Snoqualmie dancers place at national championships
April 15, 2009
By Laura Geggel
With one dressed in a shocking red dress and the other a black suit, Kora Stoynova and Simeon Stoynov placed in the top ten in their respective events at the National Dance Council of America’s National Ballroom Championships at Brigham Young University March 12-14.
Only a few weekends later, the couple also placed within the top 10 in certain categories at the USA Dance National Dancesport Championships in Baltimore April 3.
In addition to competing all over the world, the Snoqualmie couple created Dance Sport Emotions in Bellevue and teach their craft to about 200 people infected with the dancing bug.
Snoqualmie residents Simeon Stoynov and Kora Stoynova perform a Latin dance.
Stoynov started dancing at age 13 when some of his girlfriends told him they needed more boys in their dance class. Although some of his friends dropped out, he stuck with it.
“I never thought about quitting,” Stoynov said. “And it turned into a career.”
He met Stoynova — even though they technically have the same last name, it’s Bulgarian culture to add an “a” on the end of a female name — about a decade ago when he heard she was looking for a dance partner. Now married, the duo manages their dance studio while simultaneously working on their next dance competitions.
Stoynova began dancing at the age of 5 in her parent’s dance studio. Lesson after dance lesson taught her the different forms of international ballroom dance, an age-old tradition with two styles of dancing: Latin and standard.
Latin ballroom dancing includes the cha cha, rumba, samba, paso double, and jive.
Her husband explained the difference between these hot Latin dances.
Dancers shake their hips during the flirty Cuban cha cha and rumba. The Brazilian samba is like the cha cha, but more raw in emotion and movement.
The paso double has dancers recreate a scene of a bullfighter — the bullfighter being the male and the cape or sword being the female.
“A cape is very flowy, the lady needs to create actions that mimic a cape,” Stoynov said, calling it their best dance.
“Pasa double has the most clear story, so when you perform it, it’s easy for me to get into character.”
The jive allows dancers to get their swing on, which is based more on the European version of swing dance.
The standard portion of ballroom dancing includes the slow waltz, tango, Viennese waltz, slow foxtrot and quickstep. Women typically wear long ballroom gowns and men wear black suits with tails and white bowties during standard dances. Women can wear skimpier dresses for Latin dances, while men wear slacks with a nice dress shirt with a few undone buttons.
Stoynova said she buys a new dress every year, but runs it by her teachers before she has it completed by her seamstress in England.
“They tell me what they want to see me in,” Stoynova said. “I just had a costume made for my competition last weekend (in Baltimore). I had had a long skirt, but he wanted to change the entire thing because he wanted to see my legs.”
Dancers usually specialize in either standard or Latin, but Stoynov and Stoynova excel in both.
“Kora and I are one of the top couples in the U.S. that specialize in both,” Stoynov said.
The duo never stops training and continually consults teachers and coaches around the world for choreography and techniques for the next competition.
When they step on the dance floor, sometimes surrounded by as many as 600 other couples, none of the dancers know what music will be played or how long it will last. But dancers do have a few things within their control.
“You know the speed of the song, you know what the beat is going to be, you know the dances,” Stoynova said.
The couple also have had a lucky break.
“We were pretty lucky because the guy who was DJ was a good friend of mine,” Stoynova said. “He knows there’s this specific rumba I really love. He’s been doing it every single competition I’ve been at.”
Judges subjectively score dancers, but if the floor is crowded, a couple will have to wear flashy clothing and take up as much space as possible to grab the attention of the judges.
At the championships held at Brigham Young University, where the women have to wear more conservative dresses, the couples scored 10th in the Latin category, fifth in the standards and first in the combined. At the championships in Baltimore, they scored fourth in the 10-dance, seventh in the standard and 15th in the Latin.
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