Dancing Out of Darkness

by Kristina Rhianoff

  Joe and I had a chance to spend Christmas and New Year together before I started the Strictly tour in January, this time partnering Jimi Mistry. He was a fantastic dancer and I was so happy for him and Flavia Cacace when they eventually got married two years later.

  The rest of 2011 was a bit of a blur. Again Joe and I juggled seeing each other as Robin and I had various dance commitments across the UK. We did manage a couple of holidays together, but back in the UK, I think the day-to-day life was getting frustrating for him. He was struggling with being papped wherever we went, especially if we were out and about and looking like we were having a good time. The negative cocaine stories were always being dragged up again, too. It was a hard time for him and he was drinking a lot of the time, which I did understand as to a certain extent he was trying to drown his sorrows.

  Joe was always like that – he likes to go out, have a few drinks and make sure everyone is having a good time if they are out with him. He is always at the heart of any gathering and unfortunately for me, it did become a little bit of a problem – I am not much of a drinker myself. We did have some fights about his drinking and that was a bit of an eye-opener too, as it highlighted some differences in our personalities. He told me that he had spent twenty-seven years of his life depriving himself of everything – food, drink, fun – because boxing was his priority. He didn’t want to live like that any more, he just wanted to have fun, which I understood, but our lives started heading in different directions. I didn’t always want to go to nightclubs and drink until 5am and when I did do it, I didn’t really enjoy myself.

  It’s funny how you can be so right for each other in so many ways and yet the timing can be so wrong. Our relationship had blossomed rapidly and we fell in love quickly but Joe had retired a few months before taking part in Strictly Come Dancing and all of a sudden he had a lot of free time. He didn’t want to work for a while – he wanted to enjoy his newfound freedom – whereas I didn’t want to pass up any sort of job opportunities that came my way.

  And there was a certain eighties heart-throb who was about to make my working life a lot more intense as the new series of Strictly Come Dancing fox-trotted its way back into my life in September of that year…

  Series 9 of Strictly brought with it some changes to the format and style of the series. There was a new producer on board who transformed it from a very classic dance show into something a lot more showbiz. We could have props, the music could be more interesting and the costumes could be more experimental. All the professional dancers and I were very excited as we thought it would be a lot more like Dancing with the Stars, which would make it more appealing to viewers. She also introduced the pairing of the celebrity and the professional dancer as a whole show in itself, which was quite exciting. And no, I know what you are thinking: I swear on my life and my mother’s life too, we don’t know who we are dancing with until we are paired with them on the show! That is why sometimes we genuinely look so petrified when it’s time to be partnered off. We do have to watch our facial expressions actually – there is no chance to be edited if we pull a scared-looking face.

  I remember when they announced the celebrities who would be appearing on the show. When I heard Jason Donovan’s name I was praying to be partnered with him – I think I just had this weird sixth sense that we would get along. When it was time for the girls to be paired with their male celebrities, the producer came over to the girls who were left and said she wanted us to be a bit more energetic and enthusiastic when it came to meeting our partners. They had paired the male dancers first and she thought it was a bit boring so she said, ‘Right, you all look petrified. I need you to do something fun that will boost the audience and make them all cheer and clap like crazy. Kristina, you are good at this sort of thing, the girls will follow your lead. Just go for it and make it fun!’

  And I remember thinking, ‘Oh my goodness, why me?’ So when Bruce Forsyth announced: ‘Jason Donovan, stage and screen superstar, eighties icon will be dancing with… Kristina Rihanoff!’ I just went crazy. I ran over to him, jumped on him like a mad woman, wrapped my legs around his waist and went totally mental. When I watched the footage back later I was so embarrassed but everyone said to me, ‘That is the craziest reaction we have ever seen, but the producers loved it and the audience appreciated it and it just worked.’

  And it was a good result for me as I was genuinely excited about dancing with Jason. This was my fourth year on the show and I just wanted to prove what I could do as a choreographer and as a dancer with someone who could potentially be amazing. Here was someone who had been on the West End stage; he was musical and would have rhythm. I was over the moon and when we had a chance to talk properly, he was very sweet and told me he’d heard I bring out the best in my partners. He promised me that he would work really hard with me. And that was an understatement – he wasn’t bothered about the hours we had to rehearse, he would do anything and everything just to be good. I warned him that I was a hard taskmaster too, so we would certainly get along!

  Joe was very supportive and he was also pleased that I had a partner like Jason for this series. He knew how much it meant for me to get someone good so I could showcase some of my choreography – he knew that was where I saw my future.

  For the next three months the show would take over my life. It was, without doubt, my most challenging year on the series. I soon realised in our first rehearsal that although Jason had a background in musical theatre, he was quite awkward on the dance floor and when I starting teaching him our first dance, the cha-cha-cha, it was clear he wasn’t a natural dancer. Yes, he knew how to stand straight with his head up but he didn’t have any sort of co-ordination. Unfortunately, the press were on his case before we had even started to rehearse as they were convinced that he had an unfair advantage because he was stage-trained and would be an amazing dancer from the word go. If only!

  Coincidentally, it was only after the whole series had been shown that Jason appeared on Piers Morgan’s Life Stories. I was so glad when they showed an interview with Phillip Schofield, who had worked with Jason in the nineties on Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.

  ‘Jason Donovan cannot dance!’ said Phillip. ‘I know because we had the same choreography for Joseph and I know this guy could not dance. When I saw him on the first show of Strictly my jaw dropped. I could not believe this was the same guy as he cannot dance!’

  I was so pleased that it had been made public that while Jason comes from a theatrical background he was never very good at or enjoyed the dancing side of things – it was just too late!

  I remember it was the first week of us performing when they asked us to close the show. My heart sank and I knew the expectation was high so I decided I had to come up with the most amazing routine. I started teaching him the cha-cha-cha and he was a little bit awkward at first and knew he wasn’t perfect so he insisted we put in a crazy amount of hours. He wasn’t scared of hard work! On the Saturday night I was so nervous for him. I always get asked about nerves on the show and my reply is the same: ‘Of course I get nervous, but I am not nervous about myself as I know my steps and I know what I can do, but I am nervous for my partner. That is where the fear is as it’s a live show and if they forget their steps or forget the routine there isn’t much I can do about it.’

  And with Jason, I was petrified for him! When they finally announced us, we walked onto the floor to take our places and I squeezed his hand and whispered to him, ‘Let’s just do it.’ He smiled and said, ‘Yes, let’s do it!’ Joe was in the studio audience, which was brilliant and the audience went crazy from the very first step. Jason is a superstar in every sense: he was nervous and shaking but when I watched the footage back, he flashed that million-dollar smile of his and people just went crazy. He danced brilliantly – we received a standing ovation and it was fantastic. And for the first time ever, after three years on the show, my first dance with my partner wasn’t criticised by the judges! Even Craig Revel Horwood said so
mething really positive and we got 8s, which was a fantastic score.

  I got a text from Jason the next morning saying he wanted to thank me and how Saturday was one of his most memorable nights of his career. And I just replied, ‘Jason, this is only Week 1!’

  Right from the start of this series I felt like I needed to bring Joe into my world a little bit more. I knew that with all the rehearsing we wouldn’t get to see each other very much so it was important to me that Joe and Jason met and felt comfortable with each other. And I asked Jason if his wife Angela could come to our rehearsals too so that I could meet her. She ended up coming every Thursday, like a lucky charm. Sometimes she would bring the children and she was always incredibly supportive: she made me feel that I could go and do my job and be as strict as I needed to be with Jason. Every Saturday night in the audience she would watch and she would come up to me after each show and say, ‘Kristina, I don’t know how you do it but you make my husband look good! Thank you so much!’

  It meant a lot to both of us that Jason’s wife and Joe were comfortable with what we were doing as it was going to be a long road ahead of rehearsals and not really spending much time with anyone else. We were top of the leader board in the first, second and third weeks, but then in the fourth week we dropped right down. It was the paso doble and although we weren’t bad, we weren’t that great either. People started saying maybe Jason had peaked too early and now he was losing it. The problem was, there were lots of other people on the show who were getting better and I knew he felt a little deflated. But instead of feeling sorry for himself, he wanted to work harder and asked me if we could rehearse for half a day on the Sunday, too. Now Sunday is normally our day off and the dancers use the day to plan and choreograph the next dance so that we are ready to teach our partners on the Monday morning. And as much as I wanted to say no because I wanted to spend time with Joe and get my head around the choreography on the Sunday, I couldn’t let Jason down.

  If doing a few hours on Sunday morning rather than be stressed on the Monday helped him then I wasn’t going to say no. But it meant that from Week 4 onwards, we didn’t have one single day off for the duration of the series – it was tough, to say the least. So our new training schedule went something like this: every Saturday night after the show, if we were voted through to the next week, we would receive our music and be told what dance we would be performing next by the production team. We would film the results show on the Saturday night, even though it was not shown on the TV until the Sunday. Sunday would be a day off for the rest of the cast but for Jason and me, we started rehearsing from 10am until 2pm so that on the Monday morning he wasn’t so daunted by a new routine.

  So when did I get the chance to work out the choreography for this? Basically, after we finished filming on the Saturday night. I would be getting home around midnight and would then work on the choreography until about 3am. After shutting myself in the kitchen so that I didn’t disturb Joe, I would put together a new routine ready to teach Jason a few hours later.

  I was very protective of Jason and I knew how important it was for him to do well on the show. He had been called an ‘old, washed-up eighties star’ in the press and he really wanted to prove he could do something amazing. To me he was a legend and if I had to be up until the early hours of the Sunday and then work on our only day off, so be it: I wasn’t going to let him down. I think that is where my dedication to work and desire to succeed overshadowed my relationship.

  Even though Joe was incredibly supportive, we were only seeing each other for a few hours in the evenings and a bit of Sunday afternoons (and I was completely knackered!) so it was challenging. This job comes with a lot of sacrifices and you have to be able to make them or you leave the show. But I was so passionate about the series that there was no question of me not giving it my absolute all.

  CHAPTER 20

  Too many broken hearts in the world

  When you watch just one and a half minutes of a dance on a Saturday night, it’s hard to fully comprehend the amount of rehearsing that goes into creating that ninety seconds of performance. And the further you go in the competition, the harder it gets. The training gets more intense, the standard gets higher and if you don’t deliver something special each week to capture the audience’s vote, you have been through it all for nothing!

  I knew how the outcome of this competition would affect Jason. The whole experience on Strictly meant a lot to him and he was so driven to succeed. We were very alike in this sense: we would go into the studio and work like crazy, to the extent that even our camera crew started asking us if we wanted to take a break for a minute. They offered to make us cups of tea just so they could see us have five minutes’ rest! We were going for it at 100 miles an hour and Jason was so focused on getting everything right there was no time for a pause.

  And yes, it did put a lot of strain on my relationship with Joe. I was home but not home – I was there in body but not in spirit. It wasn’t a normal relationship, and I accept that I neglected him during the series, but when I have a responsibility to someone professionally that takes priority over everything else; it always has done. Joe was supportive but I know he did feel lonely and left out.

  The competition was really full-on that year, too – the standard was very high and sometimes you just felt as if there weren’t enough hours in the day to do anything. You might as well not even sleep! When we reached the quarter-finals I remember sensing that every couple was struggling and feeling the pressure. Jason and I, we were barely moving our legs at that point, we were just so exhausted. Quarter-final week was Movie Week and so we did the American smooth to ‘Singin’ in the Rain’. Everyone seemed to love it but then we found ourselves in the bottom two. You have to be skilled as a choreographer not just to provide the steps but to be able to capture people’s attention, too. Jason was such a great showman that I wanted his personality to come across in the routine – it was like in the early days of the show when I had to play on his acting skills before he started developing a proper technique.

  The problem with quarter-finals week was that we had also started to put the group Christmas dance together, too. All the couples had to meet on the Monday to rehearse together and Jason was so stressed that we were missing a day of our own rehearsals and he was convinced that he wouldn’t be able to learn the routine. He looked like he was on the verge of tears. I gave him a big hug and tried to reassure him that this was the final stretch, that Angela and his family were behind him and there was so much love and support for him, but he was so stressed, he just didn’t feel prepared at all.

  That year there was no dance-off, the results were decided solely on the public vote, and we were up against former Wales footballer Robbie Savage and his partner Ola Jordan in the bottom two. I have been in that position many times before (I was expecting to be out every single week with John Sergeant!) and that moment when you are standing there, waiting to learn your fate, doesn’t get any easier. The end is in sight, the final is only a week away and you want to be a part of it. But we got through and in a way, reaching the semi-finals was great, but it made us even more stressed. By this point I realised we wouldn’t win the show. I think Jason did, too, but we wanted to reach the final, we wanted to continue to put in 110 per cent and see where it got us. We had to dance the samba, notoriously the hardest dance to perform because it is so technically difficult. I thought, ‘OK, we can do this. We’ll do the samba and the Argentine tango as Jason will be able to play the part well.’

  I didn’t make the samba too crazy as I wanted to show his fun side and for the viewers to see him happy and enjoying himself. And when we first performed the Argentine tango in the dress rehearsal on the Friday, the producers actually came over to us and said what an amazing routine it was. We had people from the production crew applauding us after the rehearsal and that gave Jason such a boost. They said to him: ‘Whatever you do, Jase, you have to go out and dance it in exactly the same way – it was outstanding!’r />
  So when it came to Saturday night, we just wanted to get the samba out of the way first and dance the Argentine tango! We closed the show with that dance and up until that point, before every performance, I would have to give Jason a bit of reassurance – just a little hug or a few words of encouragement. When we walked out onto the dance floor before the tango, I was about to give him a little pep talk but he just stopped me: ‘Kristina, I’ve got it,’ he said. I knew from that point on this dance was going to be amazing. He knew what he was doing and he was ready to perform like there was no tomorrow. The studio went nuts and everyone loved it. Jason was on the verge of tears at the end; it was a magnificent performance. Suddenly the press were saying that Jason did deserve a place in the final. It was the perfect combination of movement and acting and he was brilliant in the role. I was so proud of him and we were eventually rewarded with a place in the final.

  Every time I start a new series I am asked by journalists, ‘Do you want to win? Do you want to get to the final?’ And yes, of course it’s nice to say you’ve won the series, but as a professional dancer, it doesn’t really change our lives dramatically. In our dancing world it doesn’t really make a difference, but what does make a difference is the impact you make on the show. I would rather have a memorable run with John Sergeant than win the show and be forgotten the following year.

  McFly drummer Harry Judd won the show that year with his dance partner Aliona Vilani, and he was brilliant. Handsome and talented, we all knew from the word go he would win as he was so good and everyone adored him. You can’t compete with that popularity and Jason wasn’t stupid, he knew we wouldn’t win but to get to the final, well, that was enough for us.