When you are pulling over 50% of your cast list from people who are in various arms of the performing arts, then there is always going to be people who have been taught to dance in some form or another for varying lengths of times. It's just obvious really.

It's just there is a difference between that and trying to give the role of the current never done more than a worm Journey contestant to someone who in real terms has not so much journied as been towed behind a motorbike.

'TOWIED' behind a motorbike

My issue is the same as others. It is not whether he has an advantage by having gone 10 years to an well known stage school where dance is one the compulsory disciplines. It is the fact that he is being presented as a "novice" who has "never danced before".

(I am of the opinion as well that stage school training in dance for more than say 5 years shape your any dance skills for life, ie you have an advantage. As well, as henry says, a sport person will have an strength and stamina that will be an advantage.

But wait, Mark was also a semi professional footballer (probably crap but still the training, stamina and strength should be there). So he has advantage x 2 and he is presented as having no advantage. Nice one!

Yes, this. I don't mind a ringer - I voted for Natalie in the final last year once SEB had gone - but I don't like deliberate misrepresentation. There is a subtle but distinct difference between saying "ballroom and Latin are totally different to anything I've done before" as the so-called ringers often do, because it is usually true that they have done stage dancing or ballet which ARE different, and saying "I have never danced before/I'm a complete novice" which suggests no background in dance-and/or-music-related performance training at all.

Of course ten years of childhood training will be an advantage - there's a reason why "it's like riding a bike, you never forget" is a common saying. I haven't ridden a horse regularly for about twenty years and at all for at least ten, but if my joints weren't shot to bits I could get on and the basics at least would come back to me within a fairly short space of time.

Made me

It depends on the dance, just because you have minimal dance experience it doesn't mean you will be good at all the dances.

I'm sure someone like Beyoncé wouldn't be incredible in ballroom dancing unless she has ballroom experience throughout the years. Just like people who are strictly ballroom professionals, won't be very good at doing a Tango or something. It's the same as saying all dances is like all sport. You're good at sprinting? Then you must be great at football, rugby just because you can run fast. Doesn't really work like that. Put Usain Bolt on a football pitch, he'd run extremely fast but will probably trip over his feet every second whilst attempting to kick the ball?

Didn't he just.....his neediness,desperation, anxiety on the results shows are compelling but not in a good way....I'm embarrassed for him.

http://www.dunblanesportsclub.co.uk/


Wait for the video of Judy dancing a cèilidh to come out ..

I think it could be a good idea if all celebs were up-front right from the beginning about what ever training they had had in the past, or maybe it is the BBC that needs to be more upfront, because, as I said before, this discussion comes up every year.

People who have watched the show for years, still remember being thrilled by Jill (sorry her surname alludes me!) dancing, and winning, with Darren Bennett. For a long time it was said she had never danced before; then it was said she had never danced ballroom before - then someone found pictures of her dressed up in a juvenile regulation ballroom dress and shoes waiting to do a competition!!

I don't think some previous training bothers people too much, but I think it bothers them to feel they are being lied to!

Darcey's a novice too. She has very limited experience of ballroom and latin. At Stage School Mark maybe, did the basics of ballroom as did I in school, but there's no way I am a pro dancer. Can't dance a step in actual fact! Stage school dancing is nothing compared to ballroom training. It's a bit like taking someone who swims a bit on holiday and now and again in the town swimming pool and comparing them to an Olympic free style medal winner.

Can we get this straight, how many hours a week was he taught dancing, what were the dances, did they include any or all of the ballroom and latin dances many with intricate steps, did they have to perform live on TV with millions of viewer? I don't know the answer to any of these questions but many of the people on DS obviously do.

But people assume Frankie's had dance training and went to dance school and she didn't the only dancing she did was with S Club Juniors and The Saturdays which is all basic stuff.

Actually that is not true.

Many true sportsmen are very good a many sports, some of them having to make a tough choice very early on in which concentrate. Top of my hat Rafa Nadal (who could have been a professional footballer, probably making it in to top teams) and Adam lyth (cricketer who also was on the footballer path).
There are plenty of others.

Of course, there are some niche sports that are pretty much contradictory ie one requires extreme endurance, one precision/others power, but overall a good sport man will always be better at other sports than someone who is crap at sports or has never done any sports. They are aware of their bodies possibilities, what they are good a, what their weaknesses are... All are huge advantages. The same with dance.

Musicality, rhythm, ability to learn choreography, understanding how to move your body, creating beautiful shapes, that is something that can be trained over the years and learnt how to at least fake it.

The question is not whether they will be very good technically at one dance, it is that with previous dance experience (of any kind) they will be able to fake it more convincingly which is all they truly learn in strictly.

PS: I dont mind ringers, in fact some of my favourites each year have been ringers. I just dont like the "never danced before" lies.

You make some good points here.

....and was he actually any good at it. Scott can now say that he's had dance training

They're not trying to produce ballroom world champions or the dance equivalent of Olympic sports stars though; the point is to produce 90 seconds of an entertaining and competent dance that is an approximation (no more than that these days, according to the dance experts on here) of a ballroom or Latin dance.

If Mark's ten years at stage school did include at least a proportion of dance lessons for at least a proportion of that time, then he will have been taught how to learn steps/follow choreography, how to finish his lines, how to cover up mistakes and keep smiling, how to highlight 'accents' in the music at the very least. Nothing specific to ballroom or Latin but helpful in both in the context of Strictly - how often do the judges comment on these things?

Mark is being painted by the show not even as your occasional municipal pool hobby swimmer (which would be fair enough) but as someone who has lived in the Sahara his entire life and is now seeing water for the very first time.

I think you'll find that he has zero hours a week for 10 years. How else could he be "this guy has never danced before"?

It doesn't matter if anyone went to stage school!

Like others, it doesn't bother me having ringers on the show, it just annoy's me when contestants lie about/conceal their previous experience (DVO's "I just sat on a chair" being a prime example)

http://www.syts.co.uk/page/?title=Fu...e+School&pid=6

Here you go, do the maths yourself, 2 days a week for 10 years for 1/3 rd being dance adds up to me as:

Quite a lot really

No we don't know his exact curriculum but as he went to the school he is no novice to dancing

I really don't mind people with dance experience I actually liked DVO and Natalie,

I don't like being lied to and especially I did not like Mark standing there accepting Brunos praise for being the man who has never danced before, without correcting that.

Other celebs who had "never danced before" via Sylvia Young:

Denise Van Outen
Kara Tointon
Louisa Lytton
Matt di Angelo
Emma Bunton
Letitia Dean

My teenage nieces have been going to Stagecoach for 8 years now. If -god forbid- they were to become celebrities in their 20s I really doubt they'd end up top of the dance-pile with the advantages they'd be deemed as having, since they can barely put three step-ball-changes and a nice bit of arm-shaping together let alone do a decent dance. What they have gained from Stagecoach however is enthusiastic acting and singing skills since that is where their talents and interests lie. The dance side has had little or no impact on them. Maybe something similar happened to Mark Wright.

And -serious question, not being facetious- do viewers get equally cross about contestants having performance backgrounds on the likes of X Factor or Britain's Got Talent? I don't watch them so I don't know.

Ballroom in particular is different to almost all other forms of dance being in hold

If you have doubts look at Craig on the very few incidents when he gets in hold at the start of the programme and with all his :dance: experience he looks a complete novice in hold

Perhaps he's another one, just like the ones I listed, who've "never danced before".

Oh FFS! Here we go again with the DS 'detectives' on their never ending search for a ringer!

Mark Wright went to stage school, but then became a semi-professional footballer.
Unlike some others here, I don't profess to know exactly what lessons Mark took at the stage school, but I wouldn't mind guessing that dance wasn't that high on his agenda.
And, as someone else said here, the 'dance' taught at stage schools is often very different to professional dancing of any kind, especially Ballroom.

And then we get the usual TOWIE remarks, as if people don't realise this is a 'reality' TV program, with the ironic situation that no reality programs are 'real life' and everyone is following a script.

But what really gets to me with all these 'is he who he says he is?' posts about Mark Wright is that he doesn't strike me as a genius.
In fact, I always see him as a nice bloke, but one who could do better in the brains department.

If I am correct (and I may not be of course - I don't insist that my views are always right), Mark hasn't the intelligence to take part in a conspiracy to delude the general public.
He is happy to be there and happy to do what he is told to do.
Good luck to him.