Island Fantasy Ball

The BC Closed Championship is held every May in Nanaimo, BC. We enjoy competing at this competition because the audience is very friendly and encouraging. Every dancer loves and enthusiastic audience and we always get a lot of applause and cheering when we dance there.  Thanks to everyone who worked so hard to save the wooden floor at Beban Park and made this event possible.

We danced for 2 days in 4 different categories for 5 rounds.  We successfully defended our titles as BC Closed Senior I Champions and BC Open Senior I Champions. We also placed 3rd in the BC Adult Closed Championship and were happy we could still compete against dancers 10-20 years younger than us! It was an eventful competition weekend. In our first round, Gloria was having costume malfunction as a piece of her ballgown kept unbuckling so she changed into her second dress. During the 2nd round, her hair came loose and one of Tony's button on his tail suit was ripped off! We did not let those glitches distract us and kept our focus on our dancing performance.

There were 2 highlights in our weekend.  The first was when a mother approached us with her young daughter. She told us that she really enjoyed our dancing and that her daughter wanted to meet us but was too shy.  We love nothing more than to inspire others and we felt great that people could see how much we enjoy to dance.  The other highlight was when a shy old man approached me and told me that I was his hero.  It really touched me.  He was a competitor himself, and no bigger than me! It just goes to show that anyone can dance... at any size, and at any age.

At the end of the competition, we said goodbye to our wonderful hosts, Toni and Gary Bowen.  They have seen us improve over the years and have given us a home away from home..  It was a full weekend of dancing and we were exhausted by the time we got home.  We really enjoyed the weekend and a big thank you to the organizers and all the volunteers who made this event so wonderful and memorable for us every year!!