Eurovision Dance Contest
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The Eurovision Dance Contest is an international dancing competition to be held in the United Kingdom on Saturday the 1 September 2007. The contest is spawned from the international hit format "Strictly Come Dancing" which began in 2004 in the United Kingdom and can now be seen in over 25 countries. The contest is in addition to the Eurovision Song Contest, which will take place for the 52nd time in May 2007, and the Junior Eurovision Song Contest, taking place in the winter of 2007. All three contests are made possible by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU): a union of broadcasters from across Europe, North Africa and the Middle East.
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[edit] Producers of the Contest
The Eurovision Dance Contest will be a produced as a partnership between the EBU and the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) who created the "Strictly Come Dancing" format. The contest itself will be produced by British companies Splash Media and Sunset & Vine (also the producers of "Strictly Come Dancing").
[edit] Format and General Information
The contest is comfirmed to take place between 21.00 and 23.00 CET on Saturday 1 September 2007. The BBC will be the "host broadcaster" for this contest and the next contest in 2008. In the United Kingdom it will be broadcast on terrestrial channel BBC One. The contest will be held in London but it is currently unknown where in the city the contest will take place. The competition will consist of a number of couples performing two dances each. The couples will consist of two professional dancers. The first dance is a ballroom or Latin dance while the second is a "freestyle" dance in which the cultures of the indivdual countries can be showcased to the rest of the world. After all of the performances have taken place, viewers will be able to vote for their favourite couple via telephone or SMS and after the votes are counted (it is likely each country will award points as how it is currently executed on the Eurovision Song Contest) the winning couple, and indeed, the winning country will be announced. As the BBC will be hosting the first two contests it is unlikely that in the near future the winning country will host the next contest (like the Junior Eurovision Song Contest currenly operates).
[edit] Countries Participating and Languages
On 17 January 2007 the Eurovision website reported that 13 countries expressed interest on taking part in the contest. Listed below are the broadcasters interested and the countries they represent:
- ORF (Austria)
- HRT (Croatia)
- DR (Denmark)
- ARD (Germany)
- RTÉ (Ireland)
- TVP (Poland)
- RTP (Portugal)
- RTR (Russia)
- TVE (Spain)
- TV4 (Sweden)
- SRG SSR idée suisse (Switzerland)
- TROS (The Netherlands)
- NTU (Ukraine)
The 14th country taking part will, of course, be the United Kingdom (BBC)
The confirmed list of those taking part will be released later in the year.
The contest will be broadcast in English and may be broadcast in another unconfirmed language (originally thought to be French however France has not expressed interest in taking part). Each broadcaster will also have the option of providing commentators at the event in special commentary boxes located in the studio.
