{"id":577093,"date":"2026-08-22T17:56:13","date_gmt":"2026-08-22T17:56:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/577093\/"},"modified":"2026-08-22T17:56:13","modified_gmt":"2026-08-22T17:56:13","slug":"kiwi-dancer-wins-uk-pro-latin-championships-eyes-world-title","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/577093\/","title":{"rendered":"Kiwi dancer wins UK pro Latin championships, eyes world title"},"content":{"rendered":"

A New Zealand Latin dancer has won the UK closed professional Latin dance championships in Blackpool.<\/p>\n

Brian Dibnah, 31, started ballroom dancing in Christchurch as a boy, before moving to London 12 years ago.<\/p>\n

To win the competition, he and his partner Georgiana Muja performed a cha cha, samba, rumba, paso doble and jive. The win makes Dibnah the first New Zealander to win the competition.<\/p>\n

“It meant a lot to win this comp, this has obviously been a dream since I moved here from New Zealand. In this country, to win that competition, it’s the best of the best,” he said.<\/p>\n

His dance partner and fianc\u00e9e, Georgiana Muja, said his ability came naturally.<\/p>\n

“His sense of musicality, rhythm, I think he was just born with a gift \u2014 not many people are born like that.”<\/p>\n

\"Brian<\/p>\n

Brian Dibnah dances with his partner Georgiana Muja. Source: Supplied (Source: 1News)<\/p>\n

Dibnah said his upbringing shaped his connection to dance.<\/p>\n

“I think being half Samoan, I used to go to church all the time with my mum growing up. We would go to these Samoan churches, and obviously dancing and singing music has always been a big part of that culture.”<\/p>\n

He started ballroom dancing aged 12 after watching Dancing with the Stars. His first dance teacher in Christchurch, Colleen Murray, said his talent was clear early on.<\/p>\n

“He was always going to be a winner, he won from the word go.”<\/p>\n

Watching a recording of his winning dance, Murray said she was proud of his progress.<\/p>\n

“Look at him \u2014 ohh, just love him to death, love him. Words can’t express how proud I am of Brian, I’m just absolutely over the moon with him.”<\/p>\n

\"Latin<\/p>\n

Latin dancer Brian Dibnah. (Source: 1News)<\/p>\n

Dibnah credited Murray’s role in his development.<\/p>\n

“She was everything to me. You have a great dance teacher in your life, but I feel like the distinction between a dance teacher and a coach is, a coach goes above and beyond, and Colleen always did that for me.”<\/p>\n

Dibnah and Muja are now training in their Putney studio ahead of the world championships in Canada in two weeks.<\/p>\n

“We’ve reached the highest level here in England, next going to push as high as we can go internationally.”<\/p>\n

Murray’s advice from his early training days has stayed with him: “If you want to make it to the top, you gotta put the bloody hard work in, no messin’.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A New Zealand Latin dancer has won the UK closed professional Latin dance championships in Blackpool. Brian Dibnah,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":577094,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[2567,158,42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-577093","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-arts-and-culture","tag-christchurch-canterbury","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/577093","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=577093"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/577093\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/577094"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=577093"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=577093"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=577093"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}