It was so great to be involved with Paul Mitchell’s Shall We Dance on Ice and I was lucky enough to partner the wonderful Chelsie Hightower as one of the two ballroom dancing couples for the show!

This whole production was really well done, right from all the crew front and back of house or should I say “rink” to the sponsors that were also involved. Then you go and add all that amazing talent to the Ice, phenomenal!!. I must say my appreciation for Ice dancing was taken to another level whilst working on the show and all of the skaters/dancers were so inspiring.

Scared of the ice is an understatement. I have never skated on ice in my life!! I need two feet firmly on the ground to perform :). Coming from Perth, Western Australia where I don’t think it has ever snowed in my life time of living there, so its fair to say skating wasn’t one of the first things my parents would push me into doing. It sure would have been a lot cooler then dancing in a studio on a 110 Celsius day!! 

So as you can prob tell with this special thankfully I didn’t have to dance on ICE!. With having a dance floor and stage set to one end of the ice rink we were able to bring the two worlds of ballroom dancing and Ice dancing together perfectly and showcase dance through various routines in groups and solo performances. I do love the concept of mixing Ice with dance and to see it done on such an elite level by some of the best skaters in the world, man it takes some skill let me tell you. The way the skaters use the ice with the momentum of movement they create is truly amazing to see up close along with the way they partner each other in and out of lifts, and the music just adds the finishing touches to there performances so perfectly.
A definite highlight for myself was paying tribute to the legendary Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean in one of the numbers in the second half of the show, using their iconic music that they skated to gold with at the 1984 olympics scoring a perfect score from all the judges, Bolero!! by Maurice Ravel.

I hope you guys enjoy this dance special on ABC as much as I did!! and until next time Happy Dancing!!

Heres some vision of the show;

Opening Number on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lCeHtvn_1ms

Meryl, Rumer, Damian and Dmitry’s Number on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DissonSkating/videos/vb.14961882236/10153227814772237/?type=2&theater

Meryl, Rumer, Damian and Dmitry’s Number on Twitter: https://twitter.com/DissonSkating/status/695712323227373568?lang=en

Professional Dancer

Damian Whitewood