36th Annual Ohio Star Ball

OHIO STAR BALL 2013

The 36^th Annual Ohio Star Ball was held this past week. Here are some of the professional results:

Professional American Smooth Championships

Current US Smooth Champions, Slawek Sochacki & Marzena Stachura announced their retirement from competition and danced an emotional farewell performance to “Summertime.”

(Slawek and Marzena performed at the 2012 Hawai‘i Star Ball).

This left the field clear for new champions and the duel was on between Mazen Hamza & Izabella Jundzill and Peter & Alexandra Perzhu. The new champions were Peter & Alexandra and in the final reckoning they won all dances, each with a majority of 1^st place marks from the judges. Mazen & Izabella were clearly second and mounted their strongest challenge to the winners in tango, receiving 6 first places to the Perzhu’s 9.

This competition also marked a return to the fore for Mikhail & Galina Zharinov who placed an impressive 3^rd in all dances, vaulting over Max Sinitsa & Eulia Baranovsky who were 4^th in all. Travis & Jaimee Tuft took all the 5’s but were the winners of the Showdance segment and Kostadin Bidjourov & Erin Marie were 6^th. Peter & Alexandra took 3^rd in the Showdance to Mazen & Izabella’s 2^nd making the Perzhu’s the overall winner.

Professional Open Latin Championships

Things were much tighter in the Open Latin, in fact when the Showdance was added it became a ‘Rule 11’ tiebreak decision. The winners of the 5-dance and the overall winners over the 6 dances were Andrei Kazlouski & Asta Sigvaldadottir. There scores were 1,1,2,2,1 and 2 in Showdance. On the other side of the tiebreak were Nikolai Voronovich & Maria Nikolishina who scores 2,2,1,1,2, making them 2^nd in the 5-dance, but won the Showdance to get back to the tiebreak for the overall result. This was a good competition between these two very different couples and they shared most of the 1^st and 2^nd places from the judges. All dances in the 5-dance were won with the majority of 1^st places except the rumba, where Andrei & Asta received 8 to Nikoaly & Maria’s 7, but as neither was a majority when looking at the ‘2^nd or better’ scores Nikoaly & Maria came out marginally ahead.

(Andrei Kazlouski and Asta Sigvaldadottir will be performing in Hawai‘i at the Divino Ritmo Showcase, Sheraton Waikiki, on Sunday November 30^th don’t miss it!).

The 3^rd spot went to Ivan Mulyavka & Loreta Kriksciukaityte, taking 3,4,3,5,3. Two Canadian couples made the final and the first; Kamil Studeny & Anna Pelypenko took 4^th, 4,3,4,3,4. Andrey Tarasov & Yulia Kuznetsova took 5^th, 5,5,5,4,5 and Canadians, Jean-Phiippe Milot & Laurence Bolduc took 6^th.

Open Professional Rhythm Championships

In the Professional Rhythm we had our first look at Andre & Natalie Paramonov doing their thing!

(Andre and Natalie performed an International Latin Show at the 2011 Hawai‘i Star Ball)  Apparently it went quite well with the judges, they placed second in four dances and third in the mambo in the group competition, giving them a solid second place finish. Winners Decho Kraev & Bree Watson was untouched by the Parmonovs or anyone else, they took a landslide of first places. By the way Andre & Natalie won the Showdance and Decho & Bree placed third in this section.

From there down it was a mixed bag of talent, choreography and different looks and different stuff producing some interesting results. Favorites Nazar Norov & Irina Kudryashova  were demoted to fourth position in both the group competition (4,4,3,4,2) and the Showdance portion. Peter & Alexandra Perzhu placed third overall in the group competition (3,3,4,3,4) and second in the Showdance. Ilya & Amanda Reyzin who retired at this Ohio Star Ball placed fifth in both the group and Showdance. The sixth placed finalist in both the group and Showdance, were Misha Vlasov & Vanda Polakova.

Open Professional Ballroom Championships

The first big news was in the Professional Ballroom where Artem Plakhotnyi & Inna Berlizyeva won the group competition by placing second in W, T and first in the other three dances. They placed 2^nd in the Showdance. The runners up were none other than world-renowned international stars, Marat Gimaev & Alina Basyuk who won the waltz and tango but placed second in the other three dances. Marat & Alina did manage to get their footing back on the Showdance portion of the competition by winning this “entertainment” element of the event and in the end with a “Rule 11” decision they won the overall competition including the Showdance

Egor Abashkin & Katia Kanevskaya was third in the group competition and fourth on the show dance, third overall. Andrew Begunov & Anna Demidova placed fourth in all the dances (4,4,4T,4,4) and third in the show dance, making them fourth overall. Denis Kutepov & Lesya Sinitsa placed fifth in the group competition (5,5,6,5,6) and was penalized to 7^th place in their Showdance, due to the length of the music, and apparently the chair they used for one second was also a prop that should not have been used.

Andrey & Yuliya Klinchik was sixth in the group competition (7,6,7,6,5), and placed 5^th in the Showdance. Richard Tonizzo & Clair Hansen from Canada placed seventh in the group competition (6,7,4T,7,7) and 6^th in the Showdance.