Or maybe the British born dancers didn't want to audition for Strictly, or couldn't be bothered to get off their backsides and compete?

They've hired a brilliant dancer as a replacement and I really couldn't care less where she's from

I bet she'll be fantastic. I don't care what nationality dancers are except for one thing - are they paid the same if it's a new contract ? I read somewhere a while back that new dancers were not, on the same financial contract as the original pro dancers. So replacing the dancers on more expensive contracts might, be attractive to producers...hence the employing of lots of new dancers. I hope that the article I read ages ago wasn't correct.

Additionally, IIRC, she's more of a "ballroom" dancer than a "latin" one, so that should please everyone who thinks the bias is too tilted towards the latter.

Iveta is fab. Her QS with tap dancer NIck Young in SYTYCD is one of my faves:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O9RHLWTsN6s

Baltic ladies are generally very tall.
I worked at a factory where one shift was all young ladies from Latvia and Lithuania and it was like standing in the middle of a basketball team.

According to Iveta's cv, she's 5' 6" which is only an inch taller than Aliona.

Thank you, I'm looking forward to seeing her on Strictly Come Dancing.

BIB - A bit harsh? Defending one group of dancers by insulting another is defeating the object of the excercise.

I say good luck to our new (temporary) Pro. This can't be easy for her arriving in such a situation when no one knows her so, good luck to her and her partner (a challenging situation for them both but hopefully they can still have fun for however long they're in).

Iveta is 10 dance world champion twice. And she is a very good ballroom dancer and also is good in latin style specially rumba, samba and jive. But like someone already has pointed out she specialize in ballroom.
here is a clip in Blackpool 2007
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7tc_GN9qc8

They seem to be making their way through the so you think you can dance us ballroom dancers. Not that I'm complaining Artem and Pasha have fitted in very well and I love SYTYCD.

Thank you.

You're up late/early Terry. Just about to go to bed myself. Night!

My pillow is calling me now, night night.

Maybe I'm being a bit slow here but there isn't any reason why Ailona still can't teach and chereograph - as far as I understand she just can't dance at the moment so we should still get to see her chereography and her routinues - and how she can tailor routinues to a less young celeb. The new lady just has to be able to dance.

I hope Johnny does stay in for a little bit - he was a part of my childhood so I have a lot of affection for the guy. He might not be as bad as some - Sid Owen certainly didn't look promising.

Well, some of the posts are plainly xenophobic. Yours may not have been, I honestly can't be bothered to find out who said what.


Firstly, how would that work, short of paying them to do nothing?

Secondly, why bother? There's always plenty of great dancers who'd jump at the chance to do Strictly. Most of them would do it for free, just for the publicity boost.


But what on Earth does her nationality matter? Seriously?

I just checked on Wikipedia to see how many British dancers have ever danced on Strictly and , its really not many

Anton du Beke
Matthew Cutler
Ian Waite
Robin Windsor (although I thought he was Australian for ages)
James Jordan
Karen Hardy
Darren Bennett

Not sure
Paul Killick (did 2 series)
John Byrne (did 1 series)
Hazel Newberry (did 1 series)

Does Flavia consider herself British or Italian?

So of 33 pros used, 34 with Iveta, 7 were definitely British (could be 11) so the show has never been that strongly British.

My head hurts, I never do that much work.

I'm from the "if they're good enough, I don't care what nationality they are" camp.

ETA I think it's right but I'm not making any promises

How deep is the non-SYTYCD pool from which dancers could be taken? I've got a mental image of Beeb producers trawling regional ballroom championships just to keep some parts of DS happy

my thoughts exactly - there is no reason why she cant go into the training room with Johnny and Iveta and the routines will still be hers.

Artem went in to training when Holly had to dance with Brendan when he hurt his back

But won't that just be frustrating for everyone. I'm assuming she can't stand up or put weight on her leg, so she can't show them anything? She's better off away from it and resting. I've pulled my ligaments and its agony and its been nearly 3 weeks and I'm very slow in recovering.

Artem was still dancing in rehearsals, showing them what he wanted, even though he probably shouldn't have been.

I think dancing is one of those disciplines where you just can't tell it, it has to be shown.

Dancing is her livelihood, she can do serious damage if she doesn't recover properly and completely.

My only problem with her is that on first glance she looked a bit too much like Kristina. Which wasn't an issue except that I'd be bound to get them mixed up at some point.

Having seen the pic in the DM and to avoid any difficulties in spelling her surname I am going to dub Iveta 'the fit Kristina'

She has the same specialism as Aliona then (ie 10 dance) although I don't know whether you'd say Aliona was more a Ballroom or Latin dancer.

They seem to have found someone pretty similar to Aliona dance-wise, let's just hope that she has the personality to match that.

I guess we will just have to wait and see.......

I hope you start to feel better soon!

Again you misinterpret my words. I said a "UK Based" pro. Where does that mention nationality?

For the record, I don't mind her nationality, but would make more sense to call on a UK based pro, imo of course.

I'm not bothered what nationality the pro is, the Beeb are lucky they managed to get someone qualified enough on short notice!

It's always a shame whenever a pro gets injured, hope Aliona recovers asap