DC Dancesport Inferno 2000 -- April 15-16

reported by Candice Chan

As expected the competition was really big (although not as big as last year) -- about 250 competitors! (Cornell had abt 100 competitors at our competition) Team members in attendance were Nick, Wendy, Laurie, Ellan, Daniela, Josh, and Candice. Some of us arrived the night before for the dance but we all managed to meet up at Daniela's house where we can a comfortable place to spend the night (thanks Daniela!).

The dance and comp were held in a large gymnasium with great big windows and wonderful natural light which was also air-conditioned :) The sound system and choice of music was less than to be desired, though, and at one point the head judge complained to the DJ that the song was not really danceable. So not only did they test our dancing skills but our ability to work with weird music including themes from Titanic, "On My Own" from Les Miserables and "Phantom of the Opera" converted into waltzes and quicksteps -- yech!

The comp started at 9am and went all the way till 12 midnight! Every catergory took almost 2-3 times longer to narrow down to a final round since there were so many couples. (We got to show off our jackets which was cool!)

RESULTS:

NICK AND WENDY, our fabulous silver dancers, managed to get called back in mambo amongst some very stiff competition. They looked great! (Wendy even wore her deadly silver shoes.) The two also placed 7th in the ROBOcha fun dance in which you were supposed to act like a robot and not bend any joints. They were AMAZING and totally deserved first place for this event -- what do judges know anyway? Throughout the comp they were also a wonderful source of encouragement, support, energy and fun -- THANKS!

ELLAN (our little one!) braved the possiblity of not having a partner to come with us -- good on ya! She had a super time, made lots of friends and even took home a few ribbons :) She managed to find a partner -- David Liu from george washington u -- for newcomer american smooth and international standard events and got called back for waltz. For international latin she danced with DANIELA and got into the finals for rumba (6th place!) and for chacha (7th place). It's always nice to have a new face with us at competitions.

LAURIE also came with us without a partner but danced with David from RPI -- a good dancer albeit sleepy looking :) She danced with him in newcomer smooth placing fourth in waltz and beginner latin getting callbacked to the quarter-finals of samba. She also danced american rhythm with Wendy and made it to QF of chacha and rumba -- go girl power!

DANIELA, our final teammate with no partner, was surprised when her mum managed to get one for her -- way to go Daniela's mum! She danced smooth and standard with from Maryland and Latin with Yasni from Virginia. Her dress for smooth was GORGEOUS.

Finally JOSH AND CANDICE got 1 callback in american waltz,intl waltz and am foxtrot respectively and 2 callbacks in intl tango. In Rhythm/Latin they got 2 callbacks for intl rumba and jive and managed to place 6th in both swing and am chacha after 5 heats and a very satisfying 5th in Intl Chacha -- YAY! Unfortunately too much chacha has placed our beloved team captain out of action for a little while with a strained hip :)

Team matches were more competitive than usual and only the top 3 teams were given awards. Josh and Candice got called back for team "T" to a 5 couple final in international chacha and were the only beginners among them. The team however did pull-off a funky interpretive dance for which we got 4th place -- great job team for creativity!

Overall a fun but long weekend. Thank you to our wonderful drivers Nick and Josh who drove 10-12 hours each to get us to the competition -- you're AWESOME. Thank you to Daniela and her family for their hospitality. And thanks to all the team members who went for being wonderful traveling companions. Hope to see more and more people from Cornell at these events.

[To Competitions Reports] [To Away Competition Photo Gallery]