My pictures from the Pro Latin and Amateur Standard championships are now up; they begin in the album here.
Latin’s my favorite competition and it was a good night, although I was sad some of my favorites — Vaidotas Skimelis & Jurga Pupelyte, Andre Paramov & Natalie, Andrei Gavriline & Elena Kruschkova — didn’t show (although Gavriline was in the audience watching).
Sometimes, that’s good though, because you have a chance to focus on others. And, I don’t know whether it was that I didn’t have Vaidotas and Andrei to fixate on or that they just danced better than ever before, but Pavlo Barsuk and Anna Trebunskaya were ON FIRE! Pavlo gets this cute little evil imp, almost vampiric, expression on his face where his eyes widen considerably and he looks so serious, so hungry, so bloodthirsty even — and all of that energy just radiates downward throughout his body and it makes him so mesmerizing to watch. She was ravishing as well. Those two danced to win. And they almost did, placing second, even beating out two couples that normally place near the top, right after Riccardo Cocchi and Yulia Zagoruychenko, who were, as expected, excellent.
Riccardo, I now know from Blackpool, has a very endearing personality, which translates into a charming dancefloor persona. I love how they interpret rhythms, slowing down and even coming to a full stop at points in order to accent their speed. When a couple just dances fast, on the beat, the whole time, it’s almost too much; it lacks a certain variety and development. And Yulia is back to dancing on her toes and making her miraculous shapes again. When she does a spiraling sous sus, she looks like a ballerina she’s so far onto the tips of her toes.
