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Igor Golovach & Michelle Blank - Dance Couple

See also: Categories: Dance Couples, WikiDanceSport: Team, DanceSport Studio, Instructors, Dancers

Couple formed: January, 2015
Current location: New Jersey, USA
Current Status:

Igor Golovach and Michelle Blank are an Amateur Latin couple. Aside from being the founders of WikiDanceSport and DanceSport Studio (DSS), they are 3-time USA National Showdance Vice-Champions (2018 - 2019), the 2019 USA National Amateur Latin Vice-Champions, and World Finalists of the 2019 WDSF World Showdance Latin Championship. They are sponsored by Freed of London. Igor and Michelle are certified as Instructors under the North American DanceSport Teachers Association (NADTA) in the International Style Latin division.

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Overview

Michelle Blank and Igor Golovach began dancing together in 2015. Igor, 21 years of age, had just arrived from Ukraine, and Michelle, age 17 at the time, grew up in the United States. The couple came together to represent the USA in the Amateur Latin division.

WikiDanceSport

As soon as Igor and Michelle started working together, they immediately bonded as not only a dancing couple but also as partners who were alike in their views and goals regarding their future careers. Together, they soon realized the need for a community data center to provide all dance enthusiasts with a one-stop information hub. The idea was to create an encyclopedia that would become an information center for all things DanceSport. Together, they founded WikiDanceSport.com, a free-access, free-content Internet encyclopedia of Ballroom Dancing.

They are actively participating in the development of this DanceSport collaborative platform by gathering data of the DanceSport industry, interviewing top celebrities, performing industry research, analyzing new articles, and examining their accuracy to help professionals and all dance enthusiasts organize information into one user-friendly data source.

DanceSport Studio

In 2018, Igor and Michelle officially launched DanceSport Studio (DSS). DSS is a cross-federation collaborative training platform that is on the path to establishing one uniform Art of DanceSport Training System for competitive and social dancers in all aspects of fitness, health, and wellbeing (physical, mental, emotional, social, and spiritual). DSS encompasses organizations as well as individuals of multiple federations that work together as one unit in order to accomplish the highest standards of DanceSport training and education. The first DSS location is currently open in Medford, New Jersey (USA).

DanceSport Rankings

The couple is also developing DanceSport Rankings (DSR). This idea was driven by the necessity to uniform and synchronize DanceSport industry-related activities. The platform will offer a way to rank and rate the individuals, organizations, and events of the industry based on various criteria, historical data, performance, and popularity, and will allow athletes to participate in the opinion sharing and evaluation of said models.

Instructors

Both Igor and Michelle are certified as Instructors under the North American DanceSport Teachers Association (NADTA) in the International Style Latin division. They instruct all levels and age groups of competitive dancers from juveniles to seniors and offer such training at DanceSport Studio (DSS) in Medford, NJ (USA).

Competitive Career

After just one year together, Igor and Michelle became the 2016 Virginia State International Latin Champions as well as the Liberty Ball Amateur International Latin Champions. They also placed in the semi-final of the 2017 USA Dance National DanceSport Championships.

In May of 2017, Igor and Michelle became the New England DanceSport Amateur Latin Champions. Soon afterward, October brought them to the second year of the American DanceSport Festival where they won the Bronze Medals at the WDSF Amateur Rising Star Championship.

In December, Igor and Michelle traveled to Riga, Latvia to compete internationally for the first time at the Baltic Grand Prix in the WDSF Amateur Rising Star and International Open Championships. The days prior to the competition, they participated in the Baltic Grand Prix Workshops where they met and trained with Alexey Silde and Zoran Plohl.

2018

As the year of 2018 kicked off, Igor and Michelle took first place at the Islanders DanceSport Challenge in the Amateur Latin division.

In April, the couple became the USA National Amateur Latin Showdance Vice-Champions, a great feat to achieve in their first-ever Showdance performance. Later in the month, they traveled to San Marino to compete at the San Marino DanceSport Festival. They became semi-finalists in the Latin Rising Star event, placing 9th out of 33 couples, and quarter-finalists of the WDSF World Open Latin, placing 23rd out of 67 couples, out-dancing the champions of the Rising Star competition. This proved quite an achievement for Igor and Michelle's 2nd international competition.

May brought a strong victory for the couple as Igor and Michelle took 2nd place at the WDSF Rising Star Latin Championship in Tbilisi, Georgia.

2019

In 2019, Igor and Michelle became the National Vice-Champions of the United States of America in the Amateur Latin division. They also claimed their second title as U.S. Amateur Latin Showdance Vice-Champions with their performance of "Fear", a piece based on Stephen King's novel and famous cinematic masterpiece, It. As a result of these placements, they will be representing the USA at two upcoming WDSF World Championships, both to be held in Moscow, Russia.

Recently, Igor and Michelle have achieved a fantastic result in the WDSF World Open Latin held in Wuppertal, Germany in July at the DanceComp Wuppertal. Out of 103 couples dancing in the event, the couple placed 18th in the quarter-final, their highest result yet achieved at an international event. The conclusion of the dance year brought the duo a fantastic victory: on December 14th, 2019, Igor and Michelle became World Finalists of 2019 WDSF World Showdance Latin Championship held in the beautiful Kremlin Palace of Moscow, Russia. From all around the world, family and friends watched live as the Team USA couple brought home a strengthening victory with their performance of their showdance "Fear", based on Stephen King's famous It.

Trained With

Igor and Michelle have had the opportunity to train with some of the top coaches of the industry including:

HALL OF FAME

Current Instructors

Accomplishments

Photo Gallery

Video Gallery

Social Media

You can follow Igor on:

You can follow Michelle on:


Categories: Dance Couples, WikiDanceSport: Team, DanceSport Studio, Instructors, Dancers

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