Eight teams were entered but two late withdrawals meant that six teams contested the 2017 British Open Formation Championship. In recent years, this championship has been dominated by teams from China and the USA, but with no teams from either country in attendance this year the title was destined to go to a different country.
Elita New Team from Poland opened the final with their Day of the Battle routine. This club, former Polish representatives at the World Championships, had several new dancers on their team for Blackpool. The team danced some strong tricks and fairly quick pattern changes for such a young team. England’s Zig Zag team danced next, performing their interesting Angels and Demons routine. This routine featured some unusual and imaginative work with the costuming and theme and had secured a first place mark from one judge at the 2016 Nationals.
XS Latin Planets team danced third. This was their fourth competition for this season and routine and the competition practice showed. The team danced strongly, with solid patterns and by far the cleanest performance of The Planets to date. Some mistakes from recent competitions were rectified and the team displayed energy and enthusiasm. Shappelle’s Latin Team, from Wales, took to the floor fourth. Their routine, with a dance pop theme, had a very strong opening, some high energy sections and some strong technical dancing. The team, dressed all in black, put down a strong challenge.
Fifth to the floor were XS Latin Cambridge. The XS A team danced Wicked at a level far higher than their recent UK winning performance. The team looked strong, cohesive and very attacking and the roundabout tricks and wind looked fast and clean. The end of the performance led Martin Cutler, commentating on DSI TV, to say, “The whole thing was a lot more powerful than the other teams before them”. The final team to the floor were Fever Dance Company presenting their Celine Dion routine. Fever’s performance was very clean and precise and showed some very neat patterns.
After a nervous wait, XS Latin A were delighted to be announced by Marcus Hilton as the 2017 British Open Latin Formation Champions, with the judges awarding them a majority of first placings. More excitement came for the club when the B team were awarded third place in this prestigious competition. This was an unprecedented result at the British Open for XS Latin and the first time a British team has won this Championship since 2009. The result also means that both XS Latin A and B teams qualify as the top two English teams for the 2017 World Championship.
The evening was a particularly special one for XS Latin as for club stalwart, Diane Williams, the competition was her 50th with the team. Diane became the first member of XS Latin to dance 50 formation competitions and her tremendous achievement was acknowledged and celebrated by all her club mates.
XS Latin would like to thank the organisers of the Festival, the club’s supporters and Ballroom Bling for their continued sponsorship of the A team.
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