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| Eurovision Dance Contest |
| Written by Administrator | |
| Friday, 31 August 2007 | |
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DanceX may have finished, but that doesn’t mean that dance has gone from the Saturday night schedules: this week we see the first ever Eurovision Dance Contest. Sixteen countries are taking part, with a further eight transmitting the programme. From the preview and discussion we were treated to at Tuesday’s press launch, the format will be a mix of Strictly Come Dancing and the Eurovision Song Contest. Each country is represented by a pair of dancers, each selected by different means. The UK’s entrants, Brendan Cole and Camilla Dallerup, were chosen by a panel. Other countries have held televised competitions to select their entrants (in a kind of Dancing Your Mind Up), while others are putting forward the pro-celebrity winners of their version of Strictly Come Dancing. Each duo will have to dance twice, with each dance lasting no longer than ninety seconds. The first dance will be a ‘traditional’ ballroom or Latin routine, which must be one of: * Viennese Waltz * Waltz * Foxtrot * Quickstep * Tango * Samba * Cha-Cha * Rumba * Paso Doble * Jive The dance has to be performed to IDSF rules, which means no lifts, no breaking of the traditional holds, and so on. Although, when I asked what would happen if a dancer broke the rules to impress the voting audience (has no-one seen Brendan on SCD before?) all I got was a shurg of the shoulders. “Each country will have a professional dancer commentating,” I was told. “They will inform the audience of any illegal moves, and it will be for them to decide.” Seems a bit of a cop-out to me, especially since there is provision in the official rules for disqualification of any couples who don’t conform. Fingers crossed it won’t become an issue, though. Each couple’s second dance is to be a freestyle performance, where anything goes — but the dance should reflect the national identity of their country. That’s probably going to be easier for countries with an established national style of dance. For Britain, who knows? There may be an element of morris dancing, or a highland fling or two. Presenters Graham Norton and Claudia Winkleman do know some details about Brendan and Camilla’s freestyle routine, but have been sworn to secrecy. (You can hear them give a couple of hints in the latest edition of The Stage Podcast.) Each country will have two commentators, who must remain silent during the performances, but will speak over action replays after each dance. An EBU spokesman at Tuesday’s event described each pair as comprising “one dance expert and one entertainer” — although in the UK case, we’ll have Bruno Tonioli and Len Goodman, so we effectively have two of each. The whole project is being produced by Splash Media (whose founders, Jane Lush and Fenia Vardanis, created Strictly Come Dancing when they were both working at the BBC) and Sunset + Vine, who are experts at producing live sporting events. Even if the event is a complete disaster (which, somehow, I doubt it will be) the BBC will be hosting a 2008 Dance Contest, and after that, the event may travel Europe as its older sibling does. One thing does worry me. In Tuesday’s press conference, the producers were asked about provisions in place to prevent fraudulent voting. The response from Jane Lush was very dismissive. In the current climate where televoting in the UK is under scrutiny as never before, it seemed far too blasé a reaction. Bjørn Erichsen, Director of Eurovision TV, was far more serious. As with the song contest, independent auditors will be on hand scrutinising every aspect of the phone voting, and won’t release any figures until they’ve been verified. As he said, Eurovision has over fifty years of experience in collating votes from all over Europe: in essence, if they can’t get it right, nobody can. * Eurovision Dance Contest, BBC1, Saturday 1 September, 8pm Source |
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