America’s Ballroom Challenge is a Public Broadcasting System production that is in its third season. This episode, “International Latin,” is the fourth in a five-week series covering the four main categories of ballroom dance: American Rhythm, American Smooth,  International Standard, and International Latin. The winner of tonight’s competition will be the International Latin Champion and will compete with the winners of the three previous shows for the title of “America’s Best Ballroom Couple.”

Tonight’s group dance featured six couples dancing the cha-cha, samba, rumba, paso doble, and jive. This was stated to be the most competitive of the four categories of dance.

The Finalists

Pavlo Barsuk and Anna Trebunskaya from California were a very smooth couple on the floor. Unfortunately, the judges placed them last in both the group and in the individual show dance.

Ilya Ifraimov and Nadia Goulina from New Jersey had the most creative costume and dance ever seen in ballroom. Nadia designed their outfits. They dressed as transformers and did a robotic paso doble. It was superb and won them first place in show.

Andre and Natalie Paramonov have danced together for 10 years and it shows. Their show dance was the sexiest, smoothest, most controlled dance I’ve seen.

Vaidotas Skimelis and Jurga Pupelyte from California danced a retro-styled cha-cha for their show dance. It won them second place in the show dances.

Delyan Terziev and Boriana Deltcheva from New York were sensational. Her costume was covered in money for a jazzy jive in the show dance.

Andrei Gavriline and Elena Kryuchkova from New Jersey won the Latin Championship last year but did not win the Grand Finale title of “America’s Best Ballroom couple.” They were wonderful dancers without much flare. They placed fourth in the show dance but first in the group dance and won the title of “International Latin Champion.”

Exhibition dancers Max Kozhevnikov and Yulia Zagoruychenko gave a beautiful farewell performance in Native American costumes that was terrific. They will no longer be performing together.

I was disappointed in tonight’s episode. The erotic dancing associated with the Latin division and the sexy, virtually non-existent costumes were just not there tonight. During the group dances, there was too much action to focus on one couple and this is where the true Latin dances were taking place.

During the show dances, the couples were trying to show their creativity so the usual dances were not seen. While the transformer costumes were interesting and they performed a clever dance, I had been looking forward to a better show of the actual Latin dances.

Next week, the four couples who have become Champions in their categories will compete for the title of “America’s Best Ballroom Couple.”