Youcef Belouazani: “If Your Mind’s Not in It, the Dancing Is Not Going To Be in It”

It only takes a few moments for me to realise that world champion Youcef Belouazani is someone who lives and breathes Irish dance. When the 19-year-old dials into our Zoom call on a wintry Tuesday evening, costume mannequins modelling in-progress dresses flank his shoulders in the background, while crystals, scissors and embroidered dress components are scattered on the desk in front of him. I’ve caught Youcef on break at his job with Elite Dance Designs where he works as a crystallizer and machine operator. When he’s not training and drilling his dances, you can find him buried in dress designs, intricate embroidery, and shimmering crystals.

Nearly one year has passed since Youcef won the CLRG World Championships for the very first time, a dream that he’d held dear for most of his life, but didn’t always believe was within reach. “For years on end, I would always hope it would happen,” he shares. “And when it finally did happen I didn’t know how to feel, I still think to this day it hasn’t sunk in.”

Has life for the past 10 months as a world champ been as incredible as we’d imagine? “Since I won the Worlds it was just like, ‘Everything’s perfect. I don’t need to do anything else,’” he laughs. 

This December, Youcef celebrated his victory with a World party, a long-held tradition where world champions will throw a huge bash for their nearest and dearest and showcase their winning set dance. “It was just incredible seeing all my friends and family there to support me,” he says. “It just proves that they were there behind me the whole time.”

Now, he’s preparing to go for the title all over again at the World Championships in Dublin this April. “I’m working very hard and just focusing on myself, on my corrections, and just making sure I can possibly do better than what I did last year,” he shares, humbly.

Youcef’s lifelong obsession with Irish dance began when he started taking lessons at his primary school, aged six. “I just really enjoyed being able to be free about it,” he recalls, adding that something about it “just stuck” with him. When he started taking lessons officially with Carson Kennedy (now The Carson Academy), it wasn’t long before his teachers noticed a spark. “They could tell that it wasn’t just an after-school thing for me, it was something that I was going to stick at for the rest of my life,” he remembers. “Thank god they saw that, because I probably wouldn’t have.” 

That natural talent became even more apparent when Youcef started winning championships from early on, before he decided to take a break from the ages of eight to 10 when he was “just enjoying being a kid” with his friends. But before long he was begging to go back to class, resuming his training in 2015.

Despite the hiatus, impressive jumps in his results soon followed, including second place at the Ulster Championships in 2016 when he was Under 11. It secured him a qualifying spot for the World Championships in Dublin the following year, where he placed eighth. “That was amazing. Today, that is one of my biggest achievements,” he shares with a smile. “I was just coming back into the journey and falling in love with it again.”

Those placings continued to climb as Youcef began to truly believe just how far his talents could take him, finishing in third at the 2018 Worlds in Glasgow. But just as his devotion was growing ever deeper, a judging conflict took him out of the running for the 2019 Worlds, only for the COVID-19 pandemic to keep him away for two more additional years. That meant the pressure was well and truly on for 2022 in his hometown of Belfast: “No one knew how the Worlds was going to go, because it was the first one in a long time.” 

He finished in a phenomenal second place, but it was a double-edged achievement as doubting thoughts began to seep into his mind. “I thought it was going to push me harder. But over the year, I was like, ‘Is this something that I’m ever going to get?’ I didn’t really believe in myself which really affected my performances,” he says. 

He finished in the runner-up position once again in Glasgow in 2023. But a simple perspective shift encouraged him to tap into his champion mindset from that point onwards. “I remember after that, I was like, ‘There’s no reason I can’t win it’,” he says. “So I used those two results specifically to push me to try and win it.”

And push him they did, sharpening his focus as he began to understand the importance of leaning on his classmates for support. “I’ve always been one who’s never really believed in myself,” he confesses. “I needed other people to tell me that I can do this.” One of those believers was fellow 2024 world champion Zara O’Gorman, who Youcef would travel to and from practice with.

Two weeks before they were both crowned world champions, she encouraged him to boldly speak his dreams out loud. “She was like, ‘What do you want to get at the Worlds?’ And I was like, ‘I’ll take top two again.’” She asked him the same question again, and didn’t exit the car until Youcef said what he really wanted: first place.

It was the permission he needed to start truly visualising his dreams in technicolour, rather than getting bogged down in the disappointments of the past – especially as he’d placed second at every major he’d competed at the year prior. “I just wanted to go up and do three good performances, knowing that I can’t control what the judges write on a piece of paper. As long as I danced good, that’s what mattered to me on that day.”

When his Worlds dance day arrived, Youcef was able to channel that ambition into his dancing rather than results: “I knew that I wasn’t trying to beat anyone except myself.”

Watching his rounds back, it’s plain to see that something clicked (no pun intended) that day. His posture was rock solid yet visibly relaxed, his twisty ankles effortlessly loose, his light dancing totally unencumbered from any nerves he might have been experiencing. “I just remember I started the first four bars and I really went for it. I just enjoyed the rest of it; I knew I gave it my all in that first round,” he says of his hornpipe. “I could not feel my legs for the life of me at the end of it, and that’s how I knew that I’d done a good job.”

Youcef wasn’t even in the main hall when results came out, choosing instead to plant himself in a stairway with a few friends: “Third got called out and it wasn’t me. I was like, ‘I’m second, thank god. I’ve stayed the same for the past three years; that’s incredible’. And then when it wasn’t my number called out in second, it was just a complete shock.”

He heard his school erupt in cheers before he re-entered the hall to find everyone running over to him. At long last, Youcef got to stand on the very top of the podium. At the time, he told his Instagram followers that he was “not capable of stringing a sentence together” after the win. Today, though, he’s had some time to reflect: “It was the best feeling ever; nothing could ever top that feeling. It’s definitely what every Irish dancer dreams of achieving. It beats the expectations of it; it’s sensational.”

Youcef capped off his incredible year with a win at the North American Nationals, meaning he’s now secured every Major title in Irish dancing. Besides his competitive legacy sealed, Youcef can also tick off having performed with Lord Of The Dance’s Feet Of Flames in December 2023 and Riverdance in November of the following winter, both in Taiwan. “It was a completely different adrenaline,” he shares of his introduction to the professional world. “I wasn’t nervous for the shows; it was more excitement. Whereas with competitions, you’re worried about what the outcome is, but at shows you already know the outcome.”

As for what the future might hold, his ambitions are still firmly rooted in Irish dancing, whether that be making his own dresses or touring with a show long-term. So, with most of the bucket list items checked off, what would he tell all those dancers who want to be where he is one day? “Your mindset is one of the most important things in Irish dancing,” he affirms. “If your mind’s not in it, then the dancing is not going to be in it. You have to make sure that your head is in the game.”

Follow Youcef on Instagram.

Photography: Courtesy of Youcef Belouazani
Design: Colleen Falco
Words: Hollie Geraghty