30 years of IDO World Tap dance Championships
Introduction
Many people have asked me why I wrote this book. It started with having more time available during the Corona lockdowns. I started compiling the statistics for each year of the IDO World Tap Dance championships. At first, this was just a project I explored but I became quite determined to get all the facts together. I found that I had two reasons to compile the history and create this book. One reason is that I am very proud of having initiated, founded and ran this marvellous IDO World Tap dance Championship since 1991 for 28 1 years until 2019. As far as I’m aware, there is no other comparable Tap Dance Championship. And even if there is a championship, it would not have been running for such a long time with such a large amount of participants. I am also proud of the fair structure and the clear dance rules. These were built up by Bill Fowler,developed by the IDO over the years, and applied by professional IDO tap dance judges who are well trained to give each performance the same chance to win. The second reason for compiling this history is that I would like to acknowledge the more than 20.000 wonderful tap dancers from all over the world who have been competing. Tracing the 28 years, I could see the absolutely stunning levels of talent, skills and entertainment which has been shown on the stages. All competitors in the finals have been performing on highest international levels. Many of them have decided to become successful professional dancers, choreographers or to open their own studio to give their experience to younger dancers. This is so amazing and extraordinary. Please read about the personal stories in the “Who is w ho” and the special “messages” messages in the next section. My initial plan was to dig out the first years. I was setting out to list the names of the winners and outstanding dancers. But once I started, I couldn’t let go and continued from the first to the latest performances. I focussed on the adult division of the finals, leaving out children, junior and senior/adults 2 for now. Revisiting those amazing performances, I wanted to acknowledge them with this compilation.
Please note that Tap Dance Productions were included in the World Championships only in 2007 onwards. I am listing only the top three productions in each year. The IDO website has published additional results.
Methodology
How did I approach this project? I actually watched all the videos of the adult finals since 1991. Thankfully Detlev Kruse has been filming all of our championships. He was able and very nice to provide all videos in a digital format. This enabled me to take screenshots of performances and add images to this compilation. There is an image of every performance of the finals, carefully selected to showcase interesting and impressive moves, stops and poses. I also compiled all the names and details. In the first years, I received them via fax. Since 2007, there is a digital enrolment platform which made it easy to copy the names and details. Some of the records are confusing as they are collectively enrolled by the national representatives and the spelling of repeating participants vary over the years. One and the same person can have multiple spellings depending on who enrolled them. It also varies how groups name their performance. Some use the dancing school and country, some the title of their music.
1 In 1993 the IDO World Tap dance Championships have been organized by my friend and colleague late Gery Bucher in Switzerland
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