Shakeup In The Professional Ballroom Dancing Scene

There has been quite a number of partnerships breaking up in the professional ballroom dancing scene during the past couple of years. The latest to split are the English pairs of Christopher Hawkins & Justyna Hawkins and Timothy Howson & Joanne Bolton (partners for 18 years). Christopher Hawkins and Joanne Bolton are now partnering each other. As for Timothy Howson and Justyna Hawkins there is no news of their plans yet.

The American pair of Jonathan Wilkins and Katusha Demidova went their separate ways last year. Wilkins is now partnering Hazel Newberry and both are dancing for England. Hazel Newberry was Christopher Hawkin's previous partner and they were the World Professional Standard Dance Champions from 2002 to 2004. They were a fantastic couple and famous for their quickstep. As for Demidova, she is is presently dancing with Arunas Bizokas for the USA.

The partnership of the Latin American dance pair of Slavik Kryklyvyy and Karina Smirnoff of the USA ended about a couple of years ago. Before the retirement of 9 times World Professional Latin American Dance Champions Bryan Watson and Carmen Vincelj of Germany from competitive dancing in 2007, Kryklyvyy and Smirnoff were tipped to be the next champions, but sadly this was not to be. After leaving Smirnoff, Kryklyvyy went on to partner Elena Khvorova before ending up with Hanna Karttunen of Finland. Smirnoff was last heard to be dancing with Dmitri Timokhin of Russia.

We'll have to wait to really see how well the new couples will perform on the dance floor and we wish them all the best. We can also expect more promising dance couples to split up in future. This has happened quite regularly in the past and is going to happen again in future. Maybe as they say, the only constant is change. C'est La Vie!

Best Regards,

Dance Aficionado
Dancesport Malaysia