Slavik and Karina dance again at Blackpool 2015!

There was also a special treat at Blackpool with Slavik and Karina dancing again.

If only they would compete again at Blackpool...with all the retirements, if they trained hard they would have a good shot at the finals I think!

The video of their beautiful rumba is below:

 

Michal and Joanna + Andrej and Melinda have RETIRED!

Hi everyone,

This Blackpool was certainly emotional and two of my favorite couples Michal Malitowski and Joanna Leunis and Andrej Skufca and Melinda Torokgyorgy have retired from competition!

Wish them well and it is certainly the end of a dance era!

Nino Langella and Anna Melnikova will dance together!

There's been a rumor swirling online that Nino Langella and Anna Melnikova will dance together! See here for my previous post about this story.

I wasn't entirely sure because so far Nino's partnership with Vera Bondareva has been successful, but if the rumors are true, it would be so exciting! 

Nino is amazing. He's young, very talented and I believe he will be world championship in the WDC Professional level one day! I hope he can bring out the best from Anna if this is true! 

Please keep me posted if this rumor doesn't end up happening. :)

His partnership with Khrystyna Moshenska was amazing!! 

All content is property of Ballroom Dance Gossip.

Is Allison Holker good enough to be a pro on Dancing with the Stars?

I love ballroom ballroom dancing and I like Dancing with the Stars.

How did everyone feel about Allison Holker being a pro on the past two seasons on Dancing with the Stars?

While I love her as a contemporary dancer and I think she's great at that, I think her ballroom dancing just isn't that great!

Understandably, ABC hired her to be on the show because of her huge fan base from So you think you can dance, but I am a huge proponent of having actual REAL ballroom dancing on TV.

Her technique just isn't anywhere near the rest of the pros on the show and I find it a bit dissapointing to have her on there.

While my sentiments may be unpopular, it's just a shame they fired actually good dancers such as Chelsea Hightower or Lacey Schwimmer! Her dancing is also such a contrast from a world class dancer, such as Valentin Chmerkovskiy or Karina Smirnoff, who both have amazing technique!

The deficiencies in her technique are the most apparent in the pure Latin ballroom dances, such as the cha cha, rumba and samba. DWTS kind of doesn't do a good job with showing International style ballroom anyway because they mostly hire Latin dancers, so that doesn't matter as much. Also a dance like salsa, technique isn't as important.

I don't know if viewers can tell, but there were a few blog posts and message boards with the same sentiments and I am just not sure someone who is a very amateur ballroom dancer can do a good job at teaching on the show. Her dancing is "good enough" for the showcases on the show, but I think to be a good teacher you should have a certain level of mastery of the dancing! I also feel like if there's one show that shows what ballroom dancing is to a mainstream audience, it should be showing off "real ballroom dancing".

Here are some videos that prove my point:

A very trick heavy cha cha routine. The judges ripped her on this afterwards for the lack of "cha cha" content. I must agree with their sentiments.



A very amateur looking samba.



A trick-heavy rumba with very little basic.



However, she's certainly improved from when she was on SYTYCD

Big Surprise: Justinas Duknauskas and Anna Melnikova split!!!!

NOTE: Rumor is that Anna Menikova and Nino Langella will be dancing together. They should be on fire! 


Wow just news that  Justinas Duknauskas and Anna Melnikova have split!

What a surprise! They were married and both intend to continue with new partners. A

Justinas and Anna at their wedding

All the content in this blog posts are property of Ballroom Dance Gossip. 

Could this mean they broke up in their professional life as well? I know they have a daughter together and I was wondering what happened to Justinas on Anna's instagram as there recently there have been very few pictures of him. None since 5 months ago anyways!

I am saddened by this and I hope they both continue their respective dance careers. Any thoughts on who they should partner next?

Should Slavik try again with her as a partner? I just watched Ballroom Dancer again and it really did seem like he loved her and then lost her to Justinas. He needs to be gentle with her though and dance with her and not do all the solos he does in a competition.

If Slavik wants to come back, I think that he should dance with Anna or any other amazing girl, but he should lower his expectations a bit initially. I think they could have been in the Top 3 if he had persevered and not been as hard on her. Sometimes winning is about waiting for the couples above you to retire...

I don't want to speculate, but I am guessing a rift might have been caused due to the fact that Anna and Justinas dance results were quite disappointing and they didn't seem to gel together as dance partners the way Anna used to with Slavik or Stefano or Justinas did with Ekaterina.

Comments are Youtube were always quite critical about this partnership and about the fact that Anna was simply more talented than Justinas. I don't necessarily agree with that that was the reason their partnership failed,  as I just think that as a couple, Anna and Justinas' dance styles didn't match that well and it showed in their results.

For instance arguably, in the partnership of Sergey and Melia, Sergey is the better dancer; in the partnership of Yulia and Riccardo, Yulia is the better dancer; and in the partnership of Michal and Joanna, Joanna is the better dancer. However, these couples still shine because the individual styles in the partnership complement each other.

Anna's dancing became more subdued with Justinas, and Justinas is not grounded or intense enough for her in his movements and he seems to make a lot of extra movements. She needs a dancer that brings out her fierceness and is a very masculine figure to her. In her partnership with Justinas she almost became the masculine figure because her style is so different from his. I still like her the best with Stefano, but she was also great and developing well when she was with Slavik. Justinas looked fine with Ekaterina because she's a softer dancer and she does a lot of extra movement as well, so they actually complement each other. Watch the videos to see if you agree with me.

Please comment if you here of any other news!





Slavik and all his solo wwhile dancing with Anna



Slavik holding Anna closely at the end.



Stefano and Anna looking amazing at the World Champions!



Justinas and Ekaterina

The way they were: The couples I miss the most from the dance floor!

Back after a long hiatus! Publishing some new posts :)


I know that all ballroom dance fanatics such as I have couples that they miss the most! I get very nostalgic trolling on Youtube and I thought I would share with you some of the most iconic couples that have broken up, yet have undoubtedly left a mark in the world of ballroom dancing!

1. Slavik Kryklyvyy and Karina Smirnff

They were young. They were hot. They were so talented!
Slavik and Karina were also in a private relationship while they danced together for four years.I remember reading in an interview that he had kissed her randomly when she was having a phone conversation and that was how their relationship began. The couple was known for their explosive dancing...and their rumoured explosive fights! I believe that their professional partnership was over when they broke up as romantic partners.

For me, their dancing was absolute perfection. Their chemistry, their technique....it just came across as very geniune and real!

I know Slavik has tried to find a partnership that could finally allow him to become the World Champion, but he has never been able to finding a partnership that lasted as long as his with Karina's

From watching the clips of Ballroom Dancer, it appears he is very much a perfectionist and this probably drove his former partners away.

Also with the release of Ballroom Dancer, we now know for certain that Slavik has retired. It is funny that if they had lasted another few years and continued to dance together after the retirement of Bryan Watson and Carmen Vincelji, they would have surely won Blackpool and become the World Champions.

Isn't this video cute? I have also posted their reunion videos. PLEASE continue to dance together, so I can make it to you show next near at Dance Legends!





2. Stefano di Fillipo and Anna Melnikova

This couple was smoulderingly hot! Stefano was a beast on the dance floor...and Anna was so gorgeous! They both still are amazing, but personally, I think they were the best together.

Like Slavik and Karina, Stefano and Anna entered into this partnership as a private couple. However, they soon broke up afterwards and Anna started to date Slavik. However, Stefano and Anna continued to partner each other and together they won the Amateur World Championships and Blackpool.

This couple just complemented each other so well. Stefano might not have the perfect refinement of Slavik, but he brings sheer masculinity and FUN to his dancing. At that point, I thought that Anna brought out the best of her herself. She was the most confident, sexy and dynamic in this partnership!

Although Stefano had a very successful partnership with Olga Urumova, their chemistry wasn't as natural. He is very solid at the moment with his wife Daria, but I miss the boldness he had as an amateur. I felt that Anna became less bold during her partnership with Slavik. With Justinas Duknauskas, she has really toned it down and become a more subtle dancer in my opinion. I think a lot of it has to do with the amount of energy she gets to feed on and also how comfortable she is in that partnership.

Beata has Cancer - Please Donate!

One of my favourite dancers of all time has ovarian cancer.

I hope she gets better and please donate if you can to help her in her recovery.