The story!

Did you see Dancing with the Stars on Tuesday night (7th November 2006) – here's the background behind the performance!

Charles & Michelle were asked to go to Dancing with the Stars to perform for them a West Coast Swing dance as they were considering putting it on the show. Michelle was still in the USA so Janine Myers (one of Nuroc's Bexley teachers) kindly filled in for her!

After seeing Charles & Janine dance they loved the West Coast Swing (yes they are very smooth and grounded and without any ballroom style at all!)

Charles was then asked to choreograph a West Coast Swing Routine and he was asked to teach same to the celebrity and professional dancers on the show. ... Unfortunately, Michelle was too sick to go, (after just returning from a month in the USA) so Leanne Landels was asked by Charles to attend with him as his partner. Charles was given the final cut of music on Thursday night (2nd November 2006) and asked to fly down to Melbourne on Friday night (3rd November 2006) to teach the professional dancers and celebrity dancers, 5 hours a day over Sat, Sun, Mon & final rehearsal on Tuesday before the show.... an almost impossible mission - choreograph a routine in 24 hours (still having to attend his normal job all day Friday - yes he had to work almost all of Thursday night/Friday wee hours of the morning to get the routine choreographed), teach people who have never done West Coast Swing before and have them dancing like we do, all in about 15 hours......but hay it was worth a try -you never know and they say any TV publicity is good don't they?

Music choice was not ours although we thought it was pretty cool - They wanted "We will rock you" & "Sexy Back"!

Charles showed the Producer, Judges and all the dancers (including celebrities and professional dancers) and everyone he possibly could down in Melbourne, footage of great WCS dancing - Jordan & Tatiana in particular - they all got chills when they saw it and said they'd never seen such a great dance style before - a style which gave you so much scope to play with the music......everyone loved it! WCS seemed to be a hit with everyone in Melbourne......

Now the challenge - try to get 10 dancers to change their style, in 15 hours of tuition time that was allocated, and learn a West Coast Swing routine. When the celebrity dancers saw the routine they thought 'ha there's no way we will be able to do that' but they did! We were so proud of the job they did in the short time they were given to do it! They all tried so hard and they got the choreography!!!! How good were they - yes they had the ballroom style, and not the smooth and flowing style of true West Coast Swing, but that was inevitable as their just wasn't enough time for that to change.....

As to the ladies dressers - they were beautiful but not of West Coast Swing style but the producer wanted a dress to differentiate between the ladies and men! In West Coast Swing 99% of women do wear pants! Yes I think the show set themselves up for those comments from the judges about Wiggles, but the show is for entertainment anyway so it was a good laugh!

For all those people that asked (and there's been a lot of you) 'Why wasn't Charles & Janine featured on the show demonstrating what West Coast swing should look like' - well the answer 'they ran out of time that night on the show - their was 5 judges and obviously that takes up more time than usual - Charles did receive an apology for this as he was scheduled to appear showing Australia how West Coast Swing is done'. Yes it would have been lovely for the nation to see 2 of our top WCS dancers!'.... we are still working on getting some sort of TV appearance to show Australia true West Coast Swing!

Nevertheless Charles had an amazing experience and met some fabulous people - the dancers loved him and had so much fun with him.....The Judges want to see WCS evolve and grow and one of the Judges is particularly interested in helping Nuroc grow West Coast Swing...so stay tuned maybe with their help we can make this style grow all over Australia!

With 50-60 people attending Nuroc Dance Company to learn West Coast Swing every week between our Bexley and Castle Hill venues, we believe there is a future in Australia for West Coast Swing - we just need people to believe that they can do it and persevere with learning it, as it is a much harder and a much more disciplined style than our Modern Jive and Rock 'n' Roll....

A huge thank you goes out to the following people who all helped Charles out with the Dancing with the Stars:

Rob Floro (who helped cut some music), Janine Myers (who partnered Charles in Melbourne on the first occasion to demonstrate what West Coast Swing was!), Clayton (Janine's husband who so kindly let us lend Janine for the day during Michelle's absence!), Leanne Landels (for her help while Charles was choreographing the routine and for attending Melbourne for 4 days to partner Charles while the routine was taught), & Shane McIntyre (our sounding board during choreography!).

Here's some photos - I'm sure you'll recognise the people in them!