Nearly 40 dancers from Carol Kitchen’s Dance Centre (CKDC) competed in the Bedazzled Dance Champions Finals Competition at Blue Mountain Village Conference Centre from July 2 to 9, 2023.
The competition began with a two-day pageant, which included a two-minute interview in front of a panel of judges, audition classes in four styles of dance (jazz, tap, ballet and acro) and each dancer performed a solo in their preferred style. Dancers were awarded marks for each component with Mackenzie Crawley (17) and Ainsley Adams (12) representing CKDC and competing against 114 contestants from all over Ontario.
Following the pageant, Crawley and Adams were joined by 36 of their teammates to compete a studio total of 77 routines in jazz, tap, ballet, acro, lyrical, hip-hop and contemporary over the course of 5 days. The competition culminated with a Dazzlin’ Dance Off on Sunday afternoon with the top five highest scoring Solo/Duet/Trio and Group/Extended Line routines of the competition from each age division: Mini (8 & under), Junior (9-11), Teen (12-14) and Senior (15-18) competing their routines once more. Against 10 competing studios, CKDC had 8 routines qualify to compete in 7 categories and 4 of those routines took first place overall.
The studio was also awarded 2 of the top 4 highest marks of the entire competition including the highest scoring solo/duet/trio routine and highest scoring group/extended line routine of the entire weekend for Ages 11 & Under. The competition also awarded CKDC with the ‘Outstanding Acro Award’ and ‘Most Entertaining Award.’ Nick Robinson (17) was also awarded the Senior Outstanding Dancer 2023 award.
“We are incredibly proud of the hard work of all our dancers this past week and all year long,” said Sally Dawson, Studio Director. “With such a long competition there are many early mornings and late nights and our dancers showed immense determination with many achieving personal or group bests despite the fierce competition.”
The Finals in Blue Mountain was the fifth and final competition that CKDC dancers competed in this year, with other competitions including Rhythm Dance Competition in Guelph, Breaking Bounds Dance Competition in Niagara Falls, Shock Dance Challenge in St. Catharines and Bedazzled Dance Competition in Scarborough.
The numerous overall awards received by the studio and dancers this season are a true testament to the success of the studio celebrating its 75th season in Brantford. Owner and Studio Director, Sally Dawson, has managed the studio for the last 35 years, taking over after her mother, Carol Kitchen, suddenly passed in 1988.
