PERFORMING ARTS GROUP - SHAWN & GLADYS DANCE WORLD
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INTRODUCTION
Trained in England since 1984, Shawn & Gladys are reputed to be the best professional ballroom dancers in Singapore today. Popularly known as Singapore's Dancing Sweethearts, Shawn & Gladys started their teaching career when they set up their own studio, the Shawn & Gladys DanceWorld, back in 1986.
For twelve consecutive years from 1982 to 1993, they danced their way to no less than twenty prestigious championship titles throughout the world. They competed in Austria, France, Germany, England, USA, Hawaii, Australia, Holland, Yugoslavia, Belgium and throughout Asia, winning numerous prestigious championship titles including the 1985 Doris Lavelle Challenge Trophy (England) and the 1990 Asian-Pacific Ballroom Dancing Championships (Korea)
After winning the South-East Asia Professional Latin Championships (Thailand) in 1987, this superb husband and wife team went on to make regional dance history by becoming the first professional dance couple in South-East Asia to win both the Latin & Modern titles in the same championships in 1989. To top it off, they repeated the feat twice in the same year at the 1989 Malaysian International Ballroom Dancing Championships in June, and again at the 1989 Malaysian Professional Ballroom Dancing Championships in August. This marked the beginning of their reign as the South-East Asia Professional Latin & Ballroom Champions. 1992 and 1993 saw the couple maintaining their winning streak by clinching the prestigious 2nd Asian Ballroom Dancing Championships title in Hong Kong, and the Hong Kong Open Ballroom Dancing Championships respectively.
Over the years, Shawn & Gladys together with their team of dancers have performed frequently on TCS programmes and other creative promotions. These include National Day Celebrations, the launch of the Singapore Airlines (SIA) MegaTop, Merlion Week, Count Down Singapore, and Heartstrings, the Community Chest fund raising event. In 1992, Shawn & Gladys together with the Social Development Unit (SDU), organised the first-ever mass Ballroom/Latin-American dance item for the National Day Parade Celebrations.
Shawn & Gladys have earned a stately reputation for coaching excellence. This is evident in the long string of regional championship titles won by their students. Besides coaching competitors and dancers, they have also attained international recognition as adjudicators. They have been numerous times to judge at international events and are among the rare few Asian adjudicators to judge at the World Championships, in particular the prestigious World Youth Modern Championships (Germany), IDSF World Standard Championships (Japan), IDSF World Senior Latin Championships (New Zealand), IDSF World Latin Championships (Switzerland), United States DanceSport Championships (USA), and the German Open (Germany).
Driven by a strong passion for dancesport, Shawn & Gladys have been active in the promotion of dancesport in the Asia-Pacific region. Shawn is currently the Advisory Director to the Asian DanceSport Federation, and Presidium Member of the International DanceSport Federation.
