It's about sex

By Elise Davidson
September 9, 2005
Wife dropping ... David Watson dangles spouse Malin.

Wife dropping ... David Watson dangles spouse Malin.

Jason Gilkison knows exactly why ballroom dancing is so hot right now.

Sydney Theatre,
22 Hickson Road, Walsh Bay
When Tuesday to September 18
How much $38.30-$72.80
Bookings 9250 1999

'Ballroom," says Jason Gilkison, director and choreographer of the new show of the same name, "is the new black."

He's not wrong. Australians are twirling and dipping each other around the country almost every night of the week, with people heading in droves to the nearest dance class. Singles parties are doing it, there are new books and CDs dedicated to ballroom and even mainstream advertisers are getting on board.

If you want to see a sexy tango, it's as easy as catching the latest Cherry Ripe ad. Even Myer forked out for an all-dancing extravaganza to show off its spring range.

How is it, then, that ballroom dancing - so often associated with heavy make-up, sequinned gowns and plastic smiles - has hit the mainstream?

Channel Seven's Dancing with the Stars has brought ballroom back into the spotlight, with 2.3 million viewers tuning in to the final episode of its last series. The ABC's Strictly Dancing, a slightly satirical show similarlybased on couple dancing, is also rating well.

A bare-chested Tom Williams is appealing, the possibility of seeing celebrities land on their butt even more so, but does this explain our preoccupation with dancing in pairs?

Gilkison, known in his circles as the Bradman of Ballroom, has a theory. It's so simple, you wonder why no one has mentioned it before: "Dancing is a public vertical expression of what people do in private." And we like to watch.

Gilkison, approaching 40, was named Young Australian of the Year in 1990. He and dance partner Peta Roby are Australia's most successful dance couple, having won every kind of ballroom dance award and some of them many times over.

Gilkison has spent much of his recent past touring with the remarkably successful ballroom show Burn the Floor, which he was invited to dance in before becoming the show's choreographer and, finally, director.

"One day, a fax came through from Burn the Floor, saying, 'Would you like to be part of this?'" he says. "I remember at the time thinking,

'Oh, Burn the Floor, that will only be six weeks or so.' Six years later and it's still going."

The show's success - it has been to 87 cities in 15 countries and took $20 million at the Japanese box office - is evidence that people worldwide are embracing ballroom like never before. The films Strictly Ballroom and Dirty Dancing helped pave the way, as did the emergence of Latin music in the mainstream, care of Ricky Martin and Jennifer Lopez.

For Gilkison, this cultural climate means he can now put on the production he has been planning for 10 years.

"It's like: OK, now we've got people's attention, let's show them what [ballroom] has actually become," he says. "The only way for us to do that was to take away what people normally believe ballroom is - like fake tans and plastic smiles and false nails and big hair - and just try to show it stripped raw, and the essence of what the dance was about in the first place."

The cast of Ballroom is made up of 16 dancers, many of whom Gilkison has worked with and trained over the years, including Dancing with the Stars professionals Natalie Lowe, Sasha Farber, Trent Whiddon and Sarah West.

Each of the show's eight scenes acts out the origin and development of different types of ballroom dance, culminating in a sexy, modern interpretation of what the dance is today. Without sequins. Not a single one.

As well as the costumes, the choreography and music have been stripped back to show ballroom under a new spotlight. Take the waltz. One-two-three, one-two-three, right? Wrong.

"[It] was the original dance of love - the man meets woman, falls in love and gets married and lives the rest of their life together," Gilkison says. "So, what I wanted to create in Ballroom was to have waltz so romantic and so much about that first feeling of love."

This is where the modern interpretation comes in.

"We got the girls to take off their shoes and do it barefoot. So [the dance] is more how these guys would interpret it, about falling in love today, rather than how it was 200 years ago."

Twenty-one-year-old Ballroom star Jessica Raffa, who performed in Burn the Floor, says having the right dance partner is crucial to the show. Raffa says she and her partner, Robin Windsor, are perfectly suited to each other and there is a real spark between them, although their relationship is more like that of brother and sister.

"When you're onstage, OK, you sort of act, but it's beyond that," Raffa says. "You have to really be comfortable with each other and play off each other. You're working off each other and the energy's bouncing off from one couple to the other."

Gilkison: "In terms of this show, it's very much based around the personalities of the cast, as well. This type of ballroom dance show is very much about the dynamics of the energy between the people onstage."

What will the traditionally conservative ballroom establishment make of this radical departure from competition dance, then? Gilkison smiles like a proud dad.

"We've got sort of the rebels, in this show, of the ballroom scene," he says.

"The ones that we've ended up with are the ones that were just about cast aside from the ballroom world because, you know, they were the bad boys of ballroom. And they are bad boys. But when they do their stuff they're so serious about it."
