Burn The Floor Stories & Coronavirus
Burn The Floor, one of Kevin’s longest-running passion projects, has been postponed for safety reasons, and the impact of this has put him in a reflective mood. The show is the original, and most famous ballroom dance show in the world, and for those of you who may now be in need of a Burn-The-Floor fix until the show hits the road again, Kevin is here to tell you all about how the show began, and why it matters so much to the industry and its audience.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
With the end of social gatherings for the time being, the theatrical industry has been hard hit. Many workers are self-employed, and even those who are employed are dependent upon audiences, which are no longer there. Burn The Floor was the original ballroom dance event, and spawned many imitators due to its success. But even though the landscape now sees many more of these shows, Burn The Floor will always be the greatest and most renowned. The show was born when Elton John decided to arrange for a group of dancers to perform at a birthday party. The dancers stepped up the task admirably, and in the wake of its success, decided to take their show on the road. For the first time, ballroom became about story and narrative, character and drama. The result was an incredibly unique blend of dance and theatre, the likes of which the world had never experienced before. Kevin’s initial reaction to joining Burn The Floor was one of awe. It was an atmosphere of pure creativity, boundless energy and imagination, and built upon the principles of pushing dance into a whole new arena. Burn The Floor is constantly in "work-shop” phase. It’s a show that is always evolving, even when it’s on the road. New ideas are welcomed, and if they’re deemed suitably exciting, are added in order to make the show even fresher and more exciting. Burn The Floor was quickly taken to Broadway by producers who could see the potential behind the show. The original run there was supposed to last a mere eight weeks, but such was the show’s success that the run was extended to eight months. After leaving the show, Kevin found that he could never quite tear himself away from it mentally. The show’s legacy, its many gifts in terms of profile-building, and the experience in general, were impossible to deny or forget. Burn The Floor is a rare example of a show that works no matter where it's performed. It truly shows dance as a universal art-form, unbound by verbal language, and uniting audiences through means of purely physical artistry.BEST MOMENTS
‘Back then, the only things happening in ballroom dancing were competitions’
‘It was about pushing the techniques as far as they would go in order to create theatre’
‘Every single one of them was giving every ounce of sweat to what they were doing’
’The creativity in the room was astounding’
‘It’s happened - We’re going to Broadway…'
‘You have to be a part of Burn The Floor to understand just how special it is’
VALUABLE RESOURCES
The Kevin Clifton Show - https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-kevin-clifton-show/id1475650764
ABOUT THE HOST
Kevin Clifton is a professional dancer who has been performing & competing at the highest level for over a decade. Kevin has worked on shows like 'Burn the floor' & 'Rock of Ages' to 'Strictly Come Dancing' one of the biggest TV shows in the UK which Kevin won in 2018.
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