Guinness confirms record for "largest dance class"

CEBU, Philippines - It’s official!

Cebu City now holds the world record for the biggest dance class.

Twenty four days after the attempt at the Cebu City Sports Center, the officials at the Guinness World Records confirmed the feat.

Cebu City broke the record of Életfa-H?sök tornája with Norbert Schobert leading 2,289 participants at the Puskas Stadium in Budapest, Hungary done last May 23.

Cebu City had a total of 7,770 participants for the record setting feat initiated by DanceSport Team Cebu International Incorporated.

The confirmation came through an email from the Guiness addressed to DTCC’s publicist April Tudtud-Ramos before midnight yesterday while the certificate is expected to arrive within the week.

“We are pleased to confirm that you have set the new Guinness World Record for ‘largest dance class’ and a certificate to commemorate has been sent by post” as stated by the email sent by Kaoru Ishikawa of the Guinness World Records.

 “This is very timely. This is our birthday gift to Mayor Tom. I told the mayor as soon as we got the email. We are all very happy for this. It’s not an ordinary feat,” said Edward Hayco, Cebu’s godfather of dancesport.

 DTCC submitted its evidence or proof of the attempt to the GWR office in London within two weeks after their actual attempt.

Normally, for attempts without the presence of a GWR adjudicator will take around two months to verify the documents submitted, but since DTCC decided to fast track the result of their attempt, they got the result in less than a week since GWR office’s receipt of the documents.

“We decided to fast track it as we do not want our efforts to go to waste. So we decided to fast track the result,” Ricca Alix, a director of DTCC told The Freeman.

 In 2005, Cebu City attempted to set the world mark for the longest barbeque grill. However, even before the evidence of the said attempt could be verified, Dagupan beat Cebu during its Bangus festival.

 In 2007, Cebu City was also involved in largest synchronized aerobic exercise supervised by the Department of Health that broke Mexico’s GWR record. But the credit was also shared with Manila and Davao.

The dance class was conducted by DTCC’s head coach Crisaldo “Loloi” Rendon. The participants performed three dance disciplines — chachacha, jive and mambo plus a choreographed dance moves to the tune of the Sugbu or Cebu song, which describes about the characteristic of the Cebuanos and the province of Cebu as a whole.

Originally, the target was just to gather a maximum of four thousand participants, but after its last organizational meeting with the Department of Education-Cebu City led by Lorna Rances, officials of the different schools decided to field in more students instead of just sending a token entry to make sure that they can reach the needed figure.

The bigger number would also make the record more difficult to beat.

“I never had doubts that we broke the record and it was awesome with the way Edward Hayco instituted measures to make sure documentations were more than enough to comply with Guinness guidelines. As I said, this is one of the best examples of what can be achieved when both government and the private sector get their hands and hearts together,” said Councilor Sylvan “Jack” Jakosalem.

 DTCC is now thinking of filing a multiple record like the largest dance class on chachacha, jive and rhumba, biggest dance class on dancesport’s bronze figure and even the largest dance class by couples among others.

 This however, will have to wait as DTCC is now busy with its preparation for the 4th Dancesport sa Subgu and the 3rd Cebu IDSF Open Dancesport Championships 2009 set this September.

Meanwhile, the city government is recognizing the people behind the record.

“Of course we will give an award or a citation to Cebu City Dancesports Team,” Cebu City Mayor Tomas Osmeña said yesterday.

Osmeña had been supportive of the activities of the team that has resulted to multiple national and international titles.

Vice Mayor Michael Rama for his part said a Resolution will surely be approved in today’s session for the said achievement. — with Ferliza Contratista/NLQ (THE FREEMAN)