The European Blues Championships is back for its 12th year.
Each year, new rising Blues stars dip a toe in the water and join the 150 or so competitors. If you want to give it a go and don’t have a dance partner, try the Blues DWAS competition on Sunday afternoon. Anyone can join in, so it’s time to get your competition shoes out and start Grooving the Blues in order to take a trophy home with you.

To give you some last minute tips, tricks and moves, there will be a range of Blues classes with great teachers encompassing vintage Blues style to modern 21st Century Blues style to suit the evolution of Blues music through the years to present day. The competition will reflect the growing variety of Blues music played.

Classes will include maximum capacity Blues Master Classes which will be pre-bookable at the event.

European Blues Open
This competition is for fixed couples and will start on Saturday night for the heats & semi-finals commencing at midnight.

The Finals will take place on the Sunday evening at 9pm.

Blues Dance with a Stranger
To give all those Blues lovers a chance to compete even if you don’t have a regular partner we will be holding a DAY TIME Blues Dance with a Stranger Competition commencing at 1.30pm on Sunday. Winners of this category will gain an automatic place in the Semi Finals of the Open Blues Championships that night (assuming either person is not already placed).

This category is strictly traditional partnering, with males entering as leads, and females entering as follows.

Masters Invitational Blues Jack & Jill
Introduced in 2013, this category recognises the talents of past winners and placers from the Championships that have been running at Breeze since it began. Competitors enter by invitation only based on achieving 1st, 2nd or 3rd place in the Open and Winners of the DWAS. Individual dancers switch partners throughout the competition on Saturday night in the main room, and dance in spotlight to find the ultimate Masters Champions.

A HUGE congratulations to our 2018 winners were Ekow Oduro & Heidi Ayling.

Open & Dance with a Stranger
There is NO CHARGE for these competitions and entry will only be accepted at Breeze at the Competition Entry Desks in the Cyclone Dance Zone from 10pm – midnight on Friday evening and in the Queen Vic Pub from midday – 5pm on Saturday evening. Last entrants for both competitions can be accepted no later than 4pm on Saturday. We will require both names from the couple for the Open competition and simply your name if you are entering the Dance with a Stranger

European Open Blues
Couples will dance to music chosen by the organisers which will be a Blues genre track from any era. The number of heats will be determined according to the number of entrants at the weekend.
During the Heats couples will dance to 2 pieces of music (one 80 – 95 bpm and one 100 – 115 bpm).
Each piece of music in the Heats will last a maximum of 2 minutes and will be faded out. There will be 2 tracks of approximately 3½ minute length in the Semi Final so there may be cause to fade the track out. (one 80 – 95 bpm and one 100 – 115 bpm). There will be 2 tracks of approximately 4 minute length in the Final and these will be played out til the end (one 75 – 95 bpm and one 95 – 115 bpm). Blues dance is lead by the music and this is a freestyle competition, so couples will be marked down if there is evidence of an entirely choreographed routine. This is a Blues Dance competition, so only 1 Aerial* move will be permitted per couple per piece of music and technical difficulty will not be judged by aerials
* Aerials are judged, as when both of the ladies feet are above the guy’s waist. An aerial lift may last for a maximum of 7 beats. Any number of Baby Aerials or ‘flying moves’ can be included. The essence of Blues dancing is close, connected & musical and couples will be expected to demonstrate this throughout the competition.
It is acceptable for people to interpret the music to adopt fusion styles of Blues, but this is not a West Coast Swing, Zouk or Modern Jive competition. Teachers and professional dancers may enter this category

Blues Dance with a Stranger
NEW RULE for 2018 – where a couple are matched together who are both ‘Masters J&J’ competitors, a further rotation will continue to ensure the Masters are separate.
Only Guys will be given a dance number. Partnerships will be established on the dance-floor immediately before the heats commence. The number of heats will be determined by the number of entrants during the course of the weekend.
During the Heats couples will dance to 1 piece of music (between 90-110 bpm). This track will be approximately 3½ minutes long so there may be cause to fade tracks out.
During the Semi Finals and Finals couples will dance to 2 tracks (one 75 – 95 bpm and one 95 – 115 bpm). These tracks will be approx 2 mins in length with fade out.
Blues dance is led by the music and this is a freestyle competition, so couples will be marked down if there is evidence of an entirely choreographed routine.
No aerials are permitted in this section.
The essence of Blues dancing is close and connected and couples will be expected to demonstrate this throughout the competition.
It is acceptable for people to interpret the music to adopt fusion styles of Blues, but this is not a West Coast Swing, Zouk or Modern Jive competition.
Teachers & professional dancers may enter this category.

An experienced panel of judges made up of Blues specialists and ex-champions will be marking throughout the competitions:

Ekow Oduro, Danielle Moore, Dale St Rose, Lily Barker, Rachel Pears, Marc Forster and acting as adjudicator and scoring administrator – David Barker.

Whilst they will be attributing points for different aspects of the dance this will simply be used as a decider to ensure the overall best dancers go through and are placed. Ultimately they will be looking at the bigger picture and seeing the overall performance of couples so they will first be asked to nominate a specific number of couples they identify from each heat who should go through to the next. In the event of differing opinions the points system will come into play across all judges to make the final decision.

Points will be awarded for the following:

Musical Interpretation, Connection & Synchronicity, Variety & Complexity, Presentation & Performance (Fancy Dress Costumes not permitted and spandex and sequins not essential!)

In addition it should be remembered that as this is a partner dance as a couple you will also be judged on how well your dancing compliments your partner’s and how balanced the partnership is both in style and technical ability.

Ceroc reserves the right to change aspects of the programme & competition if necessary without consultation.