Can you feel the heat on the dance floor?

Published Jul 16, 2012

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POLISHED, well-choreographed and exuberant, Australian dance production Burn the Floor does just that. The boys are hot, the girls are dressed in less and the audience just lapped it up.

In addition to the perving stakes, though, it is also a testament to practice and 100 percent commitment to the art of ballroom dancing.

It is not ballroom in the strictly classical sense; this is the flashy, showy side of competitive ballroom dance, all the extra fripperies that make non-dance people go “whoo-hoo!”

Female dancers are flung around with abandon and extreme control and the energy levels only increase, never flag.

The two-hour long show does not follow any narrative, but presents various dance sequences, all meant to highlight the talented dancers.

Two vocalists and two percussionists sing and play over canned music to add warmth to what could otherwise be a very cold stage if all you’ve got is two people dancing from one side to the other.

The sequences using all the dancers work the best, slickly showing off precision work and timing.

The programme is divided between the standard first half featuring dances like the foxtrot and the waltz and the second half of Latin American dances like the tango and the paso doble.

All of the dancers are dance champions and no one puts a foot wrong. Sequences which really stand out are the guys doing the paso doble, the waltz sequence – of two couples literally mirroring each other – leading into a great Latin sequence.

The current winner of Australia’s So You Think You Can Dance, Robbie Kmetoni, is a flexible little ball of energy while Keo Motsepe – undefeated SA Latin American Champion since 2004 – got a lot of love from the audience.

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