Alphabetical Index
Yelena Nikon is a former Amateur and Professional Ballroom Dancer specializing in International Style Standard and Latin. Yelena is a co-owner of the "Dance Mania DanceSport School" in Toronto, Canada and an organizer of the "Toronto Grand Cup". Yelena is also a Canada DanceSport National Adjudicator as well as an adjudicator for the World DanceSport Federation.
The Youth Division of DanceSport is a competitive division of Ballroom Dancing. Youth category competing in "International Style Latin", "Standard" and 10 Dance. Youth: Reach 16th- 18th birthday in the calendar year. Youth II, also known as a Under 21 category.
Yuehwern Yih is a Professional Ballroom Dancer, coach, choreographer, and adjudicator with over 20 years of dance experience. Yuehwern founded the Purdue Latin & Ballroom Dance Team at Purdue University in Indiana in 1996, now of which she is the head coach. She is also the co-organizer of the Purdue Ballroom Classic Competition which has attracted more than 400 collegiate competitors from over 20 universities in the Midwest area in the last two decades.
Yuriy Simakov, originally from Ukraine, is a former Professional Ballroom Dancer specializing in American Smooth. With over 30 years of dance experience, Yuriy is a former Fred Astaire World American Smooth Finalist as well as a Fred Astaire World Rising Star American Smooth Champion. Owner of the Fred Astaire Dance Studio of Durham, North Carolina, Yuriy is also on the National Dance Board for Fred Astaire Dance Studios, Inc.
Zdenek Fencak is a former Professional Ballroom dancer specializing in both the Standard and Latin dance styles. Zdenek has represented two countries during his competitive career - Austria and the Czech Republic. Currently, with wife and partner Jana Fencak, he is the owner of the Starstep Dance Studio located in Třebíč, Czech Republic, where he trains National Champions of various age groups. Aside from being a National Adjudicator of the Czech Dance Sport Federation, he is also an "A" and "PD" Licensed WDSF Adjudicator.
Zoran Plohl is a former WDSF World & European Latin Champion in both the Professional and Amateur divisions. One of the owners of the "Diamant Dance Club" located in Ljubljana, Slovenia, Zoran also travels around the world to instruct DanceSport athletes of all ages.
Zouk is a musical style originating from the Caribbean islands of Guadeloupe and Martinique and popularized by the French Antillean band Kassav' in the 1980s. Very rapid in tempo, the style lost ground in the 1980s due to the strong presence of Compas / kompa and kadans, the main music of the French Antilles. Today, zouk is the French Antilles compas (Kompa), also called zouk-love.
Brazilian zouk dance is a partner dance originating from Brazil. Also known as zouk-lambada, the dance is a descendant of lambada, the music & dance style that swept over the world like a storm in the late 1980's. Brazilian zouk is characterized by the dancers’ undulating bodies and the girls' flowing hair. Depending on the style of Brazilian zouk, you can see a close connection embrace and long graceful steps, strong hip movements, body isolations and upper-body torsions, wild spins and whip-like head movements. While the dance is often called sensual, it is not sexual or erotic. It is danced by people of all ages in night clubs, dance schools and events around the world!
