Top Latin and Ballroom Winners and More at the Ohio Star Ball 2015

Fordney Foundation Junior and Youth Dance Series

Competing dancers at the Ohio Star Ball, Photo by Alex Havasi

Competing dancers at the Ohio Star Ball, Photo by Alex Havasi

Welcome back all you fans of the Ohio Star Ball.  Here we recap more of the highlights of this fantastic dancesport event.  We celebrate our second year of this dance series. It begins and culminates at the Ohio Star Ball each November. The level of dance has increased as well as the number of competitors in this dance series. This means it is more of a challenge to get to the top.  One of the great things about the Ohio Star Ball is that the Fordney Foundation’s sponsored Junior and Youth participants get to see and be among dancers striving for professional status, achieving their goals and becoming top 10 winners.  Again, I would like to give a shout out to Marilyn Fordney, our founder, for doing an excellent job on reporting and being a presenter at the Ohio Star Ball.  Special thanks to our co-founder, Alex Havasi, for these awesome photos!

Congratulations to the 10 top Ballroom and 10 top Latin dance competition couples this year. Some of these winners also qualified to participate in the East versus West team match to represent their area and to win more prize money. The following winners received cash prize money to help them to obtain more private coaching, travel to more competitions, and to cover lodging expenses. As a special treat, we have a video of Donna Edelstein doing an interview with Yusif Amsatr and Naomi Spektor, winners of the Fordney Foundation Youth Ballroom and Latin Scholarships.  Congratulations to both of you for this phenomenal win!

Winners of Ballroom

1. Yusif Amsatr Naomi Spektor

2. Daniel Novikov Natalina Chen

3. Tyler Li Anjelica Lowe

4. Daniel Shtern Avital Avzerov

5. Justin Lin Alexandra Dubinsky

6. Samuel Hacke Katarina Kermanova

7. Gabriel White Lyubov Morgan

8. Murat Medzhidov Valerie Dubinsky

9. Daniel Evstigneev Angelica Groysman

10. Denis Smotrov Karina Miroshnik

Winners of Latin

1. Yusif Amsatr Naomi Spektor

2. Daniel Novikov Natalina Chen

3. Jackson Bayhi Ashley Mattingly

4. Tyler Li Anjelica Lowe

5. Daniel Shtern Avital Avzerov

6. Dave Firestein Nicole Shtern

7. Joshue Ginzberg Elizabeth Frumkin

8. Mitchel Itkin Natasha Shevchenko

9. Kristers Smits Sophie Shvartsman

10. Daniel Evstigneev Angelica Groysman

Shannon and Shane Jensen with Marilyn Fordney, OSB, Photo by Alex Havasi

We are also proud to announce that two of the dance scholarship recipients from Brigham Young University that our foundation has supported for the past 8 years competed professionally and won first place awards–Shannon Jensen with her husband, Shane and Travis Tuft with his wife Jaimee.  Congratulations to both of these deserving couples!

This year Dance Network live streamed many of the events including our team match. Our founder, Marilyn Fordney, was interviewed for Dance Network by Marabeth Hough, Derek and Julienne Hough’s eldest sister. This interview will be archived for subscribers of Dance Network and used by them for promotional purposes.

Marilyn Fordney with Travis Tuft and Jamiee at OSB, Photo by Alex Havasi

We hope you enjoyed this year’s Ohio Star Ball packed full events.  As we go into our third year, we hope we have inspired you to follow the direction of the past Brigham Young scholarship recipients as well as the Youth winners at this years Ohio Start Ball.  This could be you one day!  And, the Fordney Foundation is here to help.  I encourage you to reach out to us for answers to questions and to follow my blogs, I continually address everything a dancer needs to know for success and more.

Dream big and often,

Ohio Star Ball Maribeth Hough of Dance Network with Marilyn Fordney and Alex Havasi

Thought Of The Week:

Three things cannot be long hidden:  the sun, the moon and the truth  –  Buddha