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....(his words) of cows and sheep and he has never seen so much green. They drove for an hour down little village roads to get to a castle where a magnificent seafood meal was served. Pictured below are the three couples who were performing.
Brian and Kristina were the headliners for this show. Also dancing were Alex Ivanets and Lisa Bellinger (world pro Latin ranking=16) and Marco Cavellero and Joanna Clifton (a top amateur standard couple). Music for general dancing was provided by the world famous Ross Mitchell band. The organizers, George and Elaine, said that they sold out the same day they started the promotion for the event. When Brian arrived at the hall, he was stunned to see two story high banners of him and Kristina. One of the other couples said to Brian, "Your show is very good. I don't usually give out the compliments, but I like your show very much." The organizers told Brian that they were very happy with the show and that they are getting lots of compliments and thanks from the specatators.
Brian tells me that he was impressed by the standard of dancing during the social dances. He said hundreds of dancers took the floor dancing very high quality international style, including freestyle pasodoble. The Scots also did plenty of line dancing.
At the end of the show they took around 500 photos and did about 600 autographs.
He asked the organizers, George and Elaine, how they got into dancing. They were on a cruise many years ago and met Bill and Bunny from the Philadelphia area.They spent a lot of time together and danced every day with Bill and Bunny and fell in love with dancing. We know lots of dancing Bills, but Brian was anxious to identify this particular Bill. Turns out it was our very own Bill Sapp from Wilmington!!!!
Brian and Kristina have now booked a show at the studio belonging to one of the other performing couples and they have a show booked at Len Goodman's studio.
His tv show is going well and he claims to be learning a lot and developing lots of ideas for choreography. He is also very affected by the stories of the disabled dancers. He has just done 3 sixteen hour days in a row and is feeling it in his wrists and knees. I am sure anyone would.
I think he will be home for a week sometime this summer. I have a lot of plans for that week.
Brian and Kristina are doing a lot of shows. They filled in for James and Ola Jordan a couple of weeks ago. I received this email from the organizer of one of the shows:
Dear Sandra,
My name is BP. I run a large dance business in England and we were recently fortunate to have your son Brian and his dance partner Kristina perform for us at one of our Social Dances, May 17th. I just thought I would drop you a note to say what a wonderful son you have. (But you knew that...)
Brian & Kristina stepped in at the last minute when James & Ola Jordan could not make it (J&O cancelled 11 days before the event... Which was booked 8 months before - Needless to say I was very stressed.) Brian has only stepped off the plane days before and had very little time to rehearse, yet the show was fantastic and everyone commented on how warm and genuine he (& Kristina) were. He is a real credit to you.
Brian mentioned you, during his show and while signing autographs later in the evening, I overheard him say, somewhat to himself, 'Everything my mother told me was true, I'm glad I listened to her.' (At this point my 10 year old son was just on the otherside of me and I turned and introduced Brian to him, and asked Brian to repeat what he just said... Brain then asked my son, Craig, if he listens to his mother 'No'. To which Brain told him he should as she is always right.... (We often use the line at home now, "Brian said you have to listen to me") Your influence travels far and wide.
During the evening Brian said to me 'You remind me of my mother...Very organized and businesslike' - This was very high praise. (I'm American too, originally from St Paul, MN, but lived outside of Philly in Yardley PA for a while.)
Everyone had a wonderful evening with great social dancing, a wonderful show and meeting such nice people. You can be very proud.
Warm regards,BP
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