Dancing On Wheels
Ballroom glamour and glitz come to BBC Three as celebrities join forces with wheelchair users in a dancing competition like no other
Singer Heather Small, gold medallist Mark Foster and actress Michelle Gayle are among the celebrities that will be dancing with wheelchair users in a groundbreaking new six-part series for BBC Three uniting wheelchair users and celebrities in a dance competition with a difference.
Actor Kevin Sacre, rugby legend Martin Offiah and presenter Caroline Flack are also set to partner wheelchair users who have never danced before – with only five weeks to master everything from the cha-cha to the paso doble.
The wheelchair users are: Simone, a 22-year-old Cambridge graduate; Diana, a 48-year-old magazine editor and mother; 27-year-old Carolyne, 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 23-year-old Harris, who recently got married to a girl he met whilst travelling in Thailand.
They will all be learning the art of Wheelchair Dance Sport, a popular international sport where at least one dancer is a wheelchair user.
Wheelchair Dance Sport is practised widely by athletes in 22 countries, with competitions and championships held across the world.
In Dancing On Wheels (working title), the couples will be compete in the "combi" event where a standing able-bodied dancer partners a wheelchair user.
The winning couple will go on to represent the UK at the Wheelchair Dance Sport European Championships in Israel this autumn.
Lead choreographer Brian Fortuna, a professional ballroom dancer who appeared in the last series of Strictly Come Dancing and who has been teaching wheelchair dancing for the last eight years, will be putting the couples through their paces.
Under the guidance of Brian and some of the other top names in dance, the couples will be trained intensively each week to compete in a variety of exhausting and challenging dance disciplines as they battle for supremacy.
A panel of judges will decide each week which couples stay in the competition.
The judges will then select the two strongest couples who will get the chance to take part in a final dance-off, before a winning couple is chosen to represent Britain in the European Championships in October 2009.
The programme will be shown later this year.
© MMIX