Welcome to WADF!

Dear friends of Artistic Dance! This is going to be fabulous!!! Finally the WADF is rolling out on the runway! We are ready to fly.

It gives me great satisfaction to be able to present to you a new World Dance Federation and we are in many way different. We have learned from the past but we are looking for the future!

In the first place we do not look for Sport recognition. We believe that the Art of Dance is much more than a sport. We believe it is possible to compete in Dance without it being a Sport. We evaluate competitive dance from two criteria. The Technical part and the Artistic part and both have an equal value.

We look beyond the old fashion way of thinking that you must have a partner to be able to compete in Dance. We are changing the way of thinking in regards to Dance tuition. We are ready to take you on a World tour to explore the beauty of Artistic Dance and the enormous possibilities for development the Art of dance gives to so many people around the World.

We have learned from the past but we do not look back any longer. Our focus is set for the future. We wish you all a wonderful flight!

I owe you an explanation to what has happened.

I fully understand that, you my friends, are all wondering what happened with the ADD, which is a good question.  To be honest with you I hardly know myself. I do not intend to elaborate too much on this subject because it is already history.  However I believe that I should give you some explanation as to what happened.  Here is the background.

At a 2011 Presidium Meeting, in Laguna Nigel, California, I was appointed to set up and run an Artistic Dance Department for the WDC.  The conditions, from my side, were that I shall have total freedom to set up this department and run it in exactly the way to be best for a successful development of the department.

The Presidium gave me “Carte Blanche” to run it how I considered suitable.  In order to have a good co-operation with the Dance Teachers Committee I was co-opted onto the Dance Teachers Committee Executive Board.  In turn I appointed Mr. Morten Andresen, Chairman of the DTC, as my Vice-Chairman and suggested that I would like to have three Ambassadors, each representing a special part of the world.  Mr. Stanislav Popov, (Eastern Europe), Mr. Isao Nakagawa, (Asia) and Mr. Jack Rothweiler, (the Americas).  This was our Department Board.

For six months I worked on the project and presented the ADD at the 2012 DTC meeting in Blackpool, England.  Strangely I was not allowed to present the ADD to the meeting of the General Council, which surprised me.  However, due to my large network in the world of Artistic Dancing, the project was launched with the first Artistic Dance competition being held in Moscow, Russia, October 2012.

Since then 80 members from many countries had joined the Artistic Dance Department.  Unfortunately not very many WDC members joined, which surprised me and I have no good reason why, other than the ordinary WDC members are still in the old method of looking at competitive dancing, happy and busy with what they are doing.  On the other hand we did receive many requests for membership from outside the WDC, which did not surprise me at all.

In February 2013 the WDC Presidium decided to change the conditions for the Department.  It shall no longer be a special independent department, but become a part of the DTC.  Consequently this made Mr. Morten Andresen, Chairman DTC, head of the department while I was appointed an Honorary Advisor with all activities being handled under the supervision of the DTC Executive Board.  From my point of view I knew immediately that this was not going to work.  I acknowledged the situation, when informed of the new circumstances by Mr. Andresen, withdrawing from the department and wishing them the best of luck with the development of the ADD.  It will need some who has the time, dedication, knowledge and the willingness to do it.

To make this long story short, on the 1st April I sent all my ADD material to Mr. Andresen following his request.  Regretfully three days later he withdrew from the position of Chairman of the DTC and WDC Vice-President for personal reasons.  Naturally this made things even more complicated for the DTC to run the ADD.  Mr. Morten Andresen, as my Vice-Chairman, was aware of everything in regards to the ADD.  He was a part of the developing ADD, judged the event in Moscow and experienced, at first hand, how the ADD works.

The interim Chairman of the DTC is Mr. Svein Rotvold, also from Norway, a long standing close friend of mine and a capable person in many respects.  I sincerely wish him the best of luck with the ADD and hope that he is able to find people in the Committee who would like to take the ADD on board, develop it in a way that it will suit the WDC Members in a better way than I had managed to do.

That is the story of the ADD, now we are looking forward to this new and exciting project,The World Artistic Dance Federation and I hope, very much that you will join me on this adventure.

Welcome to worldartdance.com!

This is the new website! It is new online and being added to regularly, there will be a lot of useful information about the new Federation.

All the documents you need to become a part of and active in the WADF. Membership, Competitions, Rules and Regulations and Guidelines to download as PDF files.

Our master document, the WADF Charter, is written in such a way to prevent any misunderstanding or misinterpretation and is therefore “heavy” to read.  We recommend you download the Competition Regulations, the Dance Disciplines Competition Rules and all the Guidelines, which are enough to get you started and keep you going for a long time.  These documents are written in easy understandable English.

In the Competition Calendar you will find information about National events that are open to anyone plus the World and Continental Championships and Cups in which you and your dancers can participate.

There will be an area for Members, to which all active members will have access to register their members and from where all enrolments will be sent direct to the organisers of the competitions they want to dance in.  As this requires complicated programming it will take a while to accomplish.  Hopefully we will be ready in time for the first large event that will be held in Liberec, Czech Republic, mid-November.  Details of the large competition will be available soon.

Video links are also in the pipeline to show examples of our disciplines to inspire and create clever choreography for Synchronised and Dance Show performances.  A photo gallery will also be included to display photographs from the various competition events around the world, from which we will be delighted to receive photos for presentation.

As a democratic non-profit world organisation we will require Committees, who will meet at regular intervals, all under the General Assembly held annually bringing the members together  to discuss, decide all faculties of the WADF.  The General Assembly will elect your Presiding and Managing Committees to develop the  World Artistic Dance Federation from the decision made to make it one of the largest and most prestigious Dane Organisations in the World.  This exciting adventure  is being launched by an interim Presiding Committee of experienced people covering all necessary aspects that need to be done to ensure the greatest hopes for the future.

Ladies and Gentlemen, this is going to be great!

Adjudicators examination

The first International Artistic Dance Adjudicator Seminar was held in Liberec, Czech Republic on 13th June 2013. The Seminar, which lasted well over three hours, was very well attended. While being officially held in English and translated into Czech, some candidates from France and Russia brough their own translators with them.

The following Adjudicators are now registered International Artistic Dance Championship Adjudicators:

Alexander Sokolov, Russia
Anastasia Kuptsova, Russia
Bohumil Cerny, Czech Republic
Claudine Weber, France
Gabriela Hemzlova, Czech Republic
Guido de Smet, Belgium
Ilona Sulcova, Czech Republic
Irina Shmalko, Russia
Iveta Svancarova, Czech Republic
Jana Stehlicova, Czech Republic
Jindrich Hess, Czech Republic
Jindrich Hess Junior, Czech Republic
Katerina Cechova, Czech Republic
Lenka Kratochvil, Czech Republic
Libor Hlavacek, Czech Republic
Didier Marchal, France
Marian Sulc, Czech Republic
Miroslav Stehlic, Czech Republic
Olga Nikitina, Russia
Per Hammarlund, Denmark
Petr Cuban, Czech Republic
Philipp Kummer, Austria
Sergey Ivanov, Russia
Silvie Netijova, Czech Republic
Susie Potarckora, Czech Republic
Tino van de Velde, Belgium
Yitila Yedlickova, Czech Republic
Zuzana Häuslerova, Czech Republic

The next International Adjudicator Seminar will be held again in Liberec, mid-November, in connection with the WADF World Championships and AGM.

The exact date will be published immediately after the schedule for the Festival has been finalised. All WADF Members will have the right to nominate candidates for the International Championship Adjudicator Seminar. We will need a lot of Championship Adjudicators very quickly.

Liberec 13th-16th June 2013

The first large Artistic Dance event was held this year in Liberec, Czech Republic. It was the close of the ADD and the start of the WADF. Organisers of this event, the Czech Open Championships, were Ilona Sulcova and her brother Marian Sulc, supported by a fantastic team helping with everything necessary for such a large event. Marian and Ilona have a long tradition with large events in the Centrum Babylon, which is ideal for this type of promotion with hundreds of Juniors and Juveniles with their parents.

The Babylon Hotel is not just a hotel. It is a complete fairground that can host hundreds of visitors, with an Adventure Bath, various play rooms, large Gym, play grounds, restaurants, sporting activities and much more to attract and amuse children of all ages. There are large halls suitable for dance competitions and everything at a reasonable price. All in all this is the ideal venue for this type of event with everything under the same roof.
Being the Czech Open Championships we knew beforehand that large numbers of international dancers would not be participating and being that the whole concept is so new many countries would not yet have held their first national competition. However from the results of the event in Moscow, last October, we knew that dancers from Russia would participate alongside the many Czech dancers.

They came from Russia with 80 persons enrolled in almost 150 disciplines. Solos, Duos, Small and Large Groups in many divisions all wearing different costumes for each event, which was a pleasure to see. Very impressive! Five of their coaches also attended the Adjudicator Seminar to become International Championship Adjudicators with Irina Shmalko as one of the official judges on the panel.

Being the first Czech Open, organised in co-operation with the SUT (Svaz Ucitelu Tance Ceské Republiky), which is the Czech Republic member of the WDC. It was a pleasure to meet their President, Mr. Bohumil Cerny. On the Saturday morning the SUT held the Czech Republic Championship for Mini Kids Formations, which was very well attended by many excellent teams. Mini Kids (under 8) is a speciality in the Czech Republic with so many schools having so many teams. I am delighted that we were able to include this competition it gave a lot of colour to the event.

The whole event was held in two halls, in one we had all the Couple Dance events plus  Solo dancing, Synchronised Duos, Synchronised and Choreographed Show Dance in Standard (Ballroom), Latin, Caribbean and mixed styles. In the other hall we had all the Street Dance competitions, also presenting a very high standard.  I would like to thank my old friend Balazs Cipri, from Hungary, for acting as Chairman of Judges in the Street Dance hall and supervising the Street panel of Adjudicators.

It is a wonderful experience to see a vision come through on to the dance floor after having set up the rules without really knowing how it was all going to turn out. The reality superseded my expectations over and over again.  I was proud to see how well the coaches and teachers had understood my intentions and it was a pure pleasure to experience this with new dancers.

In conclusion I am very much looking forward to the next event in Liberec, scheduled for mid-November including many WADF World Championships, especially seeing many teams of Mini Kids from other countries taking part in this event.

My congratulations go to the coaches, teachers and trainers who enrolled competitors for this event, for the quality of the performances from all countries.  Now that the Czech Republic and Russia have “kick started” the Artistic Dance Disciplines I am sure it will not be too long before dancers from Italy, Ukraine and others are testing their performance skills in this exciting venture.

I would also like to thank the voluntary judges who made the competition possible. There were 8 Official and 10 Voluntary Judges for this great event, who worked in panels. With the competitions starting early in the mornings and finishing late in the evening the voluntary judges made it possible for the official judges to have the necessary comfort breaks and keep the event running.

We were also very lucky to have a well oiled scrutineering team handling the ysytems and keeping the schedule on time.  Thank you very much Mr. Hénik Zdenék, head Scrutineer, and his team. He and his team are now authorised WADF Scrutineers.

I am extremely thankful to the official photographer, Mr. Zdenék Kompert (www.fotohned.cz) who generously sent all his photos on 5 CD’s for use as promotional material.  There are more than 6000 photos on the CD’s, which means we have a fantastic supply of promotional photos for many years to come.  Mr. Kompert is now an authorised WADF Photographer, whom we recommend with pleasure for other Organisers to use as their official photographer. Certified WADF Photographers and Scrutineers will be announced in our website and recommend them to all WADF Organisers around the world.

Our sincere thanks are also extended to Ilona Sulcova and Marian Sulc, and their whole team of young dedicated people who did so much to make this first large event of Artistic Dancing the huge success it was.  We are proud and extremely happy to return to Liberec, in mid-November for the next even larger event. The Centrum Babylon has been booked from 8th – 17th November for this event.

The exact dates of the different dance divisions will be announced as soon as they are available.  The first WADF Annual General Meeting will be held during the event so that persons can participate in the various dance divisions, stay on or arrive early to attend the meetings, seminars and workshops that will be presented. We are looking forward to welcoming you all in Liberec for the first World Artistic Dance Championships.

Interim Presiding Committee of the World Artistic Dance Federation

The acting Presiding Committee of the WADF is three persons, who together have more than 100 years experience in dance administration, and competitive dance in particular.
The founder and acting President, Nils-Haakan Carlzon (Sweden) who this year celebrates 50 years as a professional Dance Teacher.  He has for many years been very active as a dance politician and is very well known throughout the dancing World.

He was a Vice-President of the World Dance Council Ltd (WDC) for 15 years and President of the International Dance Organisation (IDO) for 9 years. His attempts to bring about peace in the dance World has been appreciated by many people in the profession but unfortunately without success for his efforts so far.

The acting Executive Secretary is Stuart Saunders (Scotland), currently living in Germany. Also a very well known person in the dancing World. He has been around almost as long as Nils Haakan Carlzon with a very large network of important professionals around the world.  He was Company Secretary and Vice-President of the WDC for 7 years being well known for his dedicated work within the dance World.  He is parallel to his duties as WADF Executive Secretary working hard on launching the World WheelChair Dance Federation.

The third person of the interim Presiding Committee, acting as a Vice-President, is Irina Shmalko (Moscow).  Irina has been a competitor in Caribbean dance within the IDO for many years and has a great knowledge of Artistic Dancing in general.  She was appointed by Stanislav Popov, President Russian Dance Union (RDU) to be head of the Artistic Dance Department within the RDU.  She has become an experienced organiser of Artistic Dance competitions with her extensive knowledge being very much appreciated in the Presiding Committee.  This Committee will be enlarged at the WADF AGM in November 2013.

So what’s the next step…..

….. well, this information will be sent to a lot of people in the dancing World and we would like to offer you the following options:

1.    Open the mail and read it.  You consider that this is something you would like to become involved with.  Fill out the attached Membership Form and you will be registered as a member of the WADF.  There is no membership fee for the moment, not until you apply to become active.

2.    Having registered yourself, your Dance School, Club or Company and would like to participate in the WADF activities like attending the WADF AGM in November.  A membership fee is necessary, which can be paid via our website www.worldartdance.com.
Please go to the License Shop, click on Single Membership and pay the 50 Euro with your credit card.

3.    Having registered your Association, Federation, Society or Organisation and would like to participate in the WADF activities like attending the WADF AGM in November.  A membership fee is necessary, which can be paid via our website www.worldartdance.com.
Please go to the License Shop, click on Branch Membership and pay the 250 Euro with your credit card.

4.    Open the mail and read it.  You may like it and feel that at the moment this is nothing you would like to be involved with but wish to continue to be informed on what is happening.  Then please reply by sending this mail back to the WADF and you will be placed on our mailing list to receive future WADF Newsletters.

5.     Open the mail and read it.  You may like or dislike what you read and feel that this is nothing you would like to be involved with.  Then you just delete this letter and forget all about it.

It is intended for our website to be up and running very soon, we respectfully request your patience in paying your required membership fee until this section becomes available.

All membership fees paid in 2013 will also be valid for 2014!