If ever there were a year that kept us on our toes, it was 2020. The King’s Ball this year was more challenging than ever in a new, unusual way: dancing in the midst of a pandemic.
Our hosts, Rita Algarra and Igor & Polina Piliipenchak, took every possible precaution to keep us all safe and healthy. This included encouraging participants to have Covid testing prior to the event, performing extra sanitization measures, keeping dance couples farther apart on the floor and the first-ever VIRTUAL competition in addition to the live, ON-SITE dancing.

Virtual dancers only competed with each other, and on-site dancers competed with others there. This allowed many more to participate but obviously it was far from the typical way we would compete.

I tested negative for Covid before the event yet I still wanted to assure my student that dancing with me would only be a threat to other dancers, not her. So, I wore a mask in all competition performances. This proved to make breathing a bit difficult at times as we used double-ply masks for maximum protection. BUT, I can assure you I was breathing easy when the results were announced.

My extraordinary student competitor, Christina Amoroo Beringer, danced more than 64 times to earn the following:

• 1st place: WDSS Silver Ballroom (Waltz, Tango, Foxtrot & Quickstep)
• 1st place: Closed Silver Smooth Scholarship (Waltz, Tango, Foxtrot)
• 1st place: Closed Silver Smooth Challenge (Waltz, Tango, Foxtrot, Viennese Waltz)
• 1st place: WDSS Silver Smooth (W,T,F, VW)
• 1st place: Silver Latin (Cha Cha, Salsa, Rumba, Jive)
• 1st place: Closed Silver Latin Scholarship (CC, S, R, J)
• 2nd place: Closed Silver Latin Challenge (CC, S, R,J)
• 2nd place: Closed Silver Ballroom Scholarship (W,T,F,Q)
• 2nd place: Closed Silver Ballroom Challenge (W,T,F,Q)

Whew! Lots of dancing and lots of fun!