DanceX

Dance X
DanceX logo
Format	Talent search
Presented by	Ben Shephard
Starring	Arlene's Panel:[1] Arlene Phillips Ashley Wallen Joshua Alamu Bruno's Panel:[2] Bruno Tonioli Derek Hough CeCe Sammy
Country of origin	United Kingdom
Original language(s)	English
No. of episodes	7
Production
Producer(s)	BBC
Broadcast
Original channel	BBC One
Original run	14 July 2007 (2007-07-14) – 25 August 2007 (2007-08-25)

DanceX was a reality television show produced in the UK for BBC One in 2007. It was a live show, in which two teams of male and female dancers competed to form a new dance group. Team Bruno won the show on 25 August.

DanceX Presenter and Team Leaders

The show was hosted by GMTV and former Xtra Factor presenter, Ben Shephard.^[3] The two teams were led by Hot Gossip founder Arlene Phillips and fellow Strictly Come Dancing judge and choreographer Bruno Tonioli.

Both Arlene and Bruno had their own assistants, a choreographer and a vocal coach. Arlene was joined by Ashley Wallen, one of Britain's leading choreographers, and expert vocal coach Joshua Alamu. Bruno's assistants were Derek Hough, dancer and choreographer, and CeCe Sammy, vocal coach.

The dance teams' performances were judged by the British public using the ubiquitous telephone vote.

Dance Xtra

Straight after the live BBC One DanceX show, there was the spin-off show, Dance Xtra, on BBC Three. Presenters Angellica Bell and Rufus Hound chatted to Arlene and Bruno about how both groups had performed each evening. There were extra interviews with the eliminated dancer and unseen footage was shown. Each week Dance Xtra had a celebrity guest and fan of the show.

Auditions

Auditions were held in the following places:

• Glasgow: Friday 4 May
• Manchester: Friday 11th / Saturday 12 May
• Bristol: Thursday 17 May
• London: Friday 18th / Saturday 19 May

Shows

Show One

In the first show the sixteen finalists were chosen. They are (in alphabetical order):

• Ashley Shaw
• Becky Leung
• Bobby Windebank
• Camilla Hardy
• Chelsey Reynolds
• Claire Mealor
• Phoenix
• Daniel Uppal
• Daniele Arbisi
• Emanuel Tabone
• Ife Kuku
• Jamie Meek
• Kalvin Lamey
• Marie McGonigle
• Marcquelle Ward
• Rana Roy

Show Two

In the second show, after seeing all the dancers perform again, Arlene Phillips and Bruno Tonioli chose who was going to be in their respective dance groups. First they picked three boys each, with Bruno starting first, these went as follows:

Then it was the turn of the girls. Once again Bruno got the chance to pick first:

After choosing their boys and girls, the remaining four dancers had to dance again for the chance to be in either Arelene's or Bruno's dance group. Bruno was first to choose and he chose Claire Mealor to be in his group. Whilst Arlene picked second and chose to have Camilla Hardy in her dance group. This meant that Bobby Windebank and Jamie Meek were out of the competition. This means that the two groups are now as follows (in alphabetical order):

Show Three

The theme of the show was "Latin". The two groups performed separately in three rounds: dancing, singing, and both at the same time. The public were asked to vote for which group they preferred, and polling the most votes was Arlene's, which meant Bruno had to choose one of his members to leave the group. His bottom two were Rebecca and Daniele. After a head-to-head "dance-off", Bruno decided to choose Rebecca to leave the competition. The groups post show three were as follows:

Show Four

The theme of the show was "rock 'n' roll". Arlene's group won the public vote once again and Bruno once again had to choose a person to leave his group. This time he chose Daniele, with Claire given a second chance. The groups post show four were as follows:

Show Five

The theme of the show was "Las Vegas". Both groups expressed surprise at the previous week's result, and this time Bruno's group won the vote. Arlene chose Ife and Camilla to perform again, and voted off Ife. The groups post show five were as follows:

Show Six

The theme of the show was "Disco". Team Bruno won the public vote for a second time. Arlene chose Kalvin and Ashley to perform again, and reluctantly asked Kalvin to leave the competition. The groups post show six were as follows:

Show Seven

The series finale allowed the teams to perform what they liked, but the third performance had to be a repeat of what they thought was their best from the previous shows, as well as what would be the winning group's first single. After a live performance by Rihanna, Team Bruno were announced as the winners.

The Winning Group

The group have signed a recording contract with Gut Records and released their first single Dancing In Repeat (written by Oscar Gorres and Swedish popstar Danny Saucedo) as a digital download on 27 August 2007. It was released as a CD single on 3 September and reached No. 91 in the UK Singles Chart.

Claire, Marie, Marquelle, Phoenix and Rana have started recording an album and are preparing to support Rihanna on her upcoming UK tour. Readers of The Sun newspaper have chosen the band's name to be 'Pulse'.

Special Acts

Sophie Ellis-Bextor performed If I Can't Dance a song from her new album Trip The Light Fantastic on show three, 28 July 2007.

Duncan James performed All I Care About Is Love from the musical Chicago on show four, 4 August 2007. He is currently starring as Billy Flynn in the West End production of Chicago.

Girls Aloud performed their new single Sexy! No, No, No... on the show on 18 August, when the groups did disco routines and songs.

Rihanna performed her new single Shut Up And Drive on the final night, as she is the act the winning band will be supporting on tour.

Ratings

The show got off to a good start with 4.88m, and landing #9 in BBC1's Top 30 Highest Viewed Shows of the week ending 15/07/07.^[4] By Episode 2, the show lost around 300,000 viewers - averaging at 4.50m viewers.^[4] This wasn't too bad, as it landed #13 on the BBC1 Top 30 of the week.^[4] Episode 3 proved to be even less successful, averaging at just 4.00m viewers - and #19 on the BBC1 Top 30 of the week.^[4] By Episode 4, the show took a huge decline in viewing figures - ending up with just 2.99m viewers^[4] - shedding over 1 million viewers from the previous week - and landing on only #29 for the BBC's Top 30 of the week.^[4] Episode 5 was still not too successful, but brought about 700,000 viewers back, compared to the previous week. It attracted 3.70m, and landed #24 on BBC1's Top 30 of the week. The 6th week of the show had competition in the form of ITV1's The X Factor series 4 launch., which attracted an average of 9.5m viewers, peaking at 10.7m (48% viewing share). DanceX week 6 gathered 2.7m (13% viewing share). The final of DanceX attracted a mild 3.67m and #23 on the BBC1 top 30 of the week, not incredible compared to The X Factor's average of 8.87m, but still not disastrous.^[5]

Weekly Averages

• Week 1 - 4.88m
• Week 2 - 4.50m
• Week 3 - 4.00m
• Week 4 - 2.99m
• Week 5 - 3.70m
• Week 6 - 2.7m
• Week 7 - 3.67m

The series average is: 3.77m

International

Shortly after launching in the UK and gaining decent ratings, ABC in the United States acquired the local rights to the DanceX format. It was later announced that the show has been picked up as a show to premiere in January 2008.^[6] The live program, called Dance War: Bruno vs. Carrie Ann, will have two teams led by ABC Dancing with the Stars judges Bruno Tonioli and Carrie Ann Inaba. Dancing with the Stars Season Two winner Drew Lachey will host the program.^[7]

References

External links

• DanceX at BBC Programmes
• DanceX at What's on TV
• Unofficial fansite

Rana Roy and Marquelle Ward now star in ITV1 hit series Brittania High choreographed by Arlene Phillips