Kidapawan City claims one of Guinness records

KIDAPAWAN CITY, Philippines - The Guinness Book of World Records has officially confirmed the city of Kidapawan as the new title holder for the largest number of dancers performing simultaneously the Cha-Cha-Cha dance, besting the current holder Singapore.

Joey Recimilla, Kidapawn City tourism and promotion officer, said the Guinness has sent an email and even posted to its website confirming that Kidapawan City has set a new record for simultaneously dancing cha cha cha in August last year.

Some 14,275 participated in the dance show, composed mostly of students from the elementary, high school, college, government employees and even the senior citizens who flooded the three-kilometer stretch of the city highway for the Cha-Cha dance that lasted five minutes.

The numbers, according to Recimilla, was higher by more than 10,000 to beat the current holder Edgefield Primary School in Singapore which only has 3,379 participants.

“The long wait is over. We got the title and we owed this to the participants who sweat too much for a purpose. To bring back the good image of Kidapawan City, after the bloody rally dispersal in April 1 last year,” Recimilla said.

Recimilla said the three professional dancers, one of them a British national sent by the Guinness to witness the event were all convinced that the synchronized performance of the dancers were enough for Kidapawan to claim the new record.

Witnesses were Julie Plummer, a Latin and standard professional dancer from England who has been living in the Philippines since 2011, Lowell Basa Tan of the United Kingdom Alliance (UKA) Professional Teachers of Dancing and Crisaldo Rendon, head coach and principal teacher of the Dancesport Team in Cebu City and a fellow Latin American and modern standard professional from the UKA.

“We already achieved our goal. We already have changed the landscape of our city,” said Recimilla.

Mayor Joseph Evangelista thanks the huge support of all stakeholders who made a significant contribution for the record.

“Thank you, thank you,” the overwhelmed mayor said.

With the feat, Evangelista said the city will again set new records this year by besting Kidapawan for another record, this time the largest participants dancing boogie in the same stretch. (John Andrew G. Tabugoc/PNA)