World Ballroom Dance Champions Council" (WD&DSC), and renamed again as the WDC. The Professional Ballroom section (occasionally called Professional Modern in British tradition) of DanceSport) covers the dances waltz, foxtrot, quickstep, tango and Viennese waltz. World Ballroom Dance Champions This page lists the official World Champions – Professional Ballroom of the World Dance Council (WDC), and its historical predecessors. The championships are authorized and organized under the auspices of the WDC. The designation "Ballroom" replaces the previously used "Modern" or "Standard" in WDC terminology; it does not include the latin dances. World Championships of a sort have been held in ballroom dancing since 1909
Latin dance was first derived from their native roots, the Aztecs and Incas. When sixteenth century seagoing explorers returned home to Portugal and Spain, they brought along tales of the native peoples. According to Rachel Hanson, no one knows how long these dance traditions were established, but they were already being developed and ritualized when they were observed by the Europeans. This suggests that these Native influences became the foundation for Latin dancing. Indigenous dance often told stories of everyday activities such as hunting, agriculture, or astronomy. When European settlers and conquistadors began to colonize South America in the early sixteenth century,