1. Round

  There were altogether 53 couples from 13 countries in the beginning. The floor was enormous, mainly because there was also a Boogie-Woogie formation competition. And the judges were at the other end of the shorter side of the rectangle.
So this meant that all the couples were performing to the judges allthough most of the audience was sitting on the longer sides... Must have been fun to pay 90 FF (~18 USD) for a ticket and then see just the backsides of the couples.
   Because Timo and I danced as the first couple we had plenty of time to look at all the other couples. And we had excellent seats because we sat on the floor, just three meters from the nearest couple. We could see everything, facial expressions, the joy of dancing, nervousness... And there were plenty of excellent couples! We clapped and lived each second of the dancing time with the couples - after the first round my hands and throat hurted a bit. 

Hoperound

  All the finnish couples had to dance the hoperound too. Actually for me that is good because then you get more floor time: time to get yourself relaxed on the floor, you know where to look and what the floor is like. So this time I knew that the lights would be in my eyes and I knew where to look to avoid that. Hoperound was much better for me and we got to the quarterfinals. Again we had time to watch others and take photos after we had danced. The thing that separates the good couples from the others is how sure you are of yourself. After you know some figures and your music interpretation is ok, you´ll have to sell it all by looking like you know ALL THE TIME what you are doing. If you look at the floor you are losing if you don´t look at it with a major amount of confidence. My advice is: don´t look at the floor... If you don´t shine outside you look uncertain and lose again - sorry. 

Quarter finals

   We gathered a major amount of energy for this round - I even took some time to lay down and relax completely. Maybe we had a bit too much energy and too much trying, but anyway that was the very best we could do then. The final placing was 18/53. 

Semifinals

   Everything had been quite all right as it comes to the organizational side of the competition until the semifinals started. Of course all the competition couples that were not dancing in the semifinals wanted to see the competition. But we were not allowed to sit on the floor anymore... and we were not allowed to stand on the other side of the floor... actually we were not allowed to do much anything and some of us got quite angry. You travel all the way to France to compete and then you are
not respected even that much that you would get a decent seat to watch to competition??? What is this? Who needs competitions like this? The competitors should be given GOOD seats - not maybe the most expensive but good anyway. They are the ones who make the competitions spirit. It is a DANCE competition so give some credit to the DANCERS!

Well, there was 6000 persons in the stadium and they really enjoyed the competition. In the intermissions there was a great band playing and the floor was filled with eager dancers. They also had lots of performances - hip hop, salsa, latin dances, aerobic. All of them of good quality. Personally I didn´t enjoy the performances because I was too angry of the way how they treated the competitors. At least I managed to sneak to the audience: first to stand on the sidestairs and then to sit on the stairs in the middle. So I could see just fine, allthough my back and backside hurted a lot. I could see lots of competitors standing at the other end of the hall next to a railing- far away where they could see the tiny backs of the dancers. Fun, fun, fun. 

Well, that´s enough wining. I wrote about the 1998 World Championships in Switzerland and how there were different solutions in the couples when it comes to shining. I was very pleased to see that Fabrice CARNEVALE - Nathalie CARNEVALE from Belgium could perform equally to each other and to the audience. Fabrice really danced for his partner! And they had very difficult figures which succeeded well and loads of music interpretation. The judges didn´t agree with me, but thought the french couple Remy KOUAKOU - Eve KOUAKOU was good enough to get to the finals. That was a major mistake in my mind, sorry. A couple that gets to the finals has to consist of dancers. It really is NOT enough if you can do the basics and have a couple of figures and do a bit of music interpretation. And even though you don´t make mistakes that is not a reason to get to the finals. We don´t get minus points in Boogie-Woogie from mistakes - remember? You´ll have to be able to DANCE, to be a dancer. And as a minor point, you´ll have to have some charisma too.

The Di Jorios from Switzerland really didn´t have their day. The dance was a mess and they didn´t get to the finals. Well, you can´t always succeed.

Finals

   I was sorry to see where the Boogie-Woogie is going at least judging from this competition. It is no longer a question of good interpretation. It has come to that, that the couples know the songs by heart note by note. And they "dance" like machines. It is more of a performance than a dance. For me Boogie-Woogie is a free-lead dance. We have three parts that are judged in the competitions: basics, figures & performing and music interpretation. Seems to me that music interpretation has now a much bigger part in the minds of the judges than it should have. It is not difficult to do easy basic figures and then add the interpretation. And when you do the interpretations, the easy way is to do them separately, both dancers on their own. Where is the dancing? Where is the fun of it? If you have no idea what I am talking about, take a look of the 1996 European Championships in Sweden, and fast.
   And for me the finals was lousy compered to the earlier rounds because I was sitting so far away from the dancers that I really couldn´t get to the same feeling as watching those couples who ended up on places 20-30/53.

What else?
 
    Usually you have a chance to buy the video of the competition. This time too. And the organizers always say: "we have professionals making it". Well, professionals don´t know a thing about shooting a dance video. The dancers are so small that you could think that those expensive cameras don´t have a zoom in them. And sometimes they seem to fall asleep because you can´t see any dancers in the screen at all. And this time you had the priviledge to pay 200 FRF for the video, which has only the finals in it. And of course all those performances...
   This time there was a option! If you paid 100 FRF for the permission you could shoot with your own videocamera the whole competition. It really paid off and I am going to do it in the future too. And I officially recommend it to you too :)

                                                                     Taina Kortelainen

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