With a new series of Strictly Come Dancing just getting started on BBC1, much of the media build-up to this year’s show has focused on reports of threatening and abusive rehearsal room behaviour by two professional dancers towards their celebrity partners.
The outcome of a BBC investigation into dancer Giovanni Pernice’s alleged behaviour towards partner Amanda Abbington in last year’s series is due to be published soon. Professional dancer Graziano di Prima was also dropped from the show after admitting he “made a mistake” when he kicked his celebrity partner Zara McDermott during rehearsals for the series last year.
The nature of the activity taking place both on and off screen on Strictly is not always fully detailed or articulated. Dance involves intense engagement with your body and often – but not always – your body in relation to another body. With this comes a need to negotiate, for example, bodily awareness, proximity, intimacy, touch, trust, discipline, weight transference and spatial awareness – traits that have long been part of the experience of training in dance.
