In a spectacular display of feathers, foxtrots and falling over, Lancaster stole the show in the Roses ballroom dancing competition and were awarded all four points available.
While York supporters were devastated to hear of Graeme Osborne’s absence in the dancesport, the York team still looked elegant and waltzed with obvious musicality.
York shot themselves in the foot somewhat by not entering any contestants into two of the four categories, which meant losing both the beginner’s Latin and beginner’s ballroom 42-0 each. This automatically sacrificed two points for the away side.
Smatterings of One Direction sounded through the speakers, shortly followed by dancing to the theme tune of Titanic, which spurred on a surprisingly raucous crowd.
When asked why York dancesport didn’t enter any pairs, competitor and dance-extraordinaire Abi Wilson commented: “We’ve got a very diminished team as a lot of our dancers left last year, or have exams, or are competing in other sports.”
Yet there were some fantastic performances from the York duos. The winners of the advanced jive category were Josh Boswell and Abi Wilson from York, who enjoyed their second trophy in as many categories. The York pairs also achieved fifth, third and first place in the advanced cha-cha-cha: a well-deserved dancesport victory in this category.
The scores were, unsurprisingly, much closer in the advanced competitions, with Lancaster winning 44-33 in the ballroom and York coming close in the advanced Latin, losing 34-28.
York efforts in the Latin was particularly outstanding, but the home team’s professional attitude and rhythmical perfection proved impossible to beat. In the advanced quickstep, waltz, open mayfair quickstep and advanced Viennesse waltz, Lancaster achieved first place.
The event was hosted by Lancaster’s VP Media and Communications, Matt Power, and was judged by Duncan Trevor, a renowned judge in both Latin and ballroom dance categories.
The day’s dancing activities finished with a variant on musical chairs, which was actually chair-less, and instead the dancers fell straight to the floor when the music was paused: a fun end to a great day of ballroom dancing.