Emporio News

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National Capital DanceSport Championships - 26 & 27 June 2010

The 2010 NCDC event, held at the Australian Institute of Sport in Canberra is one of the major National events held in Australia. This year signalled the 18th anniversary and also the farewell of Co-Organisers Penny De Kauwe and David Gunasekera, names synonymous with the NCDC. Don't worry, we've been assured there will be a NCDC 2011.

This year saw the introduction of paperless judging – adjudicators used palmtop computers connected via a wireless network and running custom software to select / mark couples. The system ran exceptionally smooth and certainly sped up the process.

Also new this year was the introduction of Rising Star events. Couples from the Adult Latin and Standard semi-final events that didn’t make the final competed for the title of Rising Star Champion.

The NCDC has always featured great floor shows, this year no exception with no other than Riccardo Cocchi & Yulia Zagoruychenko from the USA. Riccardo is the Italian Stallion who seems to mange to charm all the ladies, while Yulia had every man in a 20km radius spellbound.

The floorshow was just simply amazing! Riccardo and Yulia really know how to work the crowd and their precision, speed and ability are simply inspiring. Can’t wait to see them again. There are a couple of photos in the photo gallery and plenty more on dancesportphoto.net.

Riccardo & Yulia performing the Paso Doble

As an appetiser, the NCDC ran a workshop on the Friday evening where Riccardo & Yulia provided an insight into the latest trends in Latin American.

In a smaller, almost intimate environment, the clarity and quality of their dancing was absolutely breath taking. Their ability to move "as one" was something to be seen!

This is where Clint got his wish of having a photo with Yulia taken granted - I don't think I have ever seen him happier.

Couples from England, Korea, New Zealand, Philippines, China and Hong Kong made the trip to Canberra and gave the event an international flavour.

The Emporio was well represented, and some impressive silver ware made its way back to Adelaide.

This was the first event for an exciting new partnership between Tony Romano, six times Australian and six times NCDC champion, and Sarah Humenich.

Sarah is new to the DanceSport scene, but with classical ballet training and a career with the English Ballet, no stranger to dance and performance.

After just 3 months of training together they placed 3rd in the Master I Open Latin – that is just a phenomenal achievement! Congratulations on an outstanding result.

 
There were a number of other great results, namely Brenton Hillard & Karen Bollenhagen winning the Masters I Level 2 Latin and Chris Davies & Gale Sprott winning the Master I Level 1 Latin and placing 3rd in the Masters I Level 2 Latin.

 
Brenton also made the semi-final in the Masters I Open New Vogue with Giselle West – a great result.

Michael Winnick and Rachel Lloyd made the final in the Adult Level 1 Standard Waltz, and Michael also made the semi-final in the Adult Level 2&1 New Vogue with Anna Kopiekin.

Oryst & Janet Tkacz made the semi-final in the Masters II Open Standard and New Vogue.

Also back on the floor after a long break were Jim & Irene Stevens. They placed second in the Masters II Level 3 Standard and third in the Masters II Open Latin. Keep up the good work!

Noticeably missing were David and Leanne Amos, Leanne recovering from illness – we wish her a speedy recovery and return to the dance floor.

Check out the Photo Gallery for more photos 

Chris Gruber