Troels Bager and Ina Jeliazkova’s ChaChaCha from first round at the WDO PROFESSIONAL WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS 2023 held in The Tower Ballroom in Blackpool as part of “The Open World” dance even organized by Mr. Paul Killick.
It’s amazing. It looks like they are truly dancing to the music, to this song and not just patterns that they practice to the studio. Can someone tell me whether this is true? I’ve been asking google this question, but it doesn’t seem to understand me. Are these international Latin professionals truly doing lead and follow?
Couples tend to have set routines which they prepare for competition. The routines are built around the rhythm for each dance (for example 2-3-4-&-1 for Cha Cha Cha). There are often opportunities for improvisation during the competition. Most often couples improvise when necessary, to avoid and/or to recover from a collision, though it is possible to incorporate improvisational sections into the routines. Either way, couples strive to return to their routines after a few bars of music. Dancers have varying degrees of expression and can sometimes react to the song in real time, playing with the routine’s timing and/or adding extra flourishes in their movements to (quite literally) embody the song. Ina and Troels are in a league of their own when it comes to “truly leading and following” throughout their routines… That is, they individually have phenomenal musicality and expression as mentioned above (and timing & everything…) but they also routinely (ha!) adjust their routine’s timing as a couple and add improvisational bits in synch to match the music. Together they are two individuals truly dancing to the music as one.
