Live broadcasts from the Crocus Expo reached a cumulative audience of more than 70,000 over the two days of the GrandSlam. We streamed close to four hours on the Standard and other events on Sunday 29 October, but the signal coming off the decoder was cut time after time. Still, the 80% that did get through to the audience were outstanding images of the world's best Standard dancers in action. Produced with 16 cameras - courtesy of RED SQUARE and Match TV.

Watch semi-final and final for US$ 3.75 and a rental period of six (6) months!
2017 GrandSlam Standard Moscow

2017 GrandSlam Standard Moscow from World DanceSport Federation

The first of the two days assigned to the 2017 Cheerleading World Championships in Takasaki, JPN, is history. Some 40 pictures taken by our correspondent Reinhard Egli are added to the gallery and high expectations are created for tomorrow's live stream. It starts at 1 a.m. UTC.

The results of the competitions held on day one in the different Cheer Dance events and age groups are posted under this link. Tomorrow's schedule is packed with spectacular events (UTC +9h).

10:15: Cheer Dance Doubles Junior I
10:30: Cheer Dance Doubles Junior II 
10:55: Exhibition · Urban Cheer Dance
11:00: Cheer Dance Doubles Senior
11:45: Cheer Dance Junior I
12:15: Cheer Dance Junior II 
12:25: Cheer Dance Senior
13:00: Exhibition · Cheerleading
13:15: Competition Ceremony
13:30: Cheer Dance Award Ceremony
14:00: Exhibition · Cheerleading
14:05: Cheerleading Small Groups Mixed 
14:25: Cheerleading Small Groups All Female
14:45: Exhibition · Cheerleading
14:50: Cheerleading Doubles
​15:30: Exhibition · Cheerleading
15:45: Cheerleading Junior I
16:15: Cheerleading Junior II
16:25: Cheerleading Senior All Female
16:50: Cheerleading Senior Mixed
17:15: Exhibition · Cheerleading
17:40: Cheerleading Award Ceremony and Closing Ceremony

You were able to follow the different events held as part of the 2017 Cheerleading World Championships in Takasaki, JPN, for several hours. We hope you enjoyed it. Please check the official website for all the results of this 9th edition of the World Championships.

We have also added another batch of spectacular photographs of the cheerleading events to our gallery. There are some real stunners with high-flying action among them.

We were asked repeatedly about a live streaming from the 2017 World Youth Latin which was danced today in Seoul, KOR. Check the results!

Despite the high demand, we were not able to provide any video from Korea. Something which now leads us to ask you a few questions regarding future events like this. Please, take our poll on Facebook!

We are finally able to show you a photograph of the 2017 World Champions in Youth Latin: Semen Khrzhanovskiy - Elizaveta Lykhina, RUS. It was taken by WDSF's very own First Vice President Shawn Tay.

Semen and Elizaveta managed to win their second World Championship of the year in Seoul, KOR. Two weeks earlier, they had already won the Ten Dance title in Moscow, RUS.

Check the results of the World Youth Latin

Truth is: other than the results and a handful of photographs, there isn't much we were able to show you. A great many inquiries came in over the past few days regarding a video stream from the World Youth Latin: "No video stream?" This led us to ask a few questions of our own. Thanks for taking one or two minutes to answer them in our survey HOW MUCH WOULD IT BE WORTH ... TO YOU?

How did B-Boy Jordan, the only breaker from Africa still in the running for one of the 24 places at the Buenos Aires 2018 Youth Olympic Games (BAYOG), make it into a recent edition of OLÉ, the #1 sports paper of Argentina?

Well, he first got a write-up published by the Communications Department of the BAYOG Organising Committee on the buenosaires2018.com website.

He puts his effort into persepective!

“If I make the YOG it will be the biggest achievement of my life so far.”                     

“I have never participated in sports at school or done extra-curricular activities because I have been dancing and no one has ever understood that until now, now that it’s an (Youth) Olympic sport.” 

“I realised I would be acknowledged, people would recognise my passion at school and in my community. They would understand why I was doing it, how hard it is and that it’s not just a thing you do, it is a lot of practise and time dedicated.”

On Saturday 18 November, just before midnight in the Central European time zone, we should know the names of the 2017 World Champions in the Latin American dances. More than 90 couples representing some 50 nations will contest the title at the Mutltiversum in Vienna - Schwechat, AUT. Of course, there are favourites whose names come to mind first when one thinks about the outcome of a championship that seems to generate interest like none other.

Moldovans Gabriele Goffredo and Anna Matus are quite possibly the couple to beat for all the others. After all, they are the defending champions and defeated only once this year: by Armen Tsaturyan and Svetlana Gudyno, RUS, in the European Championship in Cambrils, ESP, in April. And it is precisely this circumstance which makes the upcoming World Championship so compelling. Both couples faced off against each other only three weeks ago, in the 2017 GrandSlam Moscow: the Moldovans prevailed - but only by two decimal points. That's nothing!

If Goffredo - Matus should come in first, they will win the title for a third consecutive time, a feat that was only achieved by two ther couples in sixty years of WDSF history: by Aniello Langella and Khrystyna Moshenska, ITA, and by Franco Formica and Oksana Nikiforova, GER.

Why not rent the Vimeo on Demand programme on the 2016 World Latin in Chengdu, CHN, for a three-month streaming period and watch it prior to Saturday? 

https://vimeo.com/ondemand/2016worldlatin

90 couples have been entered to dance the 2017 World DanceSport Championship Latin on Saturday 18 November. Check the preliminary list of entries on the organisers' website.

The panel of WDSF Adjudicators has been made public a few weeks ago already, look at it here! We would like to point out that this World Championship will be the first WDSF competition where a debriefing session with the adjudicators will be conducted the day after. More about it soon!

"Our best stuff! Onto that floor!"

From 2018, WDSF will make certain opportunities available for members of the DanceSport industry to associate their brands with the audiovisual productions that are generated by the Communications team from events such as this World Latin!

WDSF is the recognised leader in producing moving pictures of DanceSport and of distributing them to huge online audiences on two streaming platforms: DanceSport Total on YouTube and DanceSport Total Plus on Vimeo.

Starting with the first production in 2018, the manufacturers of apparel, shoes, accessories, etc. will be able to have their brands exposed by inserting 5-second bumpers and 30-second commercials into all the videos coming out of the premier WDSF events: World and European Championships, etc.

Look at how this is done in the promo for the Vimeo on Demand programme on The 2017 World Latin!

2017 World Latin from World DanceSport Federation

Another instalment in the "Adjudicators' Debrief" series of recordings. WDSF Adjudicators' Commission Chairman Cor van der Stroet debriefs Anna de Grande, who judged the 2017 World Latin in Vienna, AUT, in a one-on-one session held on the day following the championship.

There is no doubt that these sessions generate interest within the DanceSport community. The first two were posted three and two days ago and have accrued some 3,000 views between since.

Probably the best time to watch something like this would be over the weekend. Here is a link to our WDSF DanceSport Academy YouTube channel. They are all in a playlist there!

Less than a week after the memorable 2017 World DanceSport Championship in the Latin American Dances, WDSF is proud to release a stunning Vimeo on Demand programme on the decisive stages. Semi-final and final in full length, the quarterfinal as a bonus feature, beind-the-scene and up-close-and-personal pieces as well as interviews with semi-finalists and finalists ... plus interview with all the medallists ... But above all, a marriage proposal like none other ever made in the history of DanceSport! Get all of this for a VERY FAIR US$ 3.75 for a six-month (yes, 6-month) streaming period! 2017 World Latin

2017 World Latin from World DanceSport Federation

The name of their routine proved to be programme for the members of the Vera Tyumen Standard Formation team: "Always Shing Start." The Russians prevailed over the two German formations Braunschweiger TSC and 1. TC Ludwigsburg in a close final.

The good old "home teams always win" axiom is starting to lose its nearly cast-in-stone validity. That should make the Vera Tyumen trainer Aleksey Litvinov happy. We post an interview with him shortly!

Watch the final of the 2017 World Standart Formation in Braunscheig in a production of the host broadcaster NDR!

Helmut Roland interviews the trainer of the Vera Tyumen STD Formation Team, Aleksey Litvinov, RUS, after the win of the 2017 World STD Formation on 25 November in Braunschwig, GER.

Even though Aleksey has won many titles in his career, in Standard as well as Latin and in several different countries, this one is special. Let him explain why.

Here is the fifth instalment of the "Adjudicators' Debrief" series that was recorded with some of the judges officiating at the 2017 World Latin in Vienna, AUT. 

This time, WDSF Adjudicators' Commission Chairman Cor van der Stroet debriefs Bo Loft Jensen in a one-on-one session held on the day following the championship at the hotel. This session was recorded strictly no-frills, with a minimum of equipment and staff. The sound quality is bad - but what is being said is all the better.

Find this format interesting? There are more recorded sessions: with Anna de Grande and three others.  Three more are still to come towards the end of this week.

That Belgium's Flanders region is a breaking hotbed has again been proven this weekend. A dance club in the city of Antwerp called for b-boys and b-girls to show up for a "regional" competition on Sunday. 800 did!

One could argue that Antwerp's metropolitan area is home to a sizeable population, 1.2 million, but 800 breakers is still pretty good for entries.

Apparently the JayBeeS Dancers, a school from Turnhout - another city in the Antwerp province - were most numerous and most successful. They won 10 competitions in the different events and age grades, they came in second nine and third four times in all. Obviously, the Belgian b-boys who had qualified for Stage III Breaking for Gold were present too. B-Boy Sawyer was the one who travelled farthest. He's from the French-speaking Waloon region.

Winson Tam, considered to be one of the very best in Ten Dance, most recently the runner-up of the World Championship in Marseille, FRA, together with his partner Anastasia Novikova, does something else exceptionally well.

Winson is an expert vlogger (composite of video and blogger) through his own YouTube channel with nearly 1,500 subscribers and 270,000 views. That's not quite the figures required to make a living off vlogging, but it is a very good start.

Winson vlogs about the "Life of a Dancer," making his stories fall midway between being a travel log, an on-camera "Here I am ...!" ham session and an insightful look behind the scenes of DanceSport at the highest level. One thing we would like him to stop doing is showing semi-finals and finals of GrandSlams and Championships that we have to sell (at a very fair US$ 3.75) through our Vimeo on Demand platform to make our ends meet somehow.

Here is his most recent L.O.A.D. vlog on the 2017 World Latin in Vienna.

Why not rent the Vimeo on Demand programme on the 2017 World Latin in Vienna, AUT, for a six-month streaming period? 

https://vimeo.com/ondemand/2017worldlatin

The third and last of the Continental Qualifiers for the Breaking events at the Buenos Aires 2018 Youth Olympic Games (YOG) takes place on Saturday 2 November in Taipei City, TPE. Participation is limited to some 120 breakers from as many as 27 countries in Asia and in Oceania, who have all managed to take the first hurdle in their quest for a YOG berth already.

They were among the 395 worldwide who made it past the first of the three-stage qualification process by uploading a 45-second recording of their best dancing skills to breakingforgold.com. Olympic history was made when expert judges proceeded to screen the more than 1,000 videos submitted by 15 to 17-year-old b-boys and b-girls in 81 countries, and to select those they wanted to take a closer look at in one of the Continental Qualifiers.

Stage one of the process was global in a truly unique way: no costs, no restrictions, no formalities whatsoever! Only the confidence in one’s ability as a breaker, a video camera or a smartphone, plus access to the Internet were required to take the first step towards Buenos Aires 2018.

As it turned out, the next step implied all the more bureaucracy.  The experiences were made with the Qualifier for the Americas in Philadelphia, USA. Travelling from South to North between the subcontinents has become more challenging than ever – even prior to POTUS building the coast-to-coast wall along the Mexican border. Visas were denied and breakers kept away by a very restrictive immigration policy – one in the strongest of contrasts to the spirit of “Give me your tired, your poor …”

The second Qualifier held in Essen, GER, for breakers from Africa and Europe fared better in that respect and drew 178 participants from 39 countries. Still, participants from countries such as Nigeria, Senegal and Tunisia struggled to make it to Germany.

The hosts of the Qualifier for Asia and Oceania had their work cut out too. Cross-Straits sports exchanges may have become a common occurrence over the years, yet they still require a great deal of communications and unconditional respect for the protocols established by the Nagoya Resolution.

Between the World DanceSport Federation (WDSF), the Chinese DanceSport Federation (CDSF) and the Chinese Taipei DanceSport Federation (CTDSF), every effort was made to ensure the participation of five b-boys and one b-girl representing the People’s Republic of China in this Qualifier. Successfully: an official delegation under the auspices of the Chinese Ministry of Sports is led by CDSF Secretary General Su Jie. In Taipei City, he will meet up with his counterparts in making this first ever breaking exchange happen: WDSF First Vice-President for Sport Shawn Tay and CTDSF President Royce Yeah.

As of 29 November, 109 entries from 25 countries have been confirmed. Among them are breakers whose travel and accommodation expenses are covered by the hosts through generous financial support by the Chinese Taipei Olympic Committee and government agencies. 

As was the case in Philadelphia and Essen, this Continental Qualifier is also embedded into an established event. Taipei Bboy City has taken the place of R16 in Seoul, KOR, as the eminent breaking tournament in Asia. Aside from the qualifying in the YOG events 1 vs 1 B-Boy and B-Girl, there will be other battling too: 1 vs 1 between some of the biggest names in the art/sport and under the UNDISPUTED brand. 

After the final knockout battles of the Continental Qualifier in Taipei City we should know the names of 20 b-boys and 10-girls who will be able to continue on the “Road to Buenos Aires,” with the last hurdle to be taken in May 2018 at the World Youth Breaking Championship in Kawasaki, JPN. The 12 b-boys and 12 b-girls making it to the YOG in October will get selected based on their results there: 1 b-boy and 1 b-girl per country!

A number of WDSF Member Bodies have made efforts to bring the best breakers from their countries to the Continental YOG Qualifiers. Probably none more than the Hong Kong DanceSport Association (HKDSA). A 10-strong HKDSA delegation is currently on its way to Taipei City, TPE. Here they are at the airport in Hong Kong!

Back in July, we reported on the national breaking team competing during the 2017 GrandSlam Hong Kong in front of a sell-out crowd at the QE II Stadium. The HKDSA leadership under Raymond Leung, George Yip and George Kwan had previously reached out to the local Hip Hop community - specifically to Cha Cha Kong, a b-boying legend and educator - to define the formula which was to ensure that Hong Kong's best young  breakers could take a shot at qualifying for the BAYOG. Four months later, five b-boys and five b-girls get the opportunity to pursue their YOG dream by battling in the Continental Qualifier for Asia and Oceania.

Cha Cha Kong considers making it all the way to Buenos Aires next year is a long shot for all of them, but hey, it is a shot worth taking ...

Together with B-Boy Moy, USA, Anniina Tikka, aka B-Girl AT and hailing from Finland, was only recently appointed an Athlete Role Model (ARM) through a letter by IOC President Thomas Bach. Now she serves as one of the five judges at the YOG Qualifier for Asia and Oceania in Taipei City, TPE. She is here on double assignment, holding down two jobs of much responsibility!

We talked to her about her appointment, about breaking in general and about the b-girls catching up with the b-boys.

AT, how does one feel as a newly appointed Athlete Role Model?

I’m really honoured and excited about the appointment as an Athlete Role Model and I look forward to working with the youth in Buenos Aires.

Obviously, there is a fair amount of responsibility that goes with the role. Your perception?

I take this role very seriously and will do my best in showing good example for the young b-boys and b-girls. 

Now that you know what is required of you, why do you think that you have been selected for the job.

For the past years I’ve been really active in the breaking scene in many different ways. On top of showing my skills on the dance floor, I’ve been judging, writing blogs, teaching workshops and educating people online with our platform B-Boy & B-Girl Dojo. I believe my work has proven my professionalism, it has shown that if I do something, I do it properly.

You travel the world teaching people to break and promoting the art/sport. What will be different when you teach at the BAYOG in October next year?

The thing that’s remarkable in the BAYOG is that this time the youth is in the centre of the attention, not the adults. This is something that doesn’t happen too often in breaking events with this kind of level - since the best dancers from this age group will be attending. They are the future of our scene and will definitely be the future role models for many up-and-coming dancers. That’s why working with them is very important and rewarding.

What is the spirit of "Olympism” for B-Girl AT?

Even though a competition is an occasion where you test yourself and your skills against other people, for me it’s important that the game remains fair, and that everyone enjoys the event. The Youth Olympic Games will absolutely be an enormous learning experience for many young dancers. So despite the outcome of the competition, it’s a great thing if everyone brings home a lot of inspiration and more understanding about the dance. Hopefully many new friends as well!

How do you believe that the YOG will influence the art/sport of breaking?

Training for this competition has already motivated many young dancers a lot. This will uplift the level within the youth. I also believe that YOG inspires many new people to try breaking, something which will hopefully increase the number of people involved.

You are one of not too many women who leaves her mark on different areas in breaking. Judging being one! You were the first woman ever to judge at the Silverback Open and you only recently judged your first BC One World Finals. Is breaking still too male-dominated?

Yes, the field of breaking is still very male-dominated but every year we see more and more girls involved and with high level skills. So little by little we, the women, are gaining more space and attention in the scene.

What is there to be done to get more women involved in all aspects of the art/sport? What can they do better than their male counterparts?

Many times the strength of a woman is ther ability to dance and the musicality, even though we also see a lot of girls with difficult moves that require a lot of strength. Girls often have a soft and groovy style, which makes the movement flow smoothly - as long as it’s done with good control. I believe showing good example, encouraging girls to trust themselves and presenting them with more opportunities are the best ways to get more women involved. 

What is B-Girl AT’s message to the breaking community, to other dancers and to the world at large as an ARM?

What’s very beautiful in breaking and dancing in general is that many people find themselves through it and start to flourish. Many times it helps one to find more self-confidence and to know him/herself better. So remember to be yourself and the dance will give you a lot back in return.

If you could turn the counter back by a few years, how much energy would you spend on making it to the BAYOG as a dancer?

Of course I would have been very motivated about this kind of opportunity. Most likely I would have been training like crazy, even though that pretty much was the case anyway.

The fifth instalment of the "Adjudicators' Debrief" series is another windfall from the seven "casual chats between experts" that followed the 2017 World Latin in Vienna. WDSF Adjudicators' Commission Chairman Cor van der Stroet debriefs Mirjam Zwijsen, who judged the 2017 World Latin, in a one-on-one session held on the day following the championship.

WDSF President and CCM Task Force Chairman Lukas Hinder had the next sessions scheduled to take place following the 2017 GrandSlam Finals in Shanghai, CHN. Unfortunatly, that cannot happen. The 2018 European Standard in Copenhagen, DEN, will be the occasion.

2017 Professional Division Super Grand Prix Final


1st place:    Pavel Pasechnik - Marta Arndt / Germany (5 points)
2nd place:   Marts Smolko - Tina Bazykina / Latvia (10 points)
3rd place:   Dmitry Pugachev - Anastasia Selivanova / Russian Federation (18 points)
4th place:   Wang Jun - Jia Yiwen / People´s Repubic of China (21 points)
5th place:   Hou Yao - Zhuang Ting / People´s Republic of China (23 points)
6th place:   Juan Manuel Gomez - Marina Mangione / Spain (29 points)
7th place:   Javier Rodriguez Manzaneque - Cristina Manas Jimenez / Spain (34 points)

Here is the interview with Pavel Pasechnik - Marta Arndt ... 

And here is t presentation of the finalists and their Samba as solo ... More videos of the final rounds and the shows of the finalists at the WDSF Video Gallery and on Youtube DanceSportTotal.