after the music for the
choreography competition with judges Dee Musk, Shaz Walton, Craig Bennett, Rob Fowler, Peter Metelnick & Alison Biggs.

Choreography Competition

This year was more successful than ever with 33 entries to the competition with many beginner, intermediate and advanced dancers. The placings were as follows:

Choreography Competition

Beginner/Improver

1st - It's A Replay (Joyce Plaskett)

2nd - A Star In Heaven (Rebecca Armstrong)

3rd - Room Service (Rebecca Lee)

Intermediate
1st -Mighty Good Time (Joyce Plaskett)

2nd - A Minute Away From You (Lottie Hertzman)

3rd - Hot Hot Hot (Helena Jeppsson)

Higher Intermediate/Advanced

1st - Cry Me Out (Malene Jakobsen)

2nd - Zip It (Ryan Hunt)

3rd - Angel Of Inspiration (Stephen Rutter & Claire Butterworth)

ALL CHOREOGRAPHY ENTRY SCRIPTS CAN BE DOWNLOADED FROM OUR SITE HERE

The 3 winners are teaching their dances on the Sunday workshop schedule. Overall winner was Mighty Good Time and as a result Joyce will be featured on the Worlds 2011 instructor/choreographer roster as well as being featured on the World Dance Masters website in September 2010 as their “Featured Choreographer”. As well as this all dance scripts for every entry are also on the site. Be sure to check out her page in the Social section of the site.

I (Dave) was in the social/workshop room where Rob taught a lovely smooth country cha cha called Gypsy Rosa Li - A great dance really well received - Then Kate released her new Alexandra Burke one Drip Droppin' (Start Without You) - A cool/catchy rumba/mambo - Rachael taught another smooth west coast called Cyclone - Peter & Alison's new one was a lovely night club called Johnnie Walker's Eyes (Lady Gaga/Speechless) - Great new dances. The room was also full for Guyton's “Imma Be” & Scott's “Murder Machine” – Peter & Alison also taught a beaty pop one called Je Ne Sais Quoi, Will Craig “Trouble Maker”, Craig Bennett “For The Lovers” & Andrew “Can't touch”, all popular teaches.

Dances of the day - Kate's Drip Droppin' & Rachael's Cyclone.

Sunday

On Sunday Rob taught a really cool waltz call “Wonderland Waltz”, the 'Dance Of The Day' I'd say - Ray Scott & it sounds like Chris Rea's Road To Hell - Lovely track - Kate had a new one too, a neat easy one called Pantaloons (Charleston style). The choreographer competition winners workshops were all well supported It's Alright (Beginner), Mighty Good Time (Intermediate) & Cry To Me (Advanced) - And to wind up the day Dee's “Aphrodite” & Peter & Alison's “One Step Leads To Another” also went well too - Cool intermediate pop ones.

Some of the most popular of recent releases in social dancing over the weekend - Faith & Desire, Everything I Do/Bobbi With An I, Haunted, Trouble Is/No Salvation, Hands Up, Oh Ruby, Plan B, Must Get Free/Corazon Cha, Latin Crazy, NY Cha/Murder My Heart/American Girl/Play For Keeps, Rah-Rah/Broken Heels, Fashion, Quarter After One, Don't Kill The DJ, The Stroma Dance, Tik Tok Drop, One Last Dance, Shoes Of Another Man, My DNA, Martini Moments, Night Owl, Stoked & Gave It All Away ... To name but a few!!! – Then all the popular oldies & classics too.

Great to see some dances catching on though that are already favorites of my own like Zenyatta's Waltz & Be Back Soon - Lots of requests for Neville & Julie's most recent Burn It Down too & Nonononono a catchy fun one going well.

A great night dancing on Sunday evening, with a diverse crowd. The Whitworth Suite was scheduled to finish at 11pm, but we actually danced until 1am! It was awesome to work with a great choreographer line-up & to see all our regular Masters friends from UK/Europe/USA.

From Sunday evening requests the most popular dances from teaches over the weekend I'd say:

· Rob's Wonderland Waltz & Gypsy Rosa Li

· Guyton/Will's Let Me C It, Imma Be & Trouble Maker

· Kate's Drip Droppin' & Emotions

· Scott's Trouble Is & Murder Machine

· Craig's Pack Up & Dee's Fashion

· Rachael's Snap Your Fingers & Cyclone

Just about everything was requested though!!

SCRIPTS FOR ALL DANCES TAUGHT DURING THE EVENT CAN BE FOUND HERE

Then the bad news Monday morning - Packing up the van with 4 rooms of gear! Appreciation to Masters for inviting me to DJ - And a big thinks to Pedro for great quality Pro-Dance floors in all the rooms (& keeping a team on-site all weekend to keep it all spot-on) - Well done to Sam & all the Masters team, especially Jamie who never stopped! Rachael too, who has to share her time between the Competition, Swing & Social rooms all weekend - She never stops, but we miss seeing more of her in the social room being selfish - But a big big thanks to her for trying so hard to be in there as much as possible over the weekend. Thanks to all the choreographers who danced in the social room with us - As dancers (& DJ's) we need to appreciate more who they are that do those extra miles over & above their workshops/recaps to make the social dancing so much more special.

Show Time

Friday

Saturday

Close Party

Happy Dancing

World Dance Masters

Irish Challenge 2010

2010-09-14T22:26:00.003+01:00

It was late on Friday night when the Masters team arrived at Dublin Airport for the Masters Irish Challenge. Nicola flying in from Glasgow and Sam, Abbie and Paul from Manchester had a few Magners before being picked up by the lovely Marie and heading to bed for the night.

It was an early start for the team on the Saturday as they headed to the Auchnamullen GAA Club in Castleblayney to set up for the day’s competition. After a slight panic over the layout of the room, and a quick change about thanks to the incredibly helpful staff members, everything was ready to go and it was time to open the doors.

Staff for the day included our DJ, Tommy Weafer, MC Damian Brady, Floor Co-ordinator Elaine Fox, Door – Sharon Kennedy, Comp Runner, Jason Hill, Comp Registration Rosita Shekelton, Scrutineer, Sam Robins and of course our judges Nicola Lafferty, Ann Cuningham, Lee Easton, James McLauchlan and apprentice judging were Paul Culshaw and Abbie Ingram.

Competition started for the day with Pro-Am. The numbers are continually increasing in this division, with the first heat of the year being no exception and our pros, James, McLauchlan, Lee Easton and Fred Whitehouse, got us off to a great start to the day.

Line dance heats followed the pro am as the Irish competitors battled it out for a place in the Finals. The atmosphere for the finals was amazing. The support that the Irish show to the competitors is second to none. The Starter & Rugrats divisions had the Irish screaming their support, and even some of the club’s footballers came in to see what was happening and couldn’t believe they were witnessing line dancing.

The standard of competition was unbelievably high and left the judges struggling to try and place everyone. Scores in, and Sam had the results ready to go in record time. With teddy bears for our Primary dancers and trophies and certificates for all, the competition day ended with smiles and some tears as people either headed home or stayed for the Social.

With DJ’s Tommy Weafer and Nicola Lafferty ready to play music until the wee small hours, the social began. Requests were played for all, and some party tracks too (Paul Culshaw’s YMCA was a sight to behold!); people from the club drifted in, as well as a crowd of young footballers who again, couldn’t believe that this was line dancing!

The first qualifier of the Competition year over and everyone headed to bed, tired but happy!

Look out for the next Masters Heat in Ireland, the Irish Masters, Sat 11^th June, The Fairways Hotel, Dundalk!.

3rd World Swing Masters

2010-08-25T13:09:00.001+01:00

The 3rd World Swing Masters took place between 6-8 August 2010 at the 4* Grade II listed Palace Hotel in Manchester, UK.

Preparation

No sooner had Wednesday started then it was already Thursday morning. This started with Sam giving Jamie a lovely morning wake up call at 07:00am (URGH). With lots to do we were all of a sudden a flurry of activity, Sam with his iPhone in one hand, Blackberry in the other, Walky Talky headset on and 12 dozen things flying through his mind. DJ Big Dave & his wife Pauline (www.bigdavegastap.com) arrived with even more sound equipment, which had to be transported around the venue and set up. Thank goodness for the lifts! The whole team worked hard all day, Nicola Lafferty, Elizabeth Lafferty, John Lafferty & Sydney Smyth spent all day ensuring all the material was ready to go and the event was ready to go flawlessly as possible.

Airport pick ups, check ins, sound and lighting equipment setup, prop deliveries & set up, registration set up, seating, trophies, dressing rooms, balloons and more. PHEW! And that’s just the start. By now the ProDanceFloor boys had done themselves proud and had all the floors down and fixed in place. 18:00 was nearing and that meant one thing – Masters Elite Show Team practice. As we’re sure any of our Show Team will tell you, at our larger events, they literally have 2 to 3 hours to learn & master the choreography, and often it’s changing as they are learning it. A difference this year was the performance’s choreographers – Superstar Champions Jodie Seedel & Emily Drinkall. To say it was such a professional job is an understatement. The Show Team sweated getting the choreography perfect and we are sure it showed as we had unprecedented positive comments about the Variety show. Many Thanks to Jodie and Emily for doing such a fantastic job.

Warm Up Party

The evening finished at 02:00am with everyone happy and craving their bed, however a select few stayed up and carried on the party in Tempus bar upstairs.

3rd World Swing Masters – Buckingham Suite

WCS commentary courtesy of Lee Easton

We can hardly believe that our 3rd World Swing Masters is already over, without doubt our best event yet. With attendee's from all over Europe, the USA and even Russia it is wonderful to see the growth and expansion of West Coast Swing.

Pros for the weekend were Brennar Goree & Torri Smith, Deborah Szekely & Robert Cordoba, Paul Warden & Catriona Wiles, Lee Easton & Fabienne Henshall and the Fabulous John Lindo. We also saw a lot of the wonderful Rachael McEnaney, who has to divide her time between the WCS room, Competitive Line Dance & Social Line Dance room all weekend, no easy feat we can tell you!

Swing Masters were concentrated in the Buckingham Suite where the lights really helped to build a fun and cool atmosphere. Each night was themed to create a mood – with Friday being “House of Blues”, Saturday was “Saturday Night Red Light” and finally Sunday “Mello Yellow Smooth Grooves”. The air con worked itself out after the first day (Human error). Our late night venue was Copperface Jacks where we danced until 4am Friday night extended until 6am on Saturday and on Sunday night we wrangled an extension in the Buckingham Suite until 3am with John Lindo's music closing out the event. Yes it still wasn’t over – many people headed down to the closing party in Copperface Jacks until 5am. The last of us awake saw the first of the staff leaving for home Monday morning.

With a secondary workshop room upstairs we covered a wide range of levels from absolute beginner to advanced and subjects such as Choreography, Basics, Connection, Breaks, Variations, Shag, Musicality and footwork in our WCS classes and 2-step was a scream, hope you all enjoy learning it as I do teaching it.

Show's were fantastic as you’ll read below. It was the first time that Carolina Shag was demonstrated at the highest standard or at all in the UK. The response from the audience was amazing for every act. Look out for the poll on-line for your favourite performance.

Swing competitions were a big success with over £800 in cash awarded, trophies, as well as event passes for Europe's coolest events and of course, WSDC points in Novice and Intermediate. Below is the top 5 placing for all divisions:

Strictly Swing - Novice

5th Paul Buckley & Susan Minor

4th Rob Day & Michelle Fletcher

3rd Grigory Lebedev & Conny Griehsler

2nd Jean-Christophe Saville & Vicky Wood

1st Thomas Escaravage & Virginie Escaravage

Strictly Swing - Open

5th David Higgins & Lisa Jane Ferrie

4th Peter Fradley & Kate Lovegrove

3rd Paul Harris & Anna Lumsden

2nd Steve Hunt & Melanie Boyle

1st Steve Hall & Sarve Didar

Jack & Jill - Newcomer
5th Abhilash Mathews & Adele Collins
4th Caro Abulin & Emma Bond
3rd Nigel Pontee & Vivi Mentula
2nd Nigel Pontee & Helen Hanlon
1st Manal & Rachel Martin

Jack & Jill - Novice
5th Thomas Escaravage & Laura Carvill
4th Grigory Lebedev & Linda Ratcliffe
3rd Rob Lawrence & Kate Lovegrove
2nd lam duy Nguyen & Vicky Wood
1st Randal Boyd & LeeAnne Forsen

Jack & Jill – Intermediate

5th David Higgins & Anna Lumsden
4th Rafael Quixada & Dora Makhouf
3rd Paul Harris & Katia Avlasevich
2nd Matt Oakley & Sarve Didar
1st Steve Hall & Naomi Hulbert

Videos of the competition can be found on YouTube

Massive congratulations to all of our winners and everyone that entered. It was nice to see some of the "Line Dancers" crossing over with 3 of them making it to the Novice final. Also, congratulations to one our "Swing Dancers" who won the Newcomer Pro-Am division in the main line dance competition room. We hope to see and encourage more and more cross over at the event in years to come. There is also discussion of a Swing Pro-am division being created for next year! Do you like the idea? Let us know your thoughts on that via our CONTACT US form.

Finally, a huge thank you to all of you that came and helped us make this a fantastic weekend!

Show Time

Friday

Saturday

Close Party

Happy Dancing

World Dance Masters

East Coast Masters 2010

2010-07-05T01:38:00.000+01:00

The 1st East Coast Masters took place on Saturday 26th June 2010 at Blue Dolphin Holiday Park in Filey, Scarborough. Event Staff for the day were MC Nicola Lafferty, DJ Jamie Whalley, Judges Danny Last, Jodie Seedel & Emily Drinkall, with Anne Buchan & Zoe Powell apprentice judging, scorer Alison Eadie, Photographer Paul Rhoades, floor coordinator Elizabeth Lafferty with John Lafferty on the door. Also making an appearance was Mr Rob Fowler who’d flown over from Spain.

The day kicked off to a great start with a long queue outside for doors opening at 10:00am. With almost 100 solo dance entries as well as Pro-Am, duos, quads & teams it was going to be another busy day. The room soon filled up as practise music was played.

First off the block was Pro-Am, danced by our Pro dancers Anne Buchan and Nic Bartlem & their students. After they’d danced it was apparent that everyone was itching to get on the floor & show us what they’d got.

On to the line dance divisions & heats were danced by Division 4 Junior. It was a great competition with lots of closely fought battles on the dance floor. Following dance 1 it was time for a spot of lunch so a 25 minute recess was in order to allow everyone to grab a bite to eat. With a restaurant, Burger King, Pastry shop, Spar & Smooth stall on site everyone was spoilt for choice.

The break was closely followed by dances 2 & 3 respectively bringing us up to 5:00pm. A 45 minute break for some social dancing took place with everyone flooding Jamie with requests for right then and for the evening social later on. 5:45pm brought around the awards with some surprises & tears of elation. Everything wrapped up right on schedule at 6:30pm an hour break was needed to give everyone the chance to change & the Haven staff the opportunity to set the room for the evening.

At 7:30pm the evening social got underway. This would promise to be probably our most diverse social yet. In a unique twist to our usual set up, the room was not only open to our dancers, but was also made available to holiday makers at Haven, meaning by door open we already had a huge crowd of couples, families & groups intrigued to see what all this line dance malarkey was about. And our dancers wasted no time showing them. Requests included:

Louisiana Saturday Night, Shoes Of Another Man, Latin Crazy, Man in the Mirror, Telephonic, Cha Cha Slide, Rita’s Waltz, Coochie Bang Bang, Sister Kate, Trouble Is, Jesse James, Cha Cha Loco, Jukebox, Good Ol’ Boys, Acapella, Quarter After One, Have Fun Go Mad, Americano, Chill Factor, Tik Tok Drop, With These Eyes, NY Cha, Spotlight, Inside Your Heaven, Broken Heels, Patient Heart, Fuego, Playing With Fire, 5678, Wild Wild West, Drive Me Wild, Swing Your Chains, Ain’t Goin Down, JR Drop, Hands Up, 5,6,7,8 and Cupid Shuffle (9 Times!!!)

Phew! With the majority of requests played everyone was happy. Rob taught a fun little dance, the 16 count "Upside Down" originally choreographed to a the song of the same name by the A*Teens, but instead danced it to the Madagascar version of “I Like to Move It” which also saw not only the Haven guests get up and have a try, but the Haven staff too! He then showed them it could be danced a little more shall we say “funky” to Justin Timberlake’s “Sexyback”. The non dancers definitely had the “Oh My Gosh, this can’t be line dancing” look on their faces!

Onto more social dancing with a break at 9:30pm for the Haven show “Boogie Fun with the Allstars”!!!! A 20 minute high energetic dance routine medley to entertain the youngsters, but would you believe the dance floor was…..you guessed it, completely full of line dancers!

Followed by even more social dancing, we were treated to a live show from one of the Haven Cabaret singers. This went even further to show those non dancers in the room that line dancers really can dance to anything at the drop of a hat. She sang a variety of songs including “9 to 5” (Mojo Rhythm), “Stuck in the Middle” (Walk The Line), “Summer of 69” (Got To Be Funky), Ego (Cupid Shuffle again!). Her set was finished off nicely with The Sway to her rendition of Leona Lewis’ version of “Run” by Snow Patrol.

And would you believe it, even MORE social dancing, with a “demo” by Rob of THE BEAST, being joined halfway by some of our dancers, took us right up to midnight. It was time to say our goodbyes & take our tired feet off to bed.... or to the Galaxy Bar in some cases! We would like to thank our Masters staff for the day, the staff at the Blue Dolphin holiday complex who couldn’t have done enough for us, offer our congratulations to those who competed & extend a huge THANK YOU to everyone who attended.

Don’t forget the 8th World Dance Masters is being held in Manchester 6-8 Aug. Visit our website for information on entry, accommodation & more.

http://www.worlddancemasters.com

Irish Masters 2010

2010-06-14T22:39:00.002+01:00

Another weekend, another event. Nicola and Sam made their way to their respective airports late on Thursday night to arrive into Ireland with enough time to prepare everything that needed preparing for the Irish Masters 2010.

Held in the beautiful Park Hotel, Dundalk, the event was bound to be an exciting one with World Dance Masters' biggest registration of the year so far. Over 220 dancers had registered to compete. The only thing about this bothering the Masters Team was how they were going to manage to get through all the heats in just one day!

Saturday morning arrived quickly enough and Nicola and Sam were up early to make sure all things were in order. On Friday evening Tommy Weafer arrived to set-up for being our fabulous DJ for the day and the Park Hotel staff worked through the night to ensure the venue ballroom was set-up according to our meticulous specifications! All was ready to go and our nerves were calm.....until we saw the queue waiting to come in!!!

The next mission was getting everyone through the door and registered as quickly as possible with thanks to Jason Hill. Job done in 30 minutes, on schedule, even though Sam had lost a good clump on his hair though the stress of having to calculate everyones entry in his head! By 10:30 the hall was packed and we were ready to kick-off with the Pro-Am competition. Our first congratulation goes to our Pros; James McLauchlan, Lee Easton, Fred Whitehouse, Sam Robins and Shane McKeever danced tirelessly for almost 1hr 30mins to get all of our Pro-Am heats done on schedule. What a job they did.

After a very quick two song break our floor co-ordinators Elaine Fox , Jason Hill, Rosita Shekelton and Sharon Kennedy, along with MC Damien Brady, had got all the dancers competing in the heats ready to go. Our judges for the day (Nicola Lafferty, Lee Easton, James McLauchlan, Ann Cunningham and apprentice judges Fred Whithouse, Paul Culshaw and Bernie Lenaghan) were ready to rock and so on came our first heat of Newcomer Juniors. What a performance they all gave. This followed with our other heats in the relative divisions. Placed in between these preliminaries was our newest division - Starter. Over 30 dancers competed in this new One Dance division and oh my, did they get some support from the 300 strong audience. The Starter scoring was produced quickly by our scorer Sam Robins and the Starter awards were done by the end of the heats. Congratulations to all the Starter dancers - you were magnificent and we hope you all come back and compete again. Everyone else, watch out for the new Starter Division next year and get some people rallied up to compete. One dance, three divisions, offered at every competition concluding at Worlds 2011!

At 3:30 we were finally ready to start our Finals. A little late in the day but the time flew by. Thank you to all our amazing staff for their organisation and the wonderful competitors for being ready to go whenever we called them. This was by far the most tense schedule we have ever run and by 19:00 we were ready for all the trophies to be awarded. Now that is called super efficiency!

Finally at 20:00 we started our evening social (Sam disappeared to go and catch up on the England football match for a brief 30 minutes). DJ'd by Tommy Weafer and our very own Nicola Lafferty, everybody enjoyed a wonderful evening of dancing and relaxing until.....well, 03:00!!

And that concluded the Irish Masters 2010. Once again, thank you to EVERYONE for the unbelievable support. Thank you to the Park Hotel for helping make everything run smoothly and a special thank you to Elaine Fox, Sharon Kennedy, Jason Hill, Rosita Shekelton, Damien Brady, Tommy Weafer, David Fiddis, David Marsh, Paul Culshaw, Lee Easton, Ann Cunningham, Fred Whitehouse, Bernie Lenaghan and Gail Cowie (temporary photographer while Sam was too busy!) for all their help and support throughout the day.

For all those coming to Worlds, see you there. For all those not, we hope to see you at the Irish Challenge, 4th September 2010 in Ty Holland!

Scandinavian Masters 2010

2010-06-08T21:48:00.000+01:00

The 2nd Scandinavian masters took place in the beautiful City of Stockholm at the SAS Radisson Blu hotel. Event Directors Marianne & Ingemar Kardeskog had invited a great range of staff to the event to cater for all possible tastes. Scott Blevins, Kate Sala, Robbie McGowan-Hickie and Craig Bennett were on hand for the social dancers, and Sam Robins, Nicola Lafferty and Arild Lekanger were there to teach in the Swing Room. As well as a main room for social dancers where the workshops would take place and a swing room, there was a fast track social room for non-stop requests plus super-fast teaches of the dances being taught in the main ballroom! Talk about catering for everyone!

On Friday evening the event began in the main room with a social and workshops from the choreographers. Ingemar and Marcus kept everyone dancing until late with a great mix of music, from beginner to advanced. In the swing room there were beginner workshops from Arild and Sam & Nicola to teach the basics of West Coast Swing and an introduction of West Coast Swing Jack & Jill, where Sam took it upon himself to force everybody in the room to sign up! Pressure...
Saturday started early with a wonderful breakfast and then some great workshops. Dances taught over the weekend included the following; from Scott Blevins we had ‘Trouble Is’, ‘Murder Machine’, ‘Oh Ruby’, ‘Cold Blooded’ and ‘Cha Cha Tonight’. Kate Sala taught ‘Pantaloons’, ‘Yolanda’ and ‘Plan B’. Robbie McGowan-Hickie taught ‘All Cool’, Burn It Up’ and ‘Work It Out’ and from Craig Bennett we had ‘Latin Crazy’, ‘For The Lovers’, ‘Standing In The Shadows’ and ‘Running in the Wrong Direction’.
Workshops in the Swing Room continued with Novice and Intermediate classes, accumulating in a fun Jack & Jill competition. Again, Sam made sure almost everyone in the room had been signed up to compete and even threatened to lock everyone in if someone tried to leave. The competition ran with great success and our winners, Fredrik Wallin & Merete Brandli were presented with two free passes to Worlds 2010. Congratulations to everyone who competed, we hope you all enjoyed the experience.

After a quick break for another great meal, the main room opened for the evening. Kicking off the show for the Saturday night were Sam & Nicola with their West Coast Swing routine, followed by Tiina Aalto and Juho Paivenen from Finland impressing the audience with their Pro-Am Couples routines. Sam and Nicola then finished the show with a mixture of line and couples dancing to the theme of Annie Get Your Gun. Social dancing then continued well into the small hours, and everyone went to bed exhausted but happy after a fantastic night’s dancing.
Sunday morning arrived quickly enough with another busy day. The swing room became the Scandinavian Masters competition room as competitors from all over Scandinavia battled it out to become Scandinavian Champions in Choreography, Pro-Am and Line Dance. The judges included Scott Blevins, Nicholas Cort from Sweden (our newest Masters Judge), Kate Sala and Nicola. They all had a difficult job with all the talent on show. Congratulations again to everyone who danced! You were all magnificent.

Sunday didn’t offer just competition though, the main room held workshops again from Kate, Craig and Robbie all day with lots of social dancing in between. The variety at this event was amazing!
After a long day of competition and social dancing, the awards presented and the dancers all danced out, it was time to say goodbye. Thanks to everyone who attended the event, all of the staff, helpers, DJ’s and Instructors. It takes a lot of background work to put on such a diverse and well run event, so a special thanks to Marianne & Ingemar for such a fantastic job!

Keep your eye out for the launch of the new World Dance Masters website to find out whats happening at the Scandinavian Masters 2011!

Midland Masters 2010

2010-05-25T10:52:00.002+01:00

Midland Masters took place on Saturday 22^nd May at Kings Hall, Stoke-On-Trent. The day kicked off bright (very bright) and early for the team at around 08:00. The sun was beaming down all day long meaning the hall looked glorious with slits of sun shining through the window illuminating the dance floor.

Queues were forming as early as 08:45 and by doors opening time there was a queue of at least 200 people waiting to enter. With music playing, sun shining, and everybody in high spirits it looked like it was going to be a great day.

Warm-up for Pro-Am kicked off at 11:00. Unfortunately due to the heat, by the end of warm-up time our dancers and the Pro's were already sweating!!

Judges for the day were Competition Director and Head Judge Nicola Lafferty, Jodie Seedel, Charlotte Macari and Apprentice Judging was Division 1 Dancer Lauren Forsyth. Scoring for the day was Head Scorer Sam Robins, assisted by Paul Rhoades, with Jamie Whalley as the wonderful DJ. Making up the team for the day were John and Elizabeth Lafferty on the door with Zoe Powell as floor coordinator. A well oiled machine if we do say so ourselves!!

Into the competition it was clear that the day was going to get even warmer inside the hall. Pro's led their dancers around the floor with amazing style, flare & grace. Our dancers and Pro's coped well with the heat; from Newcomer to Advanced, everyone danced fantastically.

With the Pro-Am over it was time to move to the Line Dance divisions. A small break was given for the judges and dancers to get in a final practise before donning costumes and preparing themselves for their 1^st Dance. Amazing. The standard and effort didn’t falter all day. Through to Dance 2 and 3 everyone gave it 100%. A special mention has to be given to our Primary Novice Female, Newcomer Junior Female & Division 4 Junior Female Divisions who had to dance in heats, some dancing as many as 9 times!

After a long dance of dancing it was time to hand out the awards. Lots of surprises and happiness brought the day of competition to a close. But it wasn’t the end of the day. The evening brought about a social with Charlotte Macari & Jamie Whalley. They kept everyone dancing right through the evening with teaches from both Charlotte & Lee Easton. Charlotte taught her own dance "In This Life", a 32 Count 4 Walls Intermediate dance to In This Life by Collin Raye, followed by Lee teaching his own dance “Telephonic” , a 32 Count 2 Walls Intermediate/Advanced dance to Telephone by Lady Gaga ft. Beyonce. This was loved by everyone, very fast & energetic.

New & old dances sat side by side. New favourite “Faith & Desire” followed by “The Beast” is just an example of the variety. The night was finished off by a good ol’ favourite, “Islands in the Stream” with Charlotte & Jamie performing on stage!

We hope everyone had a great day as we know we did. Congratulations to all of our dancers for your continued effort & dedication.

South African Masters 2010

2010-05-20T12:42:00.004+01:00

The South African Masters headed its preparations with a good start when Sam arrived 4 days before the event for a little sightseeing. As Wednesday came around it became apparent that our Head Judge, Nicola Lafferty, might not be getting to the event due to that horrible Icelandic volcano so Sam and Event Director Nadia began putting together the contingencies.

Thankfully Nicola managed to get on a flight on Thursday (after getting a free upgrade to Business Class!) and arrived in sufficient time to make the event work as if nothing had happened. Thankfully Nicola still managed to get a full suitcase of costume donations out South Africa. Thank you to everyone who has donated to the cause - everything has been put to great use.

As Friday came along it was time for the first Judging Examinations using the new World Dance Masters Judging criteria. We are very excited to say that South Africa now holds the first ever Level I and Level II World Dance Masters qualified judges. Congratulations to everyone who took them and passed.

The Friday evening social started nice and early at around 6pm with over 100 dancers clearly enjoying the opportunity to dance away to all types of dances. When we say this event caters for every type of dancer it truly does; from absolute beginners to more advanced dancers. We knew from this point the South African Masters was going to be an event that was wonderful to behold.

Nadia Coen and her team went to the hall bright and early on Saturday morning to start with set-up and open registration. Nicola, Sam and Caryl Cusins arrived at around 10:00 to start their preparations for the days judging assignments. The competition started with the events ‘Classic’ divisions (social divisions). What a wonderful experience this was. Over 35 children attended from Broadlands Primary School, a school situated close to the venue, and a dance school in Bela Bela (Limpopo province situated about 250km from the venue), and all danced in their relative age divisions. Learning their dances in between their breaks at school just three weeks prior to the event, the kids were aged between 5 and 13 and all did an amazing job!

At around 12:00 we did the award ceremony for the Classic Youth division so they could go home if they wanted to. Its safe to say that all the dancers were happy with their certificates and awards and we hope to see them back next year!

At 13:00 we started with the rest of the ‘Classic’ and ran straight into the ‘International’ divisions (standard Masters divisions). The standard of competition was wonderful to watch and amazing for a country that doesn’t have access to the best professional tuition like the UK does. Nicola, Sam and Caryl all had their work cut out for them as the dancers showed such an amazing ability. At 18:30 the awards commenced and all the new South African Masters Champions were crowned.

After the awards Nicola and Sam did three well-received demonstrations and after this was completed the breakdown started and everyone began to make their way home.

With the competition complete and all our dancers satisfied, Sunday started with a day of intense technical workshops held by Nicola and Sam. The opportunities for new technical information to be absorbed by the South African dancers are few and far between so they make the most of the time they have with the visiting Judges. After another fantastic day the event was officially over but the fun had only just begun for Nicola & Sam.

On Tuesday they were both treated to 24 hours of South African culture. Starting off at the Monkey Sanctuary, Nicola, Sam and Nadia were treated to a tour of the area by Sarah the Spider Monkey. Being so up-close to these wonderful animals was an experience Nicola & Sam will never forget. But it wasn’t over yet. Next a trip to the Elephant Sanctuary. Another incredible experience. Riding the elephants and even being kissed by them (an utterly disgusting but strangely gratifying experience), the day ended watching the sunset over the mountains from the sanctuary’s sunset point.

On Wednesday they were treated to (or terrified by, in Sam’s case) a Canopy Slide across the mountains. Drifting 140m on a zip-wire across to mountainous caverns 300ft above the ground is something that everyone should do if they get chance.

After a truly amazing experience, Nicola & Sam boarded their flight back to the UK on Wednesday evening and proceeded to get back to reality.

For anyone wanting to experience any World Dance Masters International events who have some spare money and want a holiday at the same time, the South African Masters will give you a lifetime of memories (while getting you one of your qualifying points for Worlds). Check the new website (launching 14th June) for details on next years event, we will make sure that anyone serious in attending gets all the help they need in booking all the activities available to them.

German Masters 2010

2010-04-26T09:01:00.009+01:00

With clouds of ash from Iceland, it seemed unlikely that any of our Masters team were going to make it to the German Masters event! Dancers Lee Easton and Fabienne Henshall were stranded in LA and it was doubtful that Sam Robins & Nicola Lafferty were going to make it either; luckily the air space was reopened and Sam & Nicola were able to make their flights. German Instructors, Jasmin Oetzel and Joachim Armbruster were on hand to step into the shoes of Lee & Fabienne, so the event was able to go ahead.

Arriving at the venue in beautiful Florsheim (only 10 minutes from Frankfurt airport), Friday afternoon was spent preparing the hall and competition paperwork and having a quick practise of the demos for the show before joining the new BFCW team for an Italian meal. Josip, Jurgen, Tine, Sabine, Robert & Anke had done a great job of organising the competition and helping Sam & Nicola learn a few words of German! Although Sam studied German at school, he was exceptionally rubbish at remembering any German words and proceeded to instruct with his poor English accent (sorry everyone!!).

Saturday started with a wonderful welcome from the new President of the BFCW, Josip Miolcic, and an introduction to the Masters team. Nicola started the day with an easy, fun workshop, teaching ‘Swingin’ The Lead’, which then led into the competitors meeting and the competition, starting with the Newcomer and Intermediate divisions. Joachim Armbruster then took to the stage to teach his dance ‘Oopsy Daisy’ which was very well received, to a fabulous track by the same name sung by Chipmunk. Jasmin Oetzel then taught the Masters Newcomer Dance ‘Rockin’ Robin’ and Sam & Nicola taught some basic couples West Coast Swing, followed by Sam teaching the line dance ‘Parachute’. At this point all the dancers were undoubtedly 'workshoped' out. The ballroom shut down for dinner break and a small show practice.

Saturday evening opened with a cool mix of social dancing from the DJ’s and then it was time for the show. There were solo demos from Nicola, Sam & Joachim, couples from Sam & Nicola and a couples routine from Sam, Joachim, Nicola & Jasmin to Lady GaGa’s ‘Telephone’. This was definitely an experience to behold....in a reversal of positions, Joachim turned into Lady GaGa with Sam taking up the role of Beyonce!! After the team had had a small recovery (and a small amount of beer) Joachim taught his fun contra dance ‘Homo Dance’ which went down wonderfully (with a large amount of laughing). The dancing continued until 12.30am and then it was time for bed.

Sunday started with some more workshops. Jasmin taught ‘Take your Time’ and Nicola taught ‘Kiss & Tell’. Competition then started for the day with the Novice and Advanced dancers taking to the floor. Another great display of dancing from our competitors! Throughout the Sunday more workshops took place, including ‘Absolutely Positively’ and ‘Faith & Desire’ as well as recaps of all the dances taught over the weekend. The day finished with the awards ceremony as all the competitors from both days of competition waited to see how they had placed. Awards over and dancers from all over Germany, Holland and Switzerland began to pack up to begin the long journey home.

Masters would like to thank the BFCW for running the event and to all the staff and helpers. A special thanks to Tine Knisel who had to organise the event with very little time (including all the stress of placing the contingencies) and to Jasmin and Joachim for stepping in at such short notice and for doing such a wonderful job. The event couldn't have taken place so successfully without these people and Nicola and Sam can't thank them enough!

Keep checking the website and Facebook for updates on when and where the Masters event will be next year! We are definitely looking forward to it. We hope to see you all there too.