Oct 23, 20232 min read

The Dance Review

Blackpool Sequence Dance Festival 2023

Robert Aldred reports on the Second day of the Blackpool Sequence Festival Sunday 22nd October.

🎥Relive all the action from Saturday 21st and Sunday 22nd October on dancetvltd.com

As you walk down the stairs of the iconic Empress Ballroom, where so many great dancers have been inspired to achieve their ultimate dream, you are transported into another world. A tingle of excitement greets you like no where else, which grows as the band strikes up the ‘G’ chord in anticipation of what is to come.

This is the British Sequence Championship, the pinnacle of the Sequence dance calendar. Sequence dancing was the inspiration of the very first Blackpool Dance Festival, the forerunner of the many festivals which today, take place throughout the year covering all genres of dance and regarded by many as the world’s foremost championships.

It is fabulous to see that, over a hundred years later, dancers of all ages and abilities still make the annual pilgrimage to Blackpool for social dancing and to see the country’s best exponents of Sequence dancing in action. Today we were treated to the Formation Championship, the Amateur Latin Sequence Championship, the Under 21 years Classical Sequence Championship, the Senior Classical Championship and the Amateur Modern Sequence Championship. The appreciative audience helped lift the dancers to new levels of performance along with the fabulous music of the Empress Orchestra. Opportunities to dance to a live band are now a rare and precious commodity and the Blackpool Festival must be praised for continuing this tradition. There were some new Champions crowned and some who successfully defended their titles but the sight of so many Sequence dancers enjoying their dancing should sustain us all.

Of course the nature of competition produces elation and disappointment in equal measure but just being part of this festival is a wonderful memory to treasure forever and one that keeps us eager to return each year. Long may it continue.