Antony Carrington

Biography

Antony has been involved in social and competitive dancing for more than 30 years.

He started out doing general classes at about 12 years old, and quickly progressed to medal tests and competitive dancing, until finally deciding that his hobby would be an excellent and rewarding full-time career - teaching, demonstrating, coaching & adjudicating.

Antony is a nationally registered & accredited coach, and championship adjudicator with experience at local, regional, state, national & international dance events.

Over the years he has taught at various dance schools in Sydney, Brisbane & the Gold Coast, and for the last 8 years has run two of his own - 'The Dance Vortex' & 'The Rhythm Method'.

Whilst the current trend is for the style known as 'street latin', a generic term for dances such as Salsa & Merengue, he originally qualified as a Ballroom and International (competitive style) Latin teacher; qualifications which he keeps up to date to this day, with the Australian Dancing Board & Dancesport Australia, the two official bodies governing dance in Australia.

Teaching and coaching experience:

• social dancers
• medallists
• competition couples
• primary & high schools (both public/state & private)
• dance schools
• University of Western Sydney (guest lecturer for 3 years) -  dance faculty (Bachelor of Arts/Dance)
• guest lecturer (specializing in street latin) for professional dance organisations (A.D.S. & Q.A.D.S.).
• Antony has done many shows and demonstrations, including Lady Packer and Prime Minister Bob Hawke (in Sydney); danced in a couple of TV advertisements; and most recently, appeared in the finale of one of the evictions of Big Brother, series 1.
• for the last 5 years he has also trained a competitive latin dance troupe. That troupe had great success at many dance eisteddfods held in Brisbane and the Gold Coast; and did many shows for local restaurants here on the Gold Coast.

Whilst competing was never really Antony"s focus, the pinnacle of his Professional competitive career was that he nevertheless managed to make it as far as the semi-finals of the Professional Ballroom section at the Australian Dance Championships in Melbourne the year he retired from competitive dancing in 1993.

Also over the years, he has had great success dancing with some of his students in the Pro-Am sections of the South Pacific Championships held in Sydney each year, up until he moved to the Gold Coast in 1994.

In 2001 & 2002, Antony was invited to partner one of his star pupils in the prestigious World Superstars Dance Festival held annually in Tokyo, where they won the Pro/Am Latin Dance section against stiff local competition.