A group of local dancers have been selected for Team GB to compete at the World Tap Dance Championships at Riesa in Germany between September 25 and 29.
One of the Team members is Mackenzie Cockburn, a 15-year-old dancer from Totnes.
He is currently the All England Champion and also became the World Champion in Croatia last year.
He has been selected again for Team GB, and will be going to defend his title, although it will not be easy as he has moved up an age group.
Farah, from Paignton is the current European Champion, having won her age group in Prague earlier this year.
Mia, from Newton Abbot won a silver medal in Croatia last year.
There are also three more local dancers who are new to the Team this year – Erin, Esme and Eleisha.
All train with Tap Attack in Swindon who are in charge of the GB Team, so they have to do a lot of travelling.
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The IDO-World Tap dance competition is part of the Riesa Dance Sport Festival
It is the largest „official” dance sport world championship in the world.
Because of so many nations and dancers there is a limited number of entries in all disciplines and categories so only three EPN’s (Entries Per Nation) are allowed to guarantee a smooth and successful running of the event
The dancers do not receive any funding so have to do all the fundraising themselves for training, travel, insurances, licences, music, costumes, coaches, choreography etc.
Among other things, they have started busking in order to help them achieve their goal of being able to compete against the best in the world.
Their next busking date is on Friday September 1, starting at around 10am near Austins in Newton Abbot.
Their GoFundMe page is gofund.me/e0b7ec3b