Strictly returns to Blackpool as pros share earliest Tower Ballroom memories
The Strictly pros have extra reason to want to waltz on to the floor this weekend as they’re returning to Blackpool, ballroom dancing’s spiritual home.
From the moment they decided to be dancers, they have wanted to be crowned champions there. And some achieved that dream earlier than others – in fact, Lauren Oakley was still in the womb. The 32-year-old says: “My mum kept her pregnancy from everyone during the competition at Blackpool Tower Ballroom because she thought it wouldn’t help her win.
“She then won the championships and announced her pregnancy to everyone that evening, and the next day her belly popped. It’s like I was waiting for her! It’s just a really special place, for me especially. My mum danced there, my cousin has danced there, it has been in the family for a while.
Lauren at 15 (BPM)
Luba was told to aim for Blackpool (BBC SUPPLIED)“I don’t remember ever spending an Easter not at Blackpool. We would have an Easter egg hunt in the arcades there.” Lauren, who joined Strictly last year, had her first dance on her own two feet in Blackpool aged seven. She recalls: “I just got my first dance partner and I remember being taken aback by how amazing it was and how dancers from all over the world were there performing and competing. I was excited.
“I got more nervous, the older I got, but when I was young, it was just really exciting.” Fellow pro Nikita Kuzmin was a little too excited recalling his first time in Blackpool, admitting he had never been scared of any competition in his life before arriving in Lancashire.
Greggs, Costa & Pret coffees have 'huge differences in caffeine', says report
The Ukrainian-Italian dancer, 25, says of making it to Blackpool to compete aged eight: “I was too nervous and it was too late for my parents to do anything about it because I was already on the dance floor doing my thing – the wrong thing at the wrong time!”
Kai Widdrington, 28, recalls that walking into the Blackpool ballroom “was like walking into another world of dancing, seeing all the guys dressed in tail suits and the girls in the beautiful ballroom dresses”. He adds: “If you fall in love with dancing like I did, you fall in love with Blackpool. There are nothing but happy memories there.”
Kai in Tower Ballroom at the age of 14 (Daily Mirror)Kai was eight when he made his Tower debut but his favourite memory came a little later when he represented Great Britain at the Junior World Championships. “We won the team match, where it was the top two Latin couples and the top two Ballroom couples competing against the other countries in the world. Britain hadn’t won it in 20 years or so and we managed to, so that was a big highlight,” he says.
Russian dancer Luba Mushtuk, 34, recalls how Tower Ballroom was revered as the pinnacle of ballroom success, saying: “Since I was a little girl, my teachers would say, ‘One day you will go to the Blackpool Tower’.” But the seaside city’s contribution to ballroom is best summed up by Italian Vito Coppola, 31, who did one of his first international contests there in 2008 and says: “Blackpool is the most important and best competition in the world.”
Kai adds: “This is where Ballroom dancing was founded and created. It’s where all the people that were the pioneers took their first steps on the competition floor. They paved the way for the future generation. We’re very fortunate that we get to go back there every year.”
Read more similar news:
Comments:
comments powered by Disqus
