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The Birth of Revolution Dance, Part 5 written by Keith:

Find out about our TV appearances & all about Keith’s Competition Days & Dance Partners.

Yes an inside view of Come Dine with me & how lovely Alesha Dixon was. Have you or would you like to enter a Modern Jive Competition? Get the inside info from Keith, Organiser to Competitor & Judge. We have been very privileged to have worked with some lovely people & got to see what goes on, behind the scenes of 2 great TV Shows. Read it for yourself below:

Our first taster was being asked to provide some dancers for an early ‘Come Dine with me” TV show. Our brief was for myself to dance with one of the hosts & provide dancers, so we could teacher them all a fun beginners class. So we kicked off with myself & the hostess having a little dance around her living room, trying not to take out the furniture or camera men, which we only just managed! Great fun, tight space! We then had to line the guests up and partner them with our amazing team, Mike, Sue, Beccy & Louise. Let the fun begin.

We taught 3 beginners moves & got all the diners laughing, well all except one! She was partnered with Mike and was determined she was going to take him down and ruin our hosts night and chances! Fortunately when it was televised it only showed the fun element and when everyone was heading home in their taxis (where they give scores and talk about the evening) they all commented on, learning to dance was the best part of their night! A great night for spreading the word of MJ across the whole of the UK.

For those who have watched ‘Come Dine With Me’, you will know that each contestant has around 40 min’s on the show, which shows them purchasing & cooking their food, then showing the evening itself. If you are ever going to put yourself forward for the show, our part alone saw us at the property from around 8.30pm till midnight, for around 3 min’s on the show, the contestants often start around 7am, with shooting often finishing between 2 - 4am! It’s a very long day/night & an even longer week! Not for the faint hearted.

Our 2nd TV appearance was on ‘Alesha’s Street Dance Stars’, with Alesha Dixon. The BBC got together some very, very talented Street Dance Kids from all over the UK, who battled it out every week, losing Crews along the way.
We were invited to the semi finals, where we (myself & Bev), performed a Swing Styled Modern Jive Routine, then we had to teach one of the Street Dance Crews some of the moves. They then had to incorporate our style into their Semi Final Battle. The other Semi Finalist were taught other dance styles, that they had to incorporate in their Dance Off, Bhangra, Ballet & Country and Western.
Bev then joined the judging panel as a guest judge along with, ‘Laurence Olivier’ Award Winning Choreographer Kenrick (worked with the likes of Madonna), ‘So You Think You Can Dance’ finalist Lizzie & ‘Got to be Dance’ finalist Turbo, all of whom were absolutely brilliant. Honestly it seems to be whoever we meet from the dance world they are always down to earth and very genuine, hard working people.

Whilst Bev was Judging, I was looking after her children and Mischa! However, it did mean we could dive behind the scenes with the kids, we got to chat with a couple of the Diversity Street Dance Crew stars, Perri & Ashley, along with Alesha Dixon herself, who once again were so lovely with the kids & all just loved doing the show, nothing was a chore to any of them. So as in Part 4, we had done bits of other TV, but to be fair our day to day jobs were in our Modern Jive Dance World & that brings me onto competitions.

As previously written about in 1999 we (Keith & Janey) entered our first ever competition in Camden Town Hall, London making the Semi-Finals of the Intermediate section, then in 2000 we won the Team Cabaret Section, only our 2nd competition! The year after we secured our own competition as Chance 2 Dance at the Winter Gardens and the Tower Ballroom, Blackpool.

A few years later Jane bowed out of the Competition World (competing), when we had our daughter Mischa. It was then that Victoria (2nd Dance Partner) stepped in and after a few months of hard practice, we started competing and had to enter the Advanced category, now known as the Open (Mainly for teachers & performers) There were some exceptional dancers at this point with many years of competing under their belts, with about 3 couples who had won almost everything between them, so we were so pleased to be finalist, finishing in the top 5 in our first competition together. Over the next 2 years we competed in about 5 comp’s a year and were never out of the top 5 in any of these independent competitions, also picking up a couple of 2nd places and one first place. Unfortunately as we started to really peak and gel as a dance couple, Victoria moved down south for work & our dance partnership ended.

Within a year, I met Bev (3rd Dance Partner) at one of our venues & after having a dance with her, I thought, Wow, this girl can dance! I wonder if she fancies competing?’ (Jane had decided against competitions completely by then, enjoying being a mum, whilst enjoying the social side of dancing, but not having to worry or spend time rehearsing and competing. So she was pleased I may have found another victim!) Bev said YES 😁 and that was it, another journey began.

More months of training & then tentatively stepping back into the competition world, again having to go straight back into the highest category, as we were teachers, so no gentle easing in! Fortunately Bev loved competing and although we couldn’t rehearse as a lot of the competitors could (Bev had 3 children, I had Mischa) our enthusiasm shone through and once again we managed to never miss a final placing!

To be fair, our dancing was probably suited more towards performance than competitions, which lead to a lot of performances in Hotels, Theatres, Casino’s and as above, for the BBC. However we did manage a top 2nd, and then a 3rd place at the Blackpool World Champ’s (We had stopped running this about 5 years prior, due to personal commitments, and it was now run by John of Jive Addiction). So we were extremely pleased with our results and were loving performing all over the UK.

As always, all good things come to an end and Bev’s life took a lovely turn as she decided to travel round Europe, leaving her old life in the UK behind. So once again, I was without a competition Partner. However I was lucky enough to find Kirsty & Louise (Sisters and my 4th & 5th Dance Partners) who I first noticed at one of our venues, they were brand new to partner dancing, but definitely had something about them, that shouted they could be great dancers! About 1 year later, we were performing cabaret and teaching around the UK once again, unfortunately we never did compete for all kinds of reasons, but we thoroughly enjoyed performing and teaching, although Kirsty preferred the teaching to performing.

Unfortunately Louise was taken ill, which took her away from dance for a few months, she had also met a lovely lad and had gotten quite serious, Kirsty was already married and within a few months the girls were expecting their first children. So once again, another partnership slipped away.

I did have bookings for a few months after this, the first being to produce and perform in a Burlesque Show for the Village Hotel, Blackpool and I was very fortunate, as a few weeks prior, I had met a New to Modern Jive Dancer, but who was training for Contemporary Dance at University. I was teaching at the Just Jive, at Ellesmere Port and danced with Emily just by chance, she was so expressive and fun and yet she had only danced MJ for a couple of months. So when I returned a month later, I asked her if she fancied performing at this show, as well as some future events, fortunately she said yes! So off training we went & 4 weeks later we were performing at Blackpool. This partnership lasted for nearly 3 years, but unfortunately when Emily left Uni, she moved home, which meant any training for competitions or performances ended, as any attempt to train would mean a 5 to 6 hour round trip 🙁. We soldiered on for another year, but realised our dancing (Performances for weekenders etc) was getting weaker, often with only 30 min’s to practice anything before we performed! This wasn’t right for us or for those watching, so another lovely partnership was mutually dissolved.

This now takes us to around 2017, but prior to this 2015 when I was dancing at Stockport Town Hall (Before we took over) I met Vicky soon to become my (7th Dance Partner).

Once again Vicky was new to the Modern Jive World, but she definitely had something about her. Her centre was amazing and her speed of interpretation was phenomenal for someone who had only started MJ 3 weeks prior! I then bumped into her again around 3 months later & already her improvement was astounding, so that night I asked her if she’d like to work for us Revolution Dance, as a Demo after some initial training? She said she’d love to and in chatting I found out that she danced and performed a lot up to the age of 16, but gave everything up at that point, saying that she missed her dancing and had decided to try it again, some…. years later 😉

She joined our Revolution Dance Team and then after around 2 years, we started Performing at different venues, on Weekenders including our own weekenders, as I could no longer rehearse anything with Emily, as above.

After a further year we discussed entering competitions, but this time agreed to put some choreographed piece together entering the ‘Showcase’ Section, where teachers & dancers performed a full on routine, rather than Freestyling, as I had done before in the Advanced/Open Categories.

So we started training, found a song from a new film ‘The Greatest Showman’, ‘Rewrite the Stars’ and started to choreograph to the music and words. We really did enjoy this journey and once finished we tentatively showed it at a few of our local venues and then took it to the Scottish Championships. I remember stepping out onto that dance floor and thinking, Oh my god, what if I forget any of it!!! It wasn’t the first Choreographed piece I’d performed, but it was the first for a competition.

The music started and we set off from different sides of the hall, after the first few steps, muscle memory kicked in to the music and it felt amazing! Everything from that moment flowed and we began to tell our story.

We really didn’t know what to expect, we loved it and performed it, almost to the best of our ability, but whether it appealed to the judges, we didn’t know.

Later that evening the results were read out, we didn’t get a shout for 2nd place so it had to be a 1st Place or Nothing! It felt like an eternity, that Strictly moment before they announce who’s going home! Then it came, 1st Place Keith & Vicky. We were so pleased! Our first competition together and our 1st Win!

Unfortunately we couldn’t enter any other competitions due to work commitments, but it did leave one, the Biggie, the World Modern Jive Championships, at Blackpool Tower! So we discussed it and decided to go for it. After we’d performed, we knew it was our best performance to date, fortunately rising to the big occasion, but we were dancing against my old dance adversary and friend Simon Rich and my ex dance partner and Contemporary specialist Emily! They had decided on a Contemporary piece (Both having danced this as a style in the past) so we new it was going to be good.

We watched their performance as they were on before us and it was lovely, thoroughly enjoyable and told a touching story. So we had a feeling it was going to be between the two of us and once again it would be down to the judges, which style brought out and played best with the music, floor craft, difficulty of moves and if a draw, which style appealed most to each judge!

Once again that evening we sat in silence listening to the results, 3rd Place - Not us, 2nd Place Simon & Emily! We still waited with bated breath, you never ever know! Then it was announced, we were the World Champions 2019. The icing on the cake for both of us and only our 2nd competition so far!

We did get another routine together for the 2020 season, but as we all know 2020 was put on hold, so we are now looking forward to sometime in 2021.

On a personal basis I love the fact that I came into dancing with no previous experience at the age of 33yrs and loved it, and as lots do, thought I wish I’d started this earlier!
Then from 1998 to 2019, some 21 years (2020 being the pandemic year), haven’t finished outside of the top 5 in any of the top categories in any Independant Competition! Never let age get in the way, enjoy what you do and always look after your partners and you can shoot for the stars, almost forever 🙏

Finally, I also love the fact that although Janey doesn’t want to compete, we still often perform together and have done so in roughly 5 countries and all around the UK, including the Opera House Theatre, Manchester, to Party at the Palace in Scotland for over 20 years.

If anyone would ever like to chat about competing, please feel free to phone me on 07973 350 210.

So ladies and gents, that’s how we got from 1996 as a non dancers to 2021, started two dance companies, giving up my ‘proper’ job in the financial services industry, and becoming the World Champion, just before the pandemic! I’ll have a think and see if there’s anything left to tell you, that we may have forgotten, maybe even how we diversified during this horrendous pandemic, but for now, thank you for taking time out to read about our journey.

Quick Links to Classes, Freestyles, our Euphoria Weekenders & Holiday

keith@revolutiondance.co.uk

TV Shows & Competitions

The Birth of Revolution Dance, Part 5 written by Keith: