The latest of Simon Cowell’s talent competition shows has finally made it’s way to screens in the UK. On Saturday, the first episode of The Greatest Dancer premiered on BBC. Like so many of our favorite dance shows, The Greatest Dancer features dancers in every style from tap to hip hop and more.
But, don’t think this is your average dance show.
On The Greatest Dancer, the audience has most of the control. During auditions, contestants dance in a studio in front of a mirror that is actually a huge screen separating them from the audience. As they perform the audience votes on the performance. If 75% vote in favor of the dancers on stage, the dancers are in the competition! (Oh, and the mirrors open revealing the audience to the performers in a moment of joy and excitement.)
The dancers are competing for the audience’s attention, of course. But they are also competing for £50,000 and a special guest performance on the next season of BBC’s other hit dance show Strictly Come Dancing.
What about judges?
Instead of judges, The Greatest Dancer features three celebrity dance captains. Once the show goes live during its fifth episode (airing February 2), the dance captains, will help dancers create performances based on challenges set each week, but even then, it is up to the audience to keep each group in the competition.
The dance captains on the show include singer and previous X Factor judge Cheryl, Glee star Matthew Morrison, and Latin ballroom dancer Oti Mabuse. They will be joined by Strictly Come Dancing winner Alesha Dixon and Britain’s Got Talent winner Jordan Banjo who will be co-hosting the show.
Now, that the show has started, we’ve already seen some incredible performances, but it isn’t all going smoothly. On more than one occasion in the show’s premiere, the dance captains were a little frustrated by an audience that didn’t vote for obviously talented and technically skilled dancers. Hopefully, as the show goes on we’ll see the audience picking up as keen of an eye for dance and performance as the stars on the captain’s panel.
