The fifth World Open Teenage Ballroom Dance Championship, which coincided with the 17th Ballroom Dance World Cup China Open, debuted in Futian Sports Park on Monday night. The championship attracted competitive teenage ballroom dancers from around 10 countries and finishes today. This year’s championship offered dancing competitions for both professional and amateur dancers of different age groups. It also included women’s singles divisions for female dancers of various age groups. During the opening ceremony of the championship on Monday evening, students from Jingpeng Primary School gave a dance performance to kick off the event. Lu Gang, assistant general secretary of the China Ballroom Dance Federation (CBDF), conferred the school with a title to award its accomplishments in ballroom dancing education during the ceremony. One highlight of the championship was the elite division contests, which featured competitive ballroom dancers from all over the world, including some who have won awards at the Blackpool Dance Festival and other international ballroom dancing championships. This year, China will send four pairs of dancers as representatives to compete in the championship, all of whom were selected from the first- and second-place winners of the age-12 elite divisions at last year’s CBDF China Cup Tour ranking competition. The selected couples will compete against dancers from the United Kingdom, Russia, Moldova, Ukraine, and Italy. The top 12 dancers in the elite division of the championship will qualify to compete in the Chinese Ball-Vienna and the CBDF Dance Festival-Vienna in January 2020. (Liu Wenjin) | 