Dancers Put Best Foot Forward at Tournament

Nearly 2,000 dancers and spectators filled the Holiday Inn Embarcadero’s ballroom over the weekend at the Southwest Regional Dance Tournament.

The competition featured a myriad of competitive events in categories ranging from the traditional waltz, fox trot and tango to the cha cha and paso doble. Fourteen major divisions were on the program, and about 300 couples (many of whom were involved in several events) participated in the competition.

The unexpectedly large turnout proved that this new fusion of dance artistry and competitive sport persuaded contest organizers that next year’s tournament should be a world championship event.

Ballroom dancers from as far away as Washington and Texas were among the hopefuls in this year’s event. Winners danced away with cash prizes or trophies.

The tournament featured students, teachers, professionals (and various combinations of each), and matched team against team. The student competitors ranged from a 12-year-old Rancho Santa Fe girl, Cassandra Frankel (who brought down the house with a spicy samba in a solo competition), to several senior citizens.

Interludes of social dance gave the audience a chance to strut their stuff alongside the experts.

One of the most exciting categories in this new style of ballroom dance is “Professional Cabaret” -- an anything goes event that offers the dancers total interpretive freedom.

The “Professional Cabaret” competition on Friday night featured some tricky one-handed lifts and breathtaking airborne maneuvers (never allowed in traditional ballroom dance). But the show-stopper was a break dance routine by Apple Jack and Ice, two San Diego men who used the theme from the TV show “Peter Gunn” to set the mood for their spoof of the private-eye genre. They earned first prize for their loose-limbed contortions and funky comic style.

There were too many winners to cite them all, but San Diego area dancers snared the lion’s share of prizes. Local favorites Tony Meredith and Melanie La Patin put on a thrilling display of pyrotechnics to win the six-dance “Professional Latin” competition.

Nicholas Cotton and Anita Talone eclipsed their competition in the “Professional American Smooth.”

Local amateur favorites Peter and Marsha Hanson were first in every one of their dances, capturing the top prize in “Amateur Rhythm” Friday night. They then returned to repeat the feat Saturday in the “Smooth” division.

U.S. champions Chris Morris and Diane Lilly were voted best overall performance in “Pro-Am” (professional/amateur mix). A Tacoma, Wash., couple, Rob Sutherland and Jean Milano, placed first in the “Rising Star American Smooth” competition, while Mark Mendez and Kathy Wahl earned the same award in “Latin.”

The “Amateur Latin” winners were Stephen Olson and Virginia Mavor. Joe Hack and Linda Lowell, an Arizona couple, beat out the competition in “Pro-Am Rhythm.” And San Diego’s Marlyn McDonald and Denise Valentine took the gold in the “Student-Teacher Medalist Challenge.”

A Los Angeles couple, Victor Veyrasset and Cindy Dostal, were unanimous winners in the “Professional Modern” category. Their stunning symmetry and precision in the dances that hark back to the Astaire-Rogers brand of ballroom dance was breathtaking.

The costumes--even on the amateurs--were as lavish as a Las Vegas spectacle. Sequins and satins were the norm for the exotic dances; formal wear remained the uniform for the more traditional styles.

To cap the activities on Sunday night, the tournament scheduled a dazzling demonstration of theatrical ballroom dancing by some of the world’s leading exponents of the art form--San Diego’s own Ron Montez and Elizabeth Curtis (the longest-reigning U.S. Latin champions) and Rufus Dustin and Sharon Savoy (winners of every major international championship).