UK Open results

Posted on January 25, 2012

The results are in for the first major competition of the year, the UK Open Championships, which took place last week from January 17 to 19 at the Bournemouth International Centre. The winners of the Professional Ballroom were Arunas Bizokas and Katusha Demidova, dancing for the US, while Michael Malitowski and Joanna Leunis, dancing for England, won the Professional Latin. Also dancing for England were Neil Jones and Ekaterina Sokolova, who won the Amateur Latin; Chao Yang and Yi Ling Tan, dancing for China, won the Amateur Ballroom.

The Rising Star Professional Ballroom, sponsored by the Dance Promoters’ Association, was won by Artem Plakhotnyi and Inna Berlizyeva, dancing for the US. The Professional Latin Rising Stars, in a competition sponsored by Crystal Clover, were Egor Novikov and Yana Petkov, dancing for the US.

The Rising Star Amateur Ballroom, sponsored by Edda Hsu, were Szymon Kalinowski and Grazyna Grabicka, dancing for Poland. The Amateur Latin Rising Stars, in a competition sponsored by Sapiel, were Anton Nesterko and Darya Maryushchenko, dancing for Ukraine. 

The UK Open is organised by Dance News Special Projects and was supported by Katherine Cheng, of A&K Cultural Foundation Hong Kong, Bill S F Lau, of EKS International Sales SAS of France and the Bill S F Lau Foundation of Hong Kong, and Shigemitsu Tanabe, of Tanabe Kogyo. 

A full report will follow in the March issue of Dance Today.

Professional Latin winners Michael Malitowski and Joanna Leunis are pictured with Amateur Ballroom winners Chao Yang and Yi Ling Tan, and sponsors Bill S F Lau and Katherine Cheng. Photograph © Ron Self

Nicola Rayner

Nicola Rayner was editor of Dance Today from 2010 to 2015. She has written for a number of publications including The Guardian, The Independent and Time Out Buenos Aires, where she cut her teeth as a dance journalist working on the tango section. Today she continues to dance everything from ballroom to breakdance, with varying degrees of success. Her debut novel, The Girl Before You, was published last year in paperback, ebook and audiobook.