Battle of the Ballroom returns!

This October 13th will see the return of the Battle of the Ballroom at Trinity Park in Ipswich. A year on from its debut event, the date will mark the third competition in the Battle series and we are thrilled to be able to announce this event’s host and celebrity judge – James Goodman and Strictly Come Dancing’s Chloe Hewitt! 

Go to the webpage log in or register and WATCH THE TRAILER here.

Or watch below.

https://youtu.be/3rwavmb9FlQ

Chloe, our celebrity judge, is a former World, European and three-time National Ballroom and Latin Champion – all of which she achieved by the age of 20. She was also the youngest professional ever on Strictly Come Dancing, where she performed in all the group dances from 2016-2017, as well as dancing with Gethin Jones in the Christmas edition in 2016 and Radzi Chinyanganya in the Children in Need special in 2017. Chloe toured with Strictly for two years and was one of the stars of Here Come the Girls, which toured the country early this year. We look forward to welcoming them both to Ipswich! 

Our host James trained at Italia Conti and the Guildford School of Acting. After working in the theatre in a wide range of productions up and down the country, he began teaching Ballroom and Latin dance when his father, Len Goodman, became head judge on Strictly Come Dancing. James is now a Fellow with the IDTA and runs the Goodman Dance Academy in Kent. 

The Battle of the Ballroom concept was developed from an idea Gerald Schwanzer had. In a bid to make competitive dancing more unpredictable and thus more interesting for television viewing, he came up with the idea of two couples going head to head in a battle-style dance-off.

Opponents and dances are drawn by random selection before two couples take to the floor to go head to head in a dance-off. There are three judges, technical, celebrity and the audience vote. After all three have cast their vote, the winning couple goes through to the next round and the losing couple is knocked out of the competition. All of the action is streamed live on DSI TV. 

Another reason for creating the competition was to give back to the dancers, who put so much time and money into their training, so the competition also boasts a £1,500 prize fund. 

So far, we have had a lot of interest in the Battle of the Ballroom and our last two events have been sold out. We have also had a lot of media interest, especially surrounding Len Goodman’s promotion of our March event, which made the national newspapers. Len is a big supporter of ours and has featured in a number of videos advertising his support for the Battle.

Other supporters include Michael Stylianos, who took to the microphone to host our last event for which Katya Jones was our celebrity judge, while in October 2018 it was Robin Windsor on the mic and Ali Bastian judging 

This October, we’re also adding a special Elite Battle Showcase event, which is going to be great viewing for the audience – more information will follow soon. There has been a lot of interest from media companies and we’ll be using this event to produce a trailer for mainstream TV. 

There are currently only a handful of Battle of the Ballroom champions. At each event, we have changed the categories and for October we have an Under 15 Ballroom event, where dances will be selected from Waltz, Tango and Quickstep. We also have a 15 years and Over Latin event in which the dances will be selected from Cha Cha Cha, Samba and Jive. 

The Battle of the Ballroom competitions are run during the Ipswich Festival schools competition. If you’d like to join us for the Ipswich Festival and Battle of the Ballroom please get in touch at ipswichdance.co.uk but be quick! Tickets are almost sold out!