Swedish Dance Masters 2010

Swedish Dance Masters 2010 looked set to be a fantastic event. Event Directors Göran and Åsa had again set up an impressive line up of guests including Swing King John Lindo, Sam Robins, Nicola Lafferty, Shaz Walton, Lee Easton, Fabienne Henshall, and Mr Guyton Mundy, as well as World Famous DJ Big Dave. Also in attendance were special guests Carey Parson from the USA & Team Unique Vision from Finland along with Hollands Pim Van Grootel, Norways Arild Lekanger, Nicolas Cort & Benny Jeppsson DJing in the beginner room, Zumba instructor Marlene Björkdahl and from the Masters Team was Jamie Whalley. A truly international event we're sure you'll agree.

For some of the team the weekend started on Friday morning... you guessed it... very early - 4:30am in Sam & Jamie's case. Everyone had arrived safely at the gorgeous Stenungsbaden Yacht Club by 4pm on Friday, ready for the event to kick off at 6pm. Swedish Dance Masters takes the form of not just a competition but a social & workshop weekend, featuring a main line dance room, a West Coast Swing room holding workshops and Jack & Jill competition, Beginner line dance room, secondary workshop room with the addition of street dance, body isolation  & Zumba workshops this year, and of course no weekend event would be complete without SHOWTIME!

All of the workshops were well supported; with everyone enjoying what was on offer, with even some inexperienced dancers tackling some of Guyton’s advanced choreography. The beginner room was especially busy, with a full dance floor for the majority of the weekend. Teaches for the weekend were as follows:

Guyton Mundy

You're Amazing [Int]

"Just The Way You Are" - Bruno Mars

Imma Be [Adv] ("523" - Guyton Mundy, Pim van Grootel, Will Craig, Daniel Trepat & Ryan Lindsey)

"Imma Be" - Black Eyed Peas

 

Club Can't Handle This  [Adv] (Guyton & Carey Parson) Script To Follow

"Club Can't Handle Me' - Flo Rida ft. David Guetta 

Ooh I Like It [Int] (Rachael McEnaney & Ryan Lindsey)

"We No Speak Americano (I Like That)" - Yolando B Cool, DCup, Nabildon (UK radio edit)

Let Me C It  [Adv] (Guyton &Will Craig

"Let me C it" - Get Cool, featuring Petey Pablo, From the "Step up 3D" Album

Shaz Walton

Written In The Stars [Int]

"Written in the Stars" - Tinie Tempah ft. Eric Turner

2012 [Int]

"2012" - Jay Sean Feat Nicki Minaj

Nicola Lafferty

Hip To Be Square [B]

"Hip To Be Square" - Huey Lewis & The News

Sweet & Simple [B/Imp]

"How Sweet It Is" - Michael Buble

Fabienne Henshall

Lady Madonna [B] Script To Follow

"Lady Madonna" – The Beatles

Friday kicked off straight into the swing of things (get it) with both a workshop from John Lindo in the West Coast Swing room that was full to bursting, as well as the 1st of many teaches from Guyton. Dinner followed - the exquisite food we raved about last year was just as nice this year. Some changes to the dining room, but still the same great taste. Following dinner, the workshops carried on in succession in the main line room and WCS room until 11:00pm when it was Showtime. 

And what a show it was. 1st to the floor were John, Lee, Nicola & Fabienne who performed a Lead & Follow WCS routine, ending with Johns legendary multi lead! Next up, the man that needs no introduction, Guyton. Back by popular demand, he was joined by the very talented Carey Parson, displaying some poppin', lockin', breaking and some impressive moves. Everyone was wowed. Following this was Lee & Fabienne performing their 2 Step routine. If you were at Worlds 2010 you will have seen this wonderful routine. And last but certainly not least Team Unique Vision. TUV are the undefeated World Dance Masters Cabaret Champions presenting some of the most creative & intelligent choreography our judges have seen. They performed their winning Zombie routine from Worlds 2009. After the show, we had a midnight workshop with Shaz, then social dancing until around 4am!

No sooner were we in bed than the alarm clocks went off to be up for Breakfast and a start to the day with the choreography competition. Judged by Shaz, Lee & Guyton and MC'd by Jamie, this year we had an impressive 22 entries. Winners in each category were:

Beginner
Got U - Stig Ekstrom

Intermediate
Not The Same - Helena Jeppsson

Advanced
Carrickfergus - Malene Jakobsen

All of the winners got the chance to host their own workshops later on Saturday and teach their dancers. Scripts for all of the choreography entries can be found on our website HERE 

Following the announcement of the winning entries, it was overdrive for workshops with a quick succession of workshops in Beginner, Intermediate, and Advanced line dance, West Coast Swing, Zumba with Marlene & Body Isolation with Carey, both of which were packed. Dancers couldn't get enough of the diverse offering. With a stop at 1:30pm for lunch then straight back into workshops in all 4 rooms, it was a real dance fest, only slowing a little for DJ Benny's Golden Oldies 2 hour special - there's SO many dances we'd forgotten we loved, it's like falling it love with line dancing all over again.

Dinner at 7:30 followed by lots more social dancing and the Saturday show. A pre show warm up performance at 9pm came courtesy of Team Unique Vision, who performed a new Werewolves routine in amazing costume and make up - the effect was stunning. Then on to the main show at 10:30pm. First to the floor was Sam & Nicola performing a Cha Cha, closely followed by Lee & Fab dancing their latest WCS routine to 'Walking in Memphis', receiving rapturous applause. Next came Guyton & Carey dancing their latest dance 'Club Can't Handle This' along with their Swedish Crew of dancers, lots and lots of fun. Then it was the turn of the Masters Team together who performed an excerpt from the Worlds 2010 Show Team routine. If you didn't catch this at Worlds it is a MUST SEE - you can see by clicking here. Again as the night before, show time was ended with TUV who performed their Worlds 2010 winning Pirates routine, a haunting performance. A selection of videos of the shows is on our Facebook Page. Again open dancing carried on until 5am - we all had very tired feet by the end of it.

On the social line dancing side of things the weekends two most requested floor fillers were Snap Your Fingers & Shoes Of Another Man - Others hits included Rain Against My Window, Dog-Gone Blues, Drip Droppin', Broken Heels, Time To Play, Wakira/Wak Waka, Pack Up, Amame, Mojo, Ease On Down, Hands Up, Time To Swing, All Summer Long & Plan B with Playing With Fire was still huge too as it is most places. Because of the workshops Guyton's You're Amazing & Shaz's Written In The Stars were especially popular - And the Country big hits were Louisiana Swing, Rhyme Or Reason, Quarter After One & Bobbi With An I - Night Clubs rule too - Popular recent ones including Everything I Do, Haunted Gave It All Away, Jesse James & Trouble Is with a few doing Rachael's Don't Miss A Thing. Also there was a long list of classics too including Holding On To Yesterday, Poetry In Motion, Guardian Angel, Feel, Evergreen, With These Eyes & Where We've Been.

There were also quite a few floor filling 'Euro' dances too - As well as We Speak No Americano the most popular included NoNoNoNoNo Not So, Mi Rowsu, Cry Me Out, Blue Sky, Respect & Wade In The Water.

As we said before the Beginner/Improver room was very well supported, with favourites including Brazil, People Are Crazy, Chica Boom Boom, Under The Sun, Singing The Song, Walking In The Rain, Fujjiama Mama & Don't Kill The DJ - Craig's latest waltz Know Me By Now was much requested too - At the other end of the spectrum popular requests included Cyclone, Sentimental, Tik Tok Drop, Stoked, Oh Ruby & Private Dancer - Lots of Guyton & Shaz's dances too, especially Guyton's SOB & Shaz's Hypnotized.  

Classics of all levels too - The floor was full for the likes of Irish Stew, Crazy Foot Mambo, Bosa Nova, Zjozzy's Funk, Higher & Higher, Stitch It Up, Chill Factor, Not Like That, Charanga to Pot Of Gold, Ja Da Boogie, Shakatak, Caught In The Act, NIMBY, Black Horse, Stop It, Hold Your Horses/Ice Breaker, We're Alive, Doctor Doctor - Through to classic competition event favourites like Swing Your Chains, Slow Burn, Chill Factor, SXE, Jukebox, Deeply Completely & Have Fun Go Mad.

Sunday meant we arrived at our competition. WCS workshops, Beginner room and social dancing carried on throughout so everyone had an option. The competition was great. 1st was Pro-Am. Sam danced with his students non-stop throughout until everyone had shown what they could do. Next was the line competition, dance A, B and C in close succession to finish in time for lunch. The standard is always improving, and we always enjoy seeing our Swedish dancers compete with the biggest smiles on their faces - check the photos on our website if you don't believe us.

Following lunch was award time and a great conclusion to a fantastic and successful event. We would like to thank Göran and Åsa and everyone involved in putting on such a fantastic event.

1st Masters Day of Dance incorporating Northern Masters 2010

This year’s Northern Masters was definitely something a little different. We wanted to try something new, so we introduced the 1^st Day of Dance to the Northern Masters 2010. Based upon the idea of offering even better value for money for our dancers AND spectators, we introduced a time-utilised day of competition and workshops, literally providing a full day of dance for all our attendees.

These were not standard workshops though, they were picked and decided upon by notion of offering dance styles that the competitors don’t usually, or might never have, enjoyed. We had Zumba (the latest latin fitness craze sweeping the WORLD!), West Coast Swing, Mambo, Jazz & Social Line Dance (something a lot of competitors don’t get to enjoy that regularly).

The day began at around 06:00 for the Masters Team, who all arose to make the journey to The Dance Studio, Preston, Lancs (ran by the delightful and always helpful Julie & Colin Carr). After setting up, doors were opened at around 10:00 and the guests settled into their favourite seats and prepared for the day. After some initial warm-up music the first workshop started – ZUMBA! The floor was full and it was very entertaining. Qualified Zumba Instructor Nicola Lafferty took to the stage for around 40 minutes while competitors, spectators and parents enjoyed a thorough workout. Some of the tracks used were C'Mon & Dance (a merengue/hip hop track), Los Campeones del a Salsa & Baila Pa Emonciona - Calypso, No Americano & finally a cool down to Breath by Faith Hill.

The Pro-Am practice music followed and then continued into our Pro-Am competition, straight into Dance A of the Line Dances. The dances used for this competition were the same as Worlds 2010 so everyone got to the bust out the moves they already knew. Remember that all the dances will change for UK Masters in December! After Dance A and Pro-Am had concluded we started with our second workshop, a very special West Coast Swing session taught by Nicola Lafferty & Sam Robins.

In this workshop Nicola & Sam taught a small, 32-count swing routine to Usher’s DJ Got Us Falling in Love which is going to be used to conduct a Flash Mob in Blackpool Town Centre on Sunday 12^th December 2010, the morning after our event in the Blackpool Tower Ballroom. For more information on this Flash Mob, click here. Find out what a Flash Mob is, where and why we plan to do it and find a video of the routine to learn so you can join in! We’ll be teaching this at all of our next events so that everyone can participate!

After this we had another fabulous display of talent when we proceed with Dance B of our competition. This event had everything in the competition stakes, competitors new and old (some first time dancers with Masters and some of our new Division 1 graduates dancing for the first time); the standard of competition was proving to be as amazing as always. Next we had a Latin workshop from IDTA Instructor Zoe Powell. Zoe (and reluctant partner Sam, who knew nothing about the next dance form or the routine that was about to be taught) took to the floor to teach the dancers and parents about the Mambo! Sexy, sassy, and pretty fast, everyone enjoyed this 30 minute insight into one of the more technical Latin dances to 'Johnny's Theme' from the Dirty Dancing soundtrack.

Back to the competition. The dancers finished of their work through Dance C, bringing our competition to and end but with still two workshops left! The next workshop was taught by Strictly Dance Fever finalist & Division 1 World Champion Paul Culshaw. Paul took to the stage to teach a Jazz number to a great DJ Earthworm track - the Sean Kingston Beautiful Mashup'! It was great to see not only experienced dancers on the floor learning this but also social dancers and parents. It definitely brought a sweat on to all those who participated. 

The final workshop of the day came from The Dance Studio's very own Julie Carr who taught a new 48 count 2 wall high intermediate dance by Dee Musk called Fall Apart to a great track by the same name from Sarah Connor which went down well - You can view the script here, and video here. The final part of the first aspect of the 1st Day of Dance was the awards. Some very close divisions in this competition proved that the standard of dance at Masters Competitions keeps getting better with the gap between levels ever narrowing!

After a small break we re-opened the doors for the evening social with DJ Jamie & DJ Sam, which went on until 23:30. The dance requests were very VERY eclectic, old and new ranging from No Salvation and Murder My Heart to T-Bone Shuffle & Lamtara Rumba, from I Run To You, Drip Droppin', Haunted & Hot Out Of The Box, to Deeply Completely, Do Your Thing, Now or Never, Brucie, Tik Tok Drop, Stupid In Love and much much MUCH more, finally being brought to an end by DJ Sam getting everyone in the Christmas spirit by doing the Tush Push to All I Want For Christmas (Is You) by Mariah Carey! Only 74 sleeps to go!!!

We'd like to thank everyone for their support on this experimental day. We have an amazing time and the feedback we have received has been great. We'll definitely be introducing more of these workshops at future events so keep your eyes peeled for more information. For more information on the UK Masters Flash Mob that we will be conducting please click here.