How 'Strictly Come Dancing' launched a keep-fit
dance trend
By Helen McCormack
Saturday, 11 December 2004 Source:
The Independent Online
The words "ballroom dancing" once brought to mind an image of old ladies
shimmying around a draughty church hall in each other's arms, no eligible
bachelor in sight.
The words "ballroom dancing" once brought to mind an image of old ladies
shimmying around a draughty church hall in each other's arms, no eligible
bachelor in sight.
But watching celebrities dance, with varying success, on BBC1's Strictly
Come Dancing has sparked a resurgence in what is described by its followers
as "partner dancing".
There will be plenty of unlikely fans among the estimated eight million
electing to stay in tonight to watch the final and find out whether it will
be the comedian Julian Clary, the EastEnders actress Gill Halfpenny or the
athlete Denise Lewis who will waltz, jive or jitterbug to ballroom glory.
Previously seen, at best, as kitsch, or at worst fusty, the genre's image
was arguably not helped by Terry Wogan's original Come Dancing of the
Seventies and Eighties. But its 21st-century reincarnation is helping to
revive dance schools.
Aspiring Fred and Gingers are turning up in increasing numbers at schools
across the country, indicating a positive revolution in how people think
about ballroom and Latin dancing. "The amount of people coming through our
doors has trebled as a result of the programme," says Pat Lait, 59, who has
been running the Lait Dance Club from an Ipswich church hall with her
husband, Tom, 74, for the past 30 years.
"We're getting a lot more younger people, particularly young couples,
although you still get the few women on their own, and men, for that
matter."
For Mrs Lait, who together with her husband performed three times on Come
Dancing in the Seventies, the revival is overdue. "Dancing has everything -
it's an art, it's a healthy activity and it's so social. I'm delighted it's
seeing such a comeback - not before time."
The emerging trend marks a move away from decades of solitary dancing in
clubs and discos that began in the Seventies, according to Vernon Kemp, who
runs the Central London School of Dance.
"Not just one but two generations have danced alone, doing their own
thing. It's taken people a long time to realise the vast majority of the
population don't know what their own thing is, and it does no harm to follow
a few pre-ordained steps.
"Rather than think why people stopped dancing together, we should be
amazed that they ever started dancing alone - it's so much more fun
together. The BBC has been very clever in a way. It's tapped in to something
that is so old that it has gone from being stale to cool."
Simon Selmeon, who runs the London Swing Dance Society, has noticed
enthusiasm for partner dancing has spilt out from what is featured on the
BBC into his area - swing music. "We have had a lot of people in who say,
'We want to dance like Fred and Ginger - like in Strictly Come Dancing'.
"The programme has broadened out the type of people who would give swing
a try. Our type has always attracted a slightly younger crowd than ballroom
dancing, but we are getting more and more students in."
The British Dance Council, the governing body for ballroom and Latin
dancing, said it had been inundated with requests following the second
series. "The phone hasn't stopped ringing," said the company secretary,
Margaret Harris. "It's drawing in all sorts of people who wouldn't
necessarily get to find out about it, from teenagers to old people. It's
been quite inspirational."
