New and Events

The 4th BDFI Canada Congress

April 17, 2011

The 4th BDFI Canada Congress took place at the completion of the 12th annual Crystal Leaf DanceSport Championships held on April 14-16th of 2011. The spacious DoubleTree by Hilton Toronto Airport Hotel was an ideal venue for the congress with its bright ballroom, great acoustics and convenience of all the competition guests to attend the educating congress.

The theme of the congress was “Priorities in Dancing, Teaching and Adjudicating”. In order to make the lectures interesting for Amateurs, Professionals, Pro-Am attendants as well as general public, the organizers have placed Ballroom and Latin lecturers in alternating order. Each of the 6 lectures presented, were unique in their own way and some of them included guest performers.

The presentations began with a great lecture by Mr. Benoit Drolet – Canada. The lecture was built in a form of a lesson, where Mr. Drolet was the instructor and the Canadian Professional Standard Champions – Anton Lebedev and Anna Borsch were the students. In his lecture, Mr. Drolet explained his priorities in knowledge of basic foundation of ballroom dancing, the use of shaping and the changes of character using musical patterns in Tango which he related to the rest of Ballroom dances. It was pleasing to see many spectators pull out their notebooks to make notes on this interesting lecture.

Our second guest was Mr. Rufus Dustin – USA. With his great knowledge and years of experience, you could realize that Mr. Dustin had a very unique approach of presenting his priorities. The 11 time US National Amateur Latin Champions, Eugene Katsevman and Maria Manusova, gladly agreed to aid Mr. Dustin in demonstrating his ideas in their dancing. Some of the ideas included Partnering, differentiation of Male to Female character, use of musical rhythms in the body, intentional body positions and more. Great interpretation of these ideas by Eugene and Maria made the information more understandable and acceptable by all spectators. Once again, we observed many spectators taking notes and discussing some of the information amongst themselves.

As soon as Eugene and Maria finished assisting Mr. Rufus Dustin with his lecture, they remained on the floor for their own. Being a highly ranked formerly amateur, currently professional couple as well as respected adjudicators, Eugene and Maria shared their experiences on the floor in all 3 positions which conveniently and directly related to the 3 aspects of our theme “dancing, teaching and adjudicating”. Eugene and Maria have demonstrated their main priority of underlining the character of each dance clearly by involving the whole audience in a set of basic figures in Samba, Cha-Cha-Cha and Rumba, where they have identified the factors that characterize these dances and make them unique. A great, informative lecture was very much appreciated by the audience.

Our next lecturer came from the hot and sunny Desert Springs, California. Mr. Igor Suvorov, being a world renowned ballroom dancer and an organizer of one of the largest and most exciting ballroom dancing events in USA, has shared with the audience many of his personal priorities in dancing, teaching and adjudicating ballroom dancing. It was very interesting to hear his opinion on partnership, balance, basic foundation of dances and presentation of couples as they take the floor for competition. With the majority of audience consisting of young amateur dancers, this lecture will surely give them great examples of how the adjudicators appreciate nice presentation on the floor.

Moving on to our next presenter, we must say that it was quite a pleasant surprise for many to see Mr. Alain Doucet with his family appear on the floor. In his lecture, Mr. Doucet made it very clear that for his successful dance career with Ms. Anik Jolicoeur, he is thanking not the adjudicators, teachers and dancers with their priorities, but his one and only coach, Mrs. Meryem Pearson. Mr. Doucet spoke about how sticking to your coach, respecting his opinion and obeying his instruction can be extremely helpful and rewarding for any athlete throughout their career. Great lecture with a very unique approach to priorities!

Lastly the floor took our much respected friend, dancer and adjudicator from England, Mr. Colin James. Mr. James came prepared but humorously quoted that Mr. Suvorov had stolen some of his material on Balance. Of course Mr. James’ material was unique and he lectured beautifully on how Balance and grounded look makes a priority for him since it speaks about the dancer’s understanding of movement, foundation and natural mechanics. Some of the spectators were incorporated by Mr. James in his lecture to demonstrate some of the ideas presented. Overall, it was a great finish for the congress and we could observe satisfaction and excitement in the eyes of the audience.

This was one of the most successful and most interesting BDFI Canada Congresses so far, by the words of the thankful audience. We look forward to our next event in the closest future which will be bigger, better, brighter.

Congratulation all competitors and will be happy to see you next year!