Genre Dance contest No. of episodes 2 contests | Original language(s) English and French Running time 2 hours | |
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Presented by Graham Norton
Claudia Winkleman Production company(s) European Broadcasting Union | ||
The Eurovision Dance Contest was an international dancing competition that was held for the first time in the United Kingdom on Saturday 1 September 2007.
Contents
The contest was similar in format to the long-running Eurovision Song Contest and was organized by both the Eurovision association and the International DanceSport Federation (IDSF). The IDSF credits the existence of the contest to Richard Bunn of rbi network, Geneva, former EBU controller of sport, who convinced the EBU to create the programme.
Format and general information
The competition consisted of pairs of dancers from each participating country, each pair performing one dance, a freestyle dance in which the cultures of the individual countries could be showcased to the rest of Europe. In addition to being evaluated by a panel of dance experts, the routines were judged by European audiences who cast their vote for their favourite couple via telephone or text messaging to determine winner of the competition. The BBC was "host broadcaster" for the first two contests in 2007 and 2008, the only contests to date.
2007
Eurovision Dance Contest 2007 was hosted in London. In EDC 2007 each couple has performed two 1 minute 30 seconds dances: the first dance was a ballroom or Latin dance while the second was a freestyle dance. Professional dance couples were allowed to enter the competition. Finland won the competition.
2008
Several changes were introduced for Eurovision Dance Contest 2008 which was hosted in Glasgow. Professional dance couples were no longer allowed, all pairs had to include one professional and one celebrity dancer. Only one, 2 minute dance, was performed by each couple. A professional jury was introduced to the competition having approximate weight of 20% of the outcome, while the remaining 80% came from televoting. Poland won the competition.
2009
The competition was to have been held for a third year, hosted this time in Azerbaijan, but was cancelled with the EBU citing "a serious lack of interest" in the contest. The competition has not been held since.
Participation
Sixteen countries; Austria, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Russia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Ukraine and the host country the United Kingdom all début in the very first Eurovision Dance Contest in 2007. Germany, Spain and Switzerland did not return for the 2008 contest due to lack of interest. Azerbaijan also joined that year.
Belarus intended on competing for the first time in 2009 but the contest was cancelled. Although the 2009 contest never happened Austria, Finland, Lithuania, Sweden and the Netherlands had confirmed they would not compete in the third contest.
Winners and host cities
The contest differs from the Eurovision Song Contest in that the winning country does not automatically become host for the next contest. The Eurovision Dance Contest follows the same selection process as the Junior Eurovision Song Contest.