Some of the best ballroom dancers in the world will be pirouetting around the Silverdome this weekend.
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The DanceSport Championships run August 8 - 10, with over 500 dancers strutting their stuff for the adjudicators. Competitors hail from everywhere from Launceston, to China, the UK and Iceland, and are aged from 4 to 84.
The event culminates in a spectacular performance of the top six entrants in each section. The Saturday night session showcases the glitz and glamour of professional-quality ballroom dance for the audience, from 7.30pm to 11pm.
"It's the biggest event of its kind in the Southern Hemisphere," director Andrew Palmer said.
"[The Saturday night session] is a real show. It's not just a competition, it's a real show.
"The sound, the lighting: everything. It really is like nothing else you see in Tasmania."
IN OTHER NEWS:
Former world champion Barbara McColl - "ballroom royalty" in the words of Mr Palmer - is at this year's event.
Ms McColl is the organiser of the World Dance Council's World Championship in Paris, and has seven championships to her name as a dancer.
She said the key to captivating ballroom is to dance with a freedom of movement that seems effortless to the audience - something that seems to come naturally to citizens of the the event's host country.
"In the history of our dance, there's always been a moment in time when an Aussie has turned up at the British championships, and beaten everybody," she said.
"Nobody knows them, and they come on the floor, and there's this freedom - and I believe it's being an Australian that gives them this freedom. They can just walk into an event and beat established couples that are already there."
Tickets to the DanceSport Championships are available through tasopen.org/buy-tickets