Eirlys Hatcher

New: My Life: Battle of the Ballroom

My Life: Battle of the Ballroom

My Life

CBBC

Battle of the Ballroom

My Life  - CBBC - BBC

Ballroom dancers Bailey and Summer get ready for Blackpool, their biggest competition yet.

Ballroom dancers Bailey and Summer are on a quest to show off their cha-cha-cha at the Blackpool championships. But will all their practise pay off to win them a medal?

Bailey and Summer are budding ballroom champions from Blackwood, South Wales. Bailey has autism and is also visually impaired, but if anything, autism is the secret to Bailey’s success. It gives him focus and determination, and he has never been self-conscious on the dance floor. After 18 months of lockdowns and dancing on their own - in their kitchens and bedrooms - Summer and Bailey are now finally back in training for the biggest competition of their lives, at the world-famous Tower Ballroom in Blackpool.

Summer and Bailey are firm friends. We meet them as they celebrate turning 13 together over a meal with their families, the all-important members of the Bailey and Summer dance support team. Dancing ballroom at competition level is a huge commitment for everyone, especially parents, who get to spend their evenings taxiing the dancers to their lessons, and are also required to buy some very expensive dance outfits. As for the dancers themselves, ballroom success means hours and hours of hard work on the dance floor.

Bailey and Summer go to their busy local dance school most nights of the week for three or four-hour training sessions. When he is not doing ballroom and Latin with Summer, Bailey is out doing ballet classes, as well as tap and jazz. Summer’s school friends are all into dance, and on an afternoon in the park they choreograph their own routine and talk frankly about how dancing has kept them going during lockdown.

Bailey’s autism can give him anxiety, so he likes to know exactly what he is doing and needs to keep to a regular weekly schedule. He feels that dance is the thing that helps him free his mind and keep him calm in times of stress.

As part of their preparations for Blackpool, Summer and Bailey take part in an online dance competition where they survive an unlucky incident with a flying shoe! As the big competition approaches, they are lucky enough to be invited backstage at the studios of their favourite TV show, Strictly Come Dancing, where they are given competition tips from some of the Strictly stars.

As the Blackpool Championships get closer, we see Bailey and Summer’s final preparations: the competition haircuts, the tricky business of choosing the right costume, and of course the all-important competition spray tan! Summer and Bailey dance ballroom and Latin, but of all the different steps their favourite is the cha-cha-cha. Is this the routine that will win them a medal?

At Blackpool there are more than 600 competitors in the different classes and categories, and it is a heady atmosphere on the dance floor as dancers from all over the UK celebrate their first chance to dance in public since Covid shut everything down. For Bailey and Summer, their whole family are on the sidelines cheering them on, when, after all the months of training, they finally get to battle it out on the ballroom floor!

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