2025 Latin Show Dance World Champions!

Six couples stood in the final lineup, representing their countries’ best and coming from around the world to the United States to compete for the title of World Champion.  They battled through quarterfinals, semifinals, and into the final.   Their performances were beautiful. Among these six was the United States’ own Kairat Algadaev and Julia Seleznyov. In 2023, they won the Bronze Medal. In 2024, they earned the Silver Medal.  Now, in front of their home crowd, on Saturday night at the USA Dance Excelsior Cup in Newark, New Jersey, on September 13, was this their year?

The Partnership of Kairat Algadaev and Julia Seleznyov

Julia Seleznyov, a beautifully feminine woman with large eyes and long curly hair, was born and raised in New York.  Her mother, a piano player with a passion for dancing, enrolled Julia in ballroom at the age of six.  She became a 10-dancer (International Ballroom and Latin), absolutely loved it, and has been dancing ever since.

Kairat Algadaev, a strikingly sculpted and powerful man, has a different story.  He was born in Kyrgyzstan, a former Soviet third-world country, where ballroom was popular.  His mother, a basketball player, decided her awkward and chubby little boy needed work.  Her solution was ballroom lessons.  Young Kairat became a 10-dancer, and when he moved to the United States in 2017, he began training under World Champion Vladimir Karpov. 

The two dancers met in 2017 at a Dance Camp.  Julia was also training under Karpov, and the two competed against each other for a few years.  In 2021, Karpov suggested that they combine forces, and together, with a focus on Latin, they became the two-time United States National Vice-Champions for Latin Dance.  But that was not enough.

Show Dance was not something the couple just fell into.  It was something Julia always loved, and the couple performed numerous shows at their studio.  However, when Julia brought it up, she was met by a doubting Kairat and received a flat “NO!” from Karpov.  Still, she persisted and ultimately got her way by the end of 2021.  Two years later, they won the Bronze at their first World Show Dance Championships in Moldova, and the following year, won a very closely contested second place at the 2024 World Championships in Bulgaria. 

The goal in 2025 was Gold!

Practicing in Chains

The concept of this year’s Show Dance was a combined effort.  “Ninety percent of it was Karpov,” noted Kairat. “He’s a creative genius!”  Julia created a mix of music — the haunting classic O Fortuna and a remixed version of the modern Gangsta’s Paradise. 

The story about two prisoners was very complex and told in reverse, beginning with one standing and the other about to die.  They fought over who would escape and live.  But then, everything changed; they fell in love.  Still, only one could escape, and they made a choice.  Only one was left, holding on to the memory of what they shared…and what was lost. 

Key to their choreography were the chains that bound their wrists.  These added to the difficulty of the routine and made it quite dangerous.  “I’ve never had more bruises on my body,” remarked Julia.  “The chains were full metal, because the plastic ones, which we tried, would break every single time.” 

“Practicing for this piece was almost unbearable,” admitted Kairat.  We would get hit randomly, out of nowhere, into the forehead, into this, into that…There were a lot of bruises and cuts… We would get angry about it!  But then, at the end of the day, we would say, ‘It’s okay.  We are going toward something great, and we need to push through it.’”

Competition Show Dance rules are very strict.  For example, 40% of the routine can be freestyle or lifts, but 60% must be pure dancing, including three dances (each 20 seconds) within the set style.  There are also many other requirements that must be considered; otherwise, the dancers risk disqualification. 

“Training for shows is very mentally draining,” noted Julia.  “You listen to the same song over and over again, and there is no room for interpretation while you are rehearsing.  When you are starting choreography, there are things you can change, but once you are trying to lock it in, it’s doing the same exact things a million times until you don’t even think.” 

“It was an insane amount of trial and error,” admitted Kairat, “And still, in the ‘semi’, we got caught bad with the chains.  It happened out of nowhere…We came out of the second round and thought, ‘That’s it!  We are not even making the final.”

Although the semi was not their hoped-for performance, they pushed through the routine and made it to the final — one more round to go.

The Final Performance.

Late on Saturday night, red lights set the stage, and the audience screamed as the couple took to the floor. Julia looked fiercely beautiful, while Kairat stood strong and intense.  The black and ragged costumes were accentuated by the ever-dangerous and cold metal chains around their wrists.

The driving music began, and the crowd moved to the edge of their seats.  Four minutes of raw emotion, tension, brilliant choreography, and performance perfection ensued.  In the end, Julia lay on the floor, motionless.  The audience took a moment to breathe in and then rose to their feet, erupting in applause.  It was done.

“Every time you dance a show in a competition, it eats you alive a little bit,” said Julia.  “… you are mentally drained.  Everything wipes from your head.  You don’t understand what happened.  You don’t remember what happened.  It just happened.

“We danced it three times, and after the final, we broke down in tears in the hallway,” added Kairat.  “We were done.  We finished it!  Thank God!”  And they agreed, “Let’s get rid of the chains.”

Then came the awards.  Sixth place went to Albania, fifth to Italy, and Ukraine took fourth.  The podium was waiting.  In third place came Nguyen Doan Minh Truong and Dang Thu Huong from Vietnam, and two couples remained.  The German couple, Dumitrescu Razvan and Jacky Joos, stood silently next to Kairat and Julia…waiting. 

The commanding voice of Emcee Egor Shall broke the silence, “In second place…(pause)…from Germany…”  The room erupted into applause, and Julia and Kairat collapsed before them.  It happened!  The United States had its first World Champions on home soil!

The First WDSF World Champions in Front of a Home Crowd?

Now, two weeks after their performance, these two young people smile and laugh when asked how it feels to be World Champions.

“It was a dream of mine… This meant the world!”  said Julia.  “I think I am one of the first born and raised (WDSF/IDSF) World Champions.  That I am American, New York born and raised, and was able to do this, means so much to me!” 

“It’s very humbling,” added Kairat thoughtfully.  “I come from a very simple life.  I come from a third-world country where there is basically no hope.  I escaped it to find a better future, to pursue my passion – the thing I have been doing my whole life.  And then, after the stress and sacrifices, to see the flag and hear the anthem, winning it, and calling myself a World Champion…It’s insane!  I still can’t believe it!  It’s humbling.    

One thing is certain: the United States was well represented by this young couple over the past three years, and according to Kairat, they will be back again next year.  Congratulations to Kairat Algadaev and Julia Seleznyov.  You are the WDSF 2025 Latin Show Dance World Champions, and the first-ever United States World Champions to be crowned on United States soil.