Gaynor Fairweather

MBE Mbe may refer to: * Mbé, a town in the Republic of the Congo * Mbe Mountains Community Forest, in Nigeria * Mbe language, a language of Nigeria * Mbe' language, language of Cameroon * ''mbe'', ISO 639 code for the extinct Molala language Molal ...

is a British professional

ballroom dancer Ballroom dance is a set of partner dances, which are enjoyed both socially and competitively around the world, mostly because of its performance and entertainment aspects. Ballroom dancing is also widely enjoyed on stage, film, and television. ...

. She and her partner,

Donnie Burns Donnie Burns MBE was born in Hamilton, South Lanarkshire, Scotland in 1959, where he attended Holy Cross High School. He is a Scottish professional ballroom dancer, specialising in Latin dance. He and his former partner Gaynor Fairweather were ...

, were 16-time Professional

World Latin Dance Champions This page lists the official World Champions – Professional Latin of the World Dance Council (WDC). The championships are authorized and organized under the auspices of the WDC, and held annually in the last quarter of each year. The competiti ...

and 11 times Professional

International Latin American Dance Champions The International Latin American Dance Championships were created after the Second World War in England by Elsa Wells, and are now organised by ''Dance News'' special events. The current full title is the ''Elsa Wells International Dance Champion ...

. This is by some way the record number of wins in both these top competitions. On their retirement from competition dancing they were both appointed

Members of the Order of the British Empire The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding contributions to the arts and sciences, work with charitable and welfare organisations, and public service outside the civil service. It was established o ...

(MBE) for services to the performing arts in the

1991 Birthday Honours The Birthday Honours 1991 for the United Kingdom and the other Commonwealth realms of Antigua and Barbuda, Bahamas, Belize, Grenada, New Zealand, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Solomon Islands, Tuvalu, were announced on 14 June 19 ...

. Gaynor was introduced to Donnie by another former world champion Sammy Stopford. They were two-time

amateur An amateur () is generally considered a person who pursues an avocation independent from their source of income. Amateurs and their pursuits are also described as popular, informal, autodidacticism, self-taught, user-generated, do it yourself, DI ...

champions before moving to the professional level. Their professional string of wins in the world championship stood at an undefeated streak of 13 years (1984–1996) followed by one year of retirement and then another single championship followed by another retirement. To bring the elements of

Flamenco Flamenco (), in its strictest sense, is an art form based on the various folkloric music traditions of southern Spain, developed within the gitano subculture of the region of Andalusia, and also having historical presence in Extremadura and ...

dance into their competitive repertoire they went to

South America South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere at the northern tip of the continent. It can also be described as the southe ...

to train with world champion Flamenco dancers. They have traveled extensively to teach in

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

and

Hong Kong Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China ( abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delt ...

. Gaynor is married to Italian dancer

Mirko Saccani Mirko (Cyrillic script: Мирко) is a masculine given name of South Slavic origin. By Slavic etymology, the name is composed of the root ''mir'' (meaning peace) and hypocoristic suffix ''-ko'' usual in South Slavic languages, which together me ...

, with whom she competed after the end of her partnership with Burns. As of 2006, she was living in Hong Kong and training wealthy socialites for Pro-Am competitions.

Monica Wong case

She and Saccani were sued by a former student, heiress and banker Monica Wong, who had promised to pay them £8 million pounds over an eight-year period for exclusive coaching. However the relationship rapidly deteriorated after Saccani repeatedly verbally abused Monica Wong in public. Wong terminated the contract in 2004 on the basis of repudiatory conduct by Saccani, which she accepted and some other bases. She sued to have her £4 million pound downpayment returned. Judge G. P. Muttrie of the Hong Kong Court of First Instance ruled in Wong's favour in September 2006.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Fairweather, Gaynor British female dancers British ballroom dancers Members of the Order of the British Empire Living people Year of birth missing (living people) Place of birth missing (living people)