Dancing

Almost everyone I know follows Strictly. This year has been amazing – so strong a cohort in the best six that predicting who will be the final winner is beyond me. Tentatively, I wonder if it may be Georgia and Giovanni?

I love the cheerfulness and the colour, love the courtesy and affirmation, the sense of family it manages to generate in such a short time. I hugely admire the dedication, discipline and sheer hard work; hats off to both the celebrities new to dancing and the professional dancers. I love the shrewd and creative choreography, showcasing the growing confidence and ability of the novice dancers.

I love the friendliness and laughter, the experienced critique and advice, the many choices to be gentle and kind, that I perceive in Strictly: It Takes Two during the week.

It’s such a positive, happy series, a real tonic of brightness in the dark months of the year.

I think there’s only one thing I would change.

The heels.

At the beginning of each episode, the judges are welcomed, and come sashaying and twirling down the stairs to take their place. Here’s Bruno and Craig, grooving away, and Len the head judge, so elegant and easy in movement (before his knee op grounded him for a while). And here – frustrating me beyond expression, comes Darcey.

Darcey Bussell. Prima ballerina for 25 years, president of the Royal Academy of Dance, once the youngest principal dancer in the history of the Royal Ballet; she has danced leading roles with Paris Opera Ballet and the New York City Ballet.

   

And down the stairs she comes at the beginning of the show, able to wriggle her hips and wave her arms about, but otherwise effectively crippled by those STUPID heels.

I have nothing against elegant clothes and classic feminity in dress. I’m not personally planning to shave off my body hair or cover the skin of my face with a dense layer of foundation make-up and powder. I shan’t be curling my eyelashes any time soon or wearing body-shaping magic knickers and strapless brassières – but I don’t mind if you do.

But those four, five and even six inch heels really upset me. The kindest thing we can do to our bodies is let them move, freely. 

On Strictly, the best dances, the ones that garner the most plaudits, are so often the ones danced in flats. Jamelia’s stunning Charleston, for example, was so good because her shoes let her move.

And how I would love to see Darcey come dancing down the stairs with the ease and grace she deserves.

Learning to walk in those outrageous heels is a difficult skill to master, but not an admirable one.

A one, two, even three inch heel – yes, fine. But beyond that is an inappropriate hobbling.

A show that celebrates dance should not make choices that inherently inhibit movement.