Baby
Ballroom – the Championship 2007
Graham Oswick, Latin American Committee
member reports on the ITV phenomenon
It
was back in the early part of this year that I received a
telephone call from Granada Television asking me to act as
advisor to a forthcoming production which was to be titled
‘Baby Ballroom – The Championship’. During
meetings with the producers, it became clear that they were
really interested in promoting the very best part of our fabulous
Ballroom Dancing World. Several members of the production
team even made the trip to both Junior and Adult Blackpool
to get a real flavour of what we are all about!
The idea was to use Juvenile couples dancing the 10 dances
to popular music. These couples to be whittled down over three
programmes until a champion was crowned. There were to be
three celebrity judges: Bonnie Langford, famous from numerous
West End and Broadway performances but probably more recently
from her appearance on Skating With The Stars, Raymond Quinn,
a former successful competitor himself and now famous for
his runner up position on the X-Factor and Pierre Dulaine
a former Exhibition Champion who was recently immortalised
in a movie called Take The Lead where he was played by Hollywood
heart throb Antonio Banderas.
In
addition myself and Alison Fulham joined the It was back in
the early part of this year that I received a telephone call
from Granada Television asking me to act as advisor to a forthcoming
production which was to be titled ‘Baby Ballroom –
The Championship’. During meetings with the producers,
it became clear that they were really interested in promoting
the very best part of our fabulous Ballroom Dancing World.
Several members of the production team even made the trip
to both Junior and Adult Blackpool to get a real flavour of
what we are all about!
The idea was to use Juvenile couples dancing the 10 dances
to popular music. These couples to be whittled down over three
programmes until a champion was crowned. There were to be
three celebrity judges: Bonnie Langford, famous from numerous
West End and Broadway performances but probably more recently
from her appearance on Skating With The Stars, Raymond Quinn,
a former successful competitor himself and now famous for
his runner up position on the X-Factor and Pierre Dulaine
a former Exhibition Champion who was recently immortalised
in a movie called Take The Lead where he was played by Hollywood
heart throb Antonio Banderas. In addition myself and Alison
Fulham joined the adjudicators for the judging process. The
whole show was to be hosted by Kate Thornton probably most
famous for her many appearances hosting the X-Factor.
Auditions were held in Manchester on the Saturday after Blackpool.
I joined the team to watch the applicants dance and then take
part in the interview process. From this stage, 14 couples
were chosen to take part in the TV show. Prior to recording
the show each couple were visited at home by a camera crew
to film them in their home surroundings.
On 8th July the first seven couples and the judges arrived
at Granada Television to begin rehearsals for programme number
one. Everyone was so well taken care of by the team, each
couple being provided with a chaperone. The couples were in
the Green Room where they were provided with sweets and PlayStations!
During breaks we all had the opportunity to mingle with members
of the Coronation Street cast, Jeremy Kyle and even Donny
Osmond.
The set for the show was truly magnificent. It really had
the look and feeling of a very glamorous ballroom. The couples
all danced one dance to music which they had been sent in
advance. Some of the musical choices were quite diverse but
all dancers were a great credit to the business and put on
a fabulous show for the TV audience. At the end of each performance
the couples received critique from the three celebrity judges.
Each couple were scored out of 10 on both technical merit
and artistic impression. The five judge’s scores were
combined and the top three couples were passed through to
the final.
The whole process was then repeated over the following two
days with the next seven couples. At the end of both shows
the public were given telephone numbers which they could call
in order to save one further couple to appear in the final
as a wild card.
On the 8th August the lucky seven couples arrived back at
Granada for the Final programme. This time each couple had
to dance one Ballroom and one Latin Dance back to back for
the judge’s votes. There was some really excellent dancing
produced by these young gladiators who all seemed completely
at ease with the TV World.
The four couples with the highest scores were then passed
through to the next stage where they all had to dance the
Paso Doble together on the floor. Once again they were scored
and the marks from this dance and the previous section were
added together to give us the two couples who would go head
to head to dance Tango for the Title.
Each lucky couple danced brilliantly and either would have
been worthy champions. With the dancing complete the scene
was set for the announcement of the winners complete with
the heart stopping count down music. After a few seconds,
which must have felt like hours to the children, Kate announced
the 2007 Baby Ballroom Champions as Joshua Malone and Kimberley
Jones. They were presented with a beautiful trophy and showered
with silver confetti fired in the air from a canon.
The final announcement from Kate was that any interested dancers
wishing to take part in 2008 should send their details to
babyballroom@itv.com. Great news for the Dance World. ISTD
members take note!
My thanks and congratulations go to all the children who took
part in the show who were a great credit to the Dancing World.
I would also like to thank the Granada team for taking such
care of our people and the reputation of Ballroom and Latin
American dancing. Having watched the brilliantly edited programme
I can only see that it further enhanced our business by bringing
all the very best aspects of dancing into the living rooms
of ordinary people.
Above:
(L–R) Raymond Quinn, Graham Oswick, Bonnie Langford,
Alison Fulham & Pierre Dulaine |
