ADC BALL 2012 Silver jubilee celebrations

To felicitate and celebrate the Silver Jubilee of Antonio (Toni) Fernandez' professional career as one of the foremost Ballroom and Latin dance teachers of this country, students of Antonio's Dance Circle have organized a dinner dance. The ADC Ball 2012, will be held on Saturday, 2nd June, at the Golden Rose, Boralesgamuwa.

Toni's career as a dance teacher commenced in 1987 when he combined with Cyraine Illangakoon and Dharshan Wijesooriya to form the Dance Academy. That year, the Dance Academy won the Most Outstanding School Award at the Ceylon Amateur Dance Sport (CADA) Championships, held under the auspices of the Ministry of Sports. Thereafter, Toni and Cyraine formed another dance school, Dancemania, which won the Most Outstanding School Award for two successive years at the CADA Championships. In 1990, Toni was awarded the Medal for the “Most Outstanding Ballroom Dance Teacher” by Dance Vision, Sri Lanka. In 1991, Toni and Owen de Abrew, a veteran dance teacher, founded Owen's & Toni's Dance Studio which also won the CADA Award for the Most Outstanding School in the same year. This award was discontinued by the CADA thereafter.

In 1995, Toni formed his own school, Antonio's Dance Circle, which has seen a large number of students, both young and old, pass through its portals. Many have represented Sri Lanka overseas and several of Toni's students have won and secured places in international dancesport championships held in Bangkok, Malaysia and Singapore. Currently the youngest student at ADC is an 8 year old. ADC perhaps is the only dance school teaching Ballroom and Latin American dancing in Sri Lanka to boast of over 60 students under 16 years of age.

Toni is, perhaps, the only qualified teacher of Ballroom and Latin Dancing in Sri Lanka to have an unbroken career as a professional dance teacher for 25 years whilst, also participating and winning at International Championships, both in Sri Lanka and overseas during his professional life. In 1987, Toni together with his partner Cyraine, became the first professional couple to represent Sri Lanka in an International Dance Championship, when they reached the Semi-Finals at the South Asia Pacific Championship in Bangkok, Thailand.