Debbie Wright

We held a Blackpool Watch Party at the studio a little while back. Beer, pizza, the best ballroom dancing in the world on screen, and a room full of people who were genuinely happy to be there together. When it was over, something happened that stopped me in my tracks. People started folding chairs. Not because I asked. Not because there was a sign. They just — started doing it. Folding chairs, collapsing tables, pulling tablecloths off, carrying glasses to the sink. Someone asked me where...

I've been thinking a lot about this lately. I'll watch two dancers do the exact same figure — same timing, same footwork, same syllabus step — and they look almost nothing alike. One might be bold and expansive. The other soft and internal. Neither one is wrong. Both of them are completely right. Because the step is just the container. What fills it is you. That's something I've experienced on the floor myself, and honestly, it's one of my favorite things about ballroom dancing. I like to...

I've been to a lot of competitions. I've won a few. But the moment I walked into the Winter Gardens Ballroom at Blackpool, I knew this was special. What I didn't know was how it would make me feel — when you understand that you're standing somewhere people have been dreaming of standing for a hundred years. This was the 100th anniversary of the Blackpool Dance Festival. Dancers from all over the world had come to compete on this floor — this specific, legendary floor — and I was one of...