Board of Directors

“Nothing is impossible – no is not an answer “

Dancing only found ME at the age of 17 .

As my mother is very religious I went every Sunday to church and a few girls my age decided to form a jazz dance group within the church facility.
Then only a few months later I saw my very first Latin American dance competition on German TV.

And that was it!!!
It was love at first sight!
I had found my calling!

I joined the local amateur dance club in Pforzheim which turned out to be the famous German amateur club
Schwarz-Weiss Club Pforzheim !
I was super motivated and excited and just wanted to keep dancing, dancing, dancing.
I was 17 years old.

In the first year only I had a total of 9 dance partners!!!!
As they chose to dance with me to date me and I only was interested to do the CHA CHA CHA !

After being without a dance partner for almost a year and my mother gently trying to hint to me that maybe due to my track record with my partners ,
partner sport might not be the thing for me and maybe I should change and do something which I can do by myself!
But I decided to stay dedicated and practised 5 times a week in the club for 9 months, spinning , rumba walking , Cha Cha locking and samba bouncing down the room where all the others looked upon me with pity and thought why I keep doing this if I even couldn’t find a dance partner to do it with!
Even the club trainer told me that it was such a shame as I was a very talented girl but that I was already too ‘old’ and with no partner that I would never ‘make it’ in dancing and be successful.

However my Latin basic teacher Uwe Nagel took me under his wings, which I am very grateful and thankful for, and finally got me a 10 dance partner and put me on the road of competition dancing!
He was already a A /B class dancer.
So at a much higher level then me, as I never even had danced a competition yet.
So my very first competition was a Ballroom competition in A class !
And I loved the competition but didn’t like Ballroom dancing.
We never made it to actually to compete in Latin as he was slightly afraid of me in the Latin!
I wonder why?!

Finally we split up and I danced with Carsten Krause and we became the German A class champions in Latin American dancing.
We then quit Ballroom dancing altogether as at a 10 dance regional competition where we could have been Latin finalist and should have been in the 24 in Ballroom:
we made the final in Ballroom and were in the 24 in the Latin!
I decided then and there that I was a LATIN girl and that this was what I needed to do!

Once dancing took off in the Amateurs with Sandra Cavallini I had to tell my father the big decision that I wanted to move to London to dance.
At the time I was enrolled in the university to study economics and foreign languages .
I told my father that I could always go back to study but maybe I only get one chance in dancing and if I don’t take it I will regret it for the rest of my life!

And the rest is history as they so poignantly say!

So my motto, my source of strength and my believe is that
‘ NOTHING IS IMPOSSIBLE ‘
If you want it bad enough you will find a way to make it possible
AND
‘ NO IS NOT AN ANSWER ‘
As one clearly hasn’t looked deep enough , tried hard or worked hard enough or looked for ways to make it a YES

My special ‘Thank You’ goes to Bryan Watson
as he is not only the only partner who made it and stuck with me
but also who is my match in every way!!!!

Education as dance teacher ADTV – German Dance Teachers Association

Education as a Dance Trainer A – DPV – German Professional Association

Education as a judge for Amateurs and professional competitions

Judge, Speaker and Guest Trainer at international dance events

Foundation of the online training school for competition dancers “SoulM8s” www.boon.tv/soulm8s

ALTERNATIVE HEALING & MENTAL COACHING

1 year internship with Iris Pletscher, Karlsruhe – Alternative medicine – Systemic family constellations according to Bert Hellinger

Education Medium- and Healing School Sonnenschmidt / Knauss – www.inroso.com

Further training Healing School of Hartmut Lohmann – Chi-Heilung Bochum – www.chi-heilung.de

Lecturer : Dance, Mental Strength, Intuition, Life Balance

Life Balance Coach and Spiritual Life Coach www.justb.world

Dirk Bastert was born on March 8th, 1968 in the North Rhine-Westphalian town of Wattenscheid. He is a direct descendant of the German branch of the von Brünnow family. The name and title Graf von Brünnow has not been used officially since the times of the great-grandfather Hermann Philip Graf von Brünnow.

Bastert got into dancing while he was at school, when he attended his first dance class at the age of 14. Here the desire to turn the passion into a profession matured. Nevertheless, after graduating from high school, he completed an apprenticeship at the textile company Klaus Steilmann and then studied clothing technology in Mönchengladbach. In 1994 Dirk Bastert met the Russian dancer Alla Tkachenko at an international tournament in Moscow, whom he married in 1997. From 1998 to 2002 they not only lived and danced in Russia, but also represented the Russian colors at championships. After the successful conclusion of the time in the amateur field of dance sport, the couple switched to the professionals in 2000.

Here, too, the successes continued. In 2003, he donated a kidney to his mother, who had suffered from the autoimmune disease Lupus for many years. Since that time he has been a member of the Sports Association for Organ Donation (VSO). At the beginning of 2006, Dirk Bastert ended his career as an active dancer. He won the gold medal at the World Cup, the bronze medal at European and World Championship fourth, was 5 times German Champion of Professionals and 2 times Russian Champion. In the first season of the RTL TV format “Let’s Dance”, which is still very popular today, he worked as a professional dancer in 2006 alongside Olympic champion Heike Henkel. After ending his active career, Dirk Bastert began to pass on his knowledge and experience.

Today he works worldwide as a recognized trainer and lecturer. His expertise is particularly valued in Asia. TV teams have already accompanied him to reports about his work on several occasions. The license to judge international competitions was awarded to him in 2006 by the world association on the basis of the results he achieved as an active athlete. Since then, Bastert has been in action at over 200 tournaments, mainly abroad, as well as at world and European championships.

Dirk Bastert is President of the dance sport club Art of Dance Cologne, which he founded in 2006. Since then, together with his wife Alla Bastert-Tkachenko, he has led the club – especially in the youth field – to the national and international top again and again. In 2013, the couple received the DTP Award for this. In 2014 he opened the event location “Atrium” in Cologne. In 2015 he became Counselor in Foreign Affairs for the Malaysian Ballroom Dancesport Council (MBDC). 2020 President of the dance sport club Dance Stars Wuppertal. Dirk Bastert has been the World Dance Organisation (WDO) Voting Adjudicator since 2022. He is a founding member of the German Dance Organization (GDO) and has held the position of Executive Director Secretary since 2022.

Executive Director Secretary GDO
seit 2022

Präsident Art of Dance Köln
seit 2007

Präsident Dance Stars Wuppertal
seit 2020

Mitglied World Dance Organisation (WDO)
Voting Adjudicator
seit 2019

Vize Präsident WDC GAL
bis 2016

Councillor Malaysian Ballroom Dancesport Council (MBDC)
seit 2017

Mitglied Verein Sportler für Organspende (VSO)
seit 2003

Mitglied Ballroom Dancers`Ferderation International (BDFI)
seit 2019

Mitglied Deutscher Professional Tanzsportverband (DPV)
seit 2000

Gründer ATRIUM DANCE STUDIO
bis 2018

Organiser ATRIUM XMAS CUP
2015

Born in Bonn, Germany, Ralf began dancing at the young age of 11. First in an amateur circle as a junior and later in the highest German amateur grade. At the age of 19, Ralf turned professional and has never looked back. He had won many national and international titles with his former partner Lydia Weisser.

He was 8 times German Professional Latin Champion, 5 times German Professional Show Dance Champion and 2 times European runner-up.

Other Championship titles wins include the German Open, French Open, Italian Open,Dutch Open and US Open.

The highlights of his career to date are considered to be his two World Championship titles in Latin American Show Dance /Segue in 1991 and 1992.

Now Ralf travels worldwide, judging and coaching top professionals and amateur alike

After Ralf had finished his school examinations he decided to do an education for becoming a dance teacher and coach. At the age of 11 Ralf started with Latin and Ballroom dancing in a dancestudio in Bonn. First in an amateur circle as a junior and later in the highest German amateur grade. At the age of 19 he turned Professional.