It’s Time!

for the U.S. National Dancesport Championships!!! I’m off bright and early tomorrow morning. Will be blogging from there, hopefully via mobile (assuming I can blast some brain waves into my stubborn T-Mobile; the service actually works better in Europe than the U.S., go figure), though I will probably wait to get back home to post all my real camera pics and longer written entries (I finally figured out my problem with Flickr: it gets all confused and has a nervous breakdown when I type in a long text message; post has to consist of a simple picture with minimal text. So for people who like to make fun of me for being a bit photo-crazed — Counter Critic and Danciti 🙂 — that’s why! Okay, at least in part. I confess, when I really like some dance or dancer, I can’t help it; I just start snapping away!)

Anyway, here are my predictions:

Joanna Zacharewicz and Jose DeCamps will become the new American Rhythm champions;

Steve Dougherty and Eulia Baranovksy will take tops in American Smooth;Andrei Gavriline and Elena Kruyshkova will hold onto their crown in International Latin; and

Ditto for Jonathan Wilkins and Katusha Demidova in International Standard.

Of course, I would so love for Emmanuel Pierre-Antoine (pictured at top of the post with his new partner Julia Gorchakova) to win because I like him so much, but, well, we’ll see…

Another favorite couple of mine, in Int. Latin, the sublime Yulia Zagoruychenko (probably one of most artistically sophisticated of all national ballroom dancers, in what is still seen primarily as sport, not art), and her partner Max Kozhevnikov.

In other news: I was informed today that my old studio, Dance Times Square, has arranged a bus to transport 40 or so students and friends to the So You Think You Can Dance concert tour at Nassau Coliseum on October 9th to see Pasha and Anya! Woo hoo! Will I be on that bus or what!!!