Ballroom glamour and glitz come to BBC Three as wheelchair users and celebrities join forces in a dancing competition with a difference.

WORDS: PAUL F COCKBURN

This February – subject to final scheduling decisions – six wheelchair users could help change many viewers’ perceptions of what disabled people can do. They’re taking part in Dancing on Wheels, a new BBC Three documentary series following a competition last year to find the British entrants for an international wheelchair dance championship.

Devised by independent production company Fever Media, Dancing on Wheels arose out of one of their researcher’s online search on behalf of a friend who wanted to have the first dance at their wedding despite being a wheelchair user. Executive Producer David Tibballs told Able: “Our development team found a clip of competitive wheelchair ballroom dancing on YouTube, and it looked incredible. The ‘combi’ is one of the few things that brings a disabled person and non-disabled partner together, and it seemed a really good opportunity to put together a television programme that was rooted in this sport.”

Taking the idea to BBC Three – which, after 2008 series Britain’s Missing Top Model, seemed its ‘natural home’ – Fever Media devised a series which followed six wheelchair users and their celebrity partners as they trained intensively in a variety of challenging dance disciplines – from Cha-Cha to Paso Doble – for a weekly competition. With one couple eliminated each week, the goal was to select the strongest couple who would then go on to represent Britain in the annual European Championships.

DANCING WITH THE STARS

That the show didn’t mock the sport was important to choreographer Brian Fortuna. Best known in the UK for appearing on Strictly Come Dancing, the professional dancer and presenter came to Dancing on Wheels with serious form; for many years he has worked with his mother – a former US ballroom champion with her own very successful dance studio in New Jersey – teaching wheelchair ballroom.

Through his TV connections on both sides of the Atlantic, Brian had long campaigned to get the sport a higher television profile. “That dream came true when the BBC commissioned Dancing On Wheels and it’s given me an opportunity to promote what my mother has put so many years into,” he told us. “It was a serious competition, and I trained the participants just as hard as I would have trained participants for any other programme.”

Former EastEnders star Michelle Gayle admitted that working on the series was much harder than she’d originally expected. “Learning was really hard because we had a short space of time, and we really had to compete,” she told us, “but once we were able to dance, we actually felt... ‘Wow! We’re dancing, we’re gliding across the floor.’ And that was the best part of it.”

DO YOU KNOW?

Michelle was partnered with 23 year old Harris Maule, a wheelchair user for six years following a spinal tumour. “I’d done every kind of sport in my wheelchair – skiing, wheelchair basketball – but nothing like this,” he admitted. “It’s the most challenging thing I’ve done since I’ve been in a wheelchair. I found it all difficult, really.”

As a result, Harris’s feelings about Brian the taskmaster changed during the making of the series. “He comes across as quite a cocky American at first, who wants everything done exactly his way – which is good, because he’s a professional, he knows his stuff and he’s got a deep passion for wheelchair dancing. He’s such a nice genuine guy, though; I got on so well with him at the end,” Harris insisted.

Michelle Gayle agreed: “He was very tough, but I’ve nothing but love and admiration for Brian, because what he did actually was a massive task, and I think he did a great job. He was fabulous.”

THE LIFE OF BRIAN

For, if Dancing on Wheels was tough for the couples, it was no walk in the park for Brian. “This was the biggest personal challenge I’ve had in my life,” Brian told Able. “It was a solid three-months, seven-days-a-week, 12-to-14 hours-a-day project for me. It was extremely challenging coming up with choreography; in the beginning stages I didn’t have anyone there to help me create it, and I was having also to come up with three different cha-chas, and three different rumbas.

“It was tough to come up with material that was basic enough for the couples to handle but was going to be different from the others,” he admitted. “It was also a constant battle to work around their impairments but still create something that was going to look spectacular.”

The results, though, spoke for themselves. “They completely surpassed my expectations,” Brian told Able: “When people see it, they’re going to be really impressed, because I was impressed and I was there!”

DANCE-OFF!

So what reaction do the people who made Dancing on Wheels hope to get when the series is broadcast? Executive producer David Tibballs wants people to watch the show, love it and enjoy it as an entertaining dance competition. “But we’re mindful that people will be talking about what it means to dance with somebody in a wheelchair, or what it means to be a dancer if you’re in a wheelchair,” he told us.

Harris Maule and Michelle Gayle hope that it will not just enlighten non-disabled people, but also disabled people themselves, about what is possible. “It’s quite easy to think that there are so many things you can’t do,” Harris said. “To open up what you previously thought to be impossible is really special.”

Choreographer Brian Fortuna agreed: “I think it’s going to be a programme that’s going to open people’s eyes to the disabled world,” he told us, “because most people are ignorant to what it’s like to be a disabled person. But I think it’s also going to show that, just because you’re disabled, it doesn’t stop you from doing most activities that non-disabled people can do.”

MORE: www.bbc.co.uk/tv/comingup/dancingonwheels

DANCING ON WHEELS: WHO’S WHO

The six wheelchair users taking part in the competition are:

• Simone, a 22-year-old Cambridge graduate;

• Diana, a 48-year-old magazine editor and mother;

• Carolyne, a 27-year-old who enjoys nothing more than a night out;

• James, a cocky 31-year-old whose impressive acrobatic ability puts most able-bodied people to shame;

• Paul, a 24-year-old festival-goer who is looking forward to Glastonbury this summer; and

• Harris, a 23-year-old who recently married a woman he met while travelling in Thailand.

Their celebrity partners are (in no particular order) singer Heather Small, former EastEnders and Hollyoaks stars Michelle Gayle and Kevin Sacre, Gold medallist Mark Foster, rugby legend Martin Offiah and TV presenter Caroline Flack.

The judges are Paralympics athlete and TV presenter Ade Adepitan and professional ballroom dancers James and Ola Jordan.

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A BRIEF HISTORY OF WHEELCHAIR DANCE SPORT

Wheelchair dancing has its origins in 60s Britain, with a rehabilitation centre in Scotland teaching people how to operate and manoeuvre their new wheelchairs to music.

The Wheelchair Dance Association was set up in the early 70s, but it wasn’t until the early 80s when a Dutch wheelchair user named Corrie van Hugten took the basic elements back to Holland and adapted them to incorporate standard Ballroom and Latin American techniques. Holland now has in excess of 140 clubs, providing social and therapeutic activities to hundreds of disabled people; and wheelchair dance is now widely practised in 22 countries.

Wheelchair Dance Sport is an International Paralympic Committee Championship Sport but is not yet part of the Paralympic programme.

The annual European Championships now attract hundreds of participants, though relatively few are from Britain.