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The Birth of Revolution Dance, Part 4 written by Keith:

So how did we get to know all these Strictly Stars & how did we get them to our venues? Part 4 of Keith & Janey’s Revolution Dance Journey:

Do you remember how in 2000 (Part 3) we saw Burn the Floors very first tour, which totally blew us away and totally inspired Keith? Well in 2005 we saw they were returning to London, and as Keith had started an independent ‘What’s On’ e-newsletter he contacted the Producer Harley Medcalf asking if they would like us to advertise their show. He was amazingly gracious and delighted with our offer. To be honest I think as the show had been away from the UK, touring for 5 years and ballroom was still not the popular dance it is today, due to BBC’s Strictly, he was glad of any help! But he came over as very gracious & enthusiastic.

As the day of their return closed in, we had spread the word & many of our local dancers & dancers from around the UK got to hear about it and started booking tickets! However I honestly don’t think BtF really needed our help, as every show was a sell out! What I realised though, was their passion for dance was off the scale, so our just wanting to help spread the word pleased Harley and his team, so much so, that he invited us down for pre-show drinks and a chat and it was here that our joint enthusiasm for dance started a lovely relationship.

Since this show, he has invited us to every opening night in the UK, including dress rehearsals & after show parties. We have continually supported them upon every return to the UK, whilst we have helped further promote them by introducing our friend and amazing photographer Beytan Erkmen, who produced some iconic promotional shots still used today. I had the pleasure of assisting on these shoots, such a great experience and I have to say at every event, shoot or party, every single person who is part of the BtF team are so enthusiastic, fun yet professional, whilst being sooooo down to earth.

So what about these BBC Strictly Stars I hear you ask!

Well from the very first Strictly Show, the BBC were sourcing dancers from BtF, whilst others were from the Latin Ballroom circuit, such as Brendan Cole, Anton Du Beke, but lots many others including Winner of Strictly Matthew Cutler and partner Nicole Cutler, were BtF dancers (All BtF dancers at this point, were ex Latin Ballroom Champions, but joining BtF gave theme real theatrical performance skills as well. So you can see why they appealed to the BBC).

So as Strictly became more popular & even expanded to other continents inc USA with Dancing With The Stars, BtF agreed to allow Strictly to employ their dancers world wide and this included Jason Gilkinson Director/Choreographer. After all, they needed the very best Choreographer and they got that with undefeated Latin champion from 1981 to 1997 Jason, whilst his fellow champion dance partner, Peta Roby continued to choreograph and nurture the BtF dancers.

Cutting a long story short, this meant we had met and already worked with many of the BtF cast as they suddenly found TV Fame via Strictly! Now as I said everyone we have ever met via BtF have been amazingly generous & genuine in sharing their time and talent, so when I first asked about the possibility of hiring some of their Strictly & BtF dancers to maybe perform and teach for us, Nic Notley Executive Producer, was so helpful in getting us our first stars to perform & teach for us at Northwich Memorial Hall!

Our first Stars were lead dancers for Burn the Floor. Patrick Helm was one of Strictly’s early support dancers and a main choreographer for them, whilst his dance partner Sharna Burgess was a professional dancer for the USA’s (Strictly) known as Dancing with the Stars ‘DWTS’, which she went on to win and also went on to become one of the judges on the Australian version of the show, along with Craig Revel Horwood! Patrick and Sharna enjoyed working with us so much, that they agreed to come back the following year to teach as well as perform once again at the Memorial Court and it was another inspiringly memorable show! Getting to see such talent so close up was amazing, whilst they stayed all night chatting, having photos taken and dancing with our dancers. Lovely, lovely people.

Since then we have been fortunate to have had more BtF/Strictly Dancers teach and perform for us, such as the Fab-U-Lous Robin Windsor, semi-finalist Anya Garnis, and just before Lockdown Faye Huddleston and Giorgio Lori (both also from DWTS as well as BtF) Whilst Faye has now been with us for nearly a year teaching fun and brilliant Zoom Classes all through lockdown 2020 - 2021. Robin also came back during lockdown offering our dancers the chance to do Zoom classes from his kitchen with his assistant Lukuz his dog. This has been a wonderful opportunity for our dancers to get to know these talented stars, trying out new and exciting styles with top tips.

Another area that helped us get to know our BtF and Strictly friends was when we launched our Modern Jive Magazine, with Gary Stern. This was something that had been tried previously, but had only ever been aimed at a small number of local modern jivers, we thought big, national & not just Modern Jive.

For the first time ever we took it to the public with a full on magazine, where we interviewed not only some of our fab National MJ Dance Teachers, DJ’s, Venue Owners and Dancers, but we interviewed the likes of Caprice, international fashion model and designer, we got to take Strictly’s amazing Janette Manrara out to lunch, whilst writing an article about her rise to stardom, from being a bank clark in the US to a lead dancer on the West End. We chatted to those music producers who chose the music on Strictly, as well as Naughty Boy, Brendan Cole and guess what? He was brilliant, funny and open! Other interviews were with Vincent & Flavia (see photo), Karen Hardy and many others.

For the first time ever, we got Modern Jive up there in the public eye, eventually not only selling the magazine via Modern Jive Outlets all over the UK, but also via WH Smith! The only down side was that it added around an extra 40 hours a month to our workload the week before it went to press! Add that to the normal 60/70 hour weeks we were working & it really was exhausting! Great fun, a great adventure but really hard work, we worked 20 hour days at times!

So that was how we met & got to know many of those BBC Strictly Stars, a lovely journey meeting such genuinely nice, whilst extremely talented, hard working people, they all have a real passion for dance and aren’t shy of work and when you meet them you can tell.

Just on the side, whilst involved with all of this, we were lucky enough to be invited to watch the BBC live Strictly Show at the London Studio and whilst that bad boy Craig Revel Horwood was pulling out his paddle to give a 7, he showed it to our side of the crowd. We all pointed higher, so he put it back and drew out an 8. He’s not as mean as they make out!

Next Week:

TV Shows with the likes of Alisha Dixon, and Dance Competitions, see how Keith with Jane, Victoria, Bev & Vicky competed from 1998 to present day & they never finished outside of the Top 6 in any of the Independent Competitions & how Keith finally got his hands on the World Championship Title!
What drives Keith and is this why he’s had so many dance partners!!!

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keith@revolutiondance.co.uk