Local Dance Extravaganza

It was a great night for local dance enthusiasts on Saturday Februay 18th when the Barbados Dance Extravaganza came off at the Plantation Garden Theatre in Christ Church.

The featured dancers were the International stars Kevin Clifton from England and his Russian partner Anna Melnikova, but long before they took to the stage the local performers showed just what they could do.

No matter how old he gets I will always remember Mark Burgess as a young boy accompanying his mother to the dance club and taking his first steps on the dance floor. He's certainly come a long way since then and he and his partner Daana Linton were among the local couples strutting their stuff across the dance floor.

The audience were also treated to performances by Nicholas Small-Warner and his partner Keishanya Alleyne representing their dance club, Jahbulani, and husband and wife team Randy and Alicia Payne. Andrea Ashby and Oral Welshman also exhited their highly skilled choreography.

Adding additional flavour to the proceedings were the former Latin Champions of Trinidad and Tobago Charles and Carol-Ann Boissiere dispalying great skill and strength with their lifts. Anderson Josia and Kelly La Jeunesse also gave a good showing and heating up the stage with their Salsa moves were members of the Salsa Vida Dance Club.

Also very well received by the audience were performances by Ria Sooden, who, dressed in traditional costume performed an East Indian dance and the ever popular Dancin' Africa.

It was a fitting preamble to the main act of the evening who did not disappoint the appreciative audience. Clifton and Melnikova hold the tiltles of British Youth Latin Champions, Slovakian Open Latin Champions, the Taiwan Open Latin Champions, the Belgian Open Latin Champions, the Swedish Open Latin Champions and the Hong Kong Open Latin Champions. The fact that they had opted to perform here rather than attend a dance competition in Europe served to make them even more popular with the audience.

The couple opened their performace with a Samba to a rhythmical reggae beat. They kept the energy flowing with their second number, the Cha Cha Cha. Then came the Rhumba with exquisite displays of sharp turns, excellent extensions of the arms and good lines. The Paso Doble was all that that dance should be, intence, dramatic, powerful and passionate. Their performance culminated with an energetic Jive to much applause and a standing ovation.

This extravagana not only served to expose the local dance enthusiasts to the quality of the international performance but also to showcase the very real quality of the dancers we have right here on our shores.