R&S Pride FEB 223.qxp 05/01/2021 13:42 Page 26
AN EVENING WITH KEVIN & JOANNE
LET’S DANCE Dance your winter blues away with Strictly Come Dancing champion siblings, Kevin and Joanne Clifton for a lovely evening of song, dance and memories! SIBLING RIVALRY? Well, not quite, but the friendly competitiveness of brother and sister dancers Kevin and Joanne Clifton is at least enough to provide a sparky dynamic for an evening of song, dance and laughter. You’ll know both dancers from the flagship BBC programme Strictly Come Dancing. Kevin’s dancing career began long before he found fame on Strictly. Known by Brucie as Kevin from Grimsby, he did indeed grow up in the Lincolnshire town, born to ballroom dancing world champions Keith and Judy Clifton. Kevin was Youth World Number One then four-time British Latin champion, and upon his retirement from competitive dance in 2007, he was ranked the seventh best dancer in the world. In 2010, he shimmied into musical theatre, appearing in Dirty Dancing The Musical, where he enjoyed steady work prior to auditioning for Strictly in Series 11. Kevin would go on to dance on the show from series 11 to 17, lifting the glitter ball and taking first place with partner Stacey Dooley in his penultimate series. Joanne is the younger sibling by just a year, and has been a British Champion five times as well as a Professional Ballroom European Champion in 2012 and Professional World Dancesport Games Champion in 2013. Around the millennium, Karen moved to Bologna to train with Italy’s largest dance school, Team Diablo. After working with Kevin for the Burn the Floor Dance Company in 2014 she also turned to musical theatre and played the titular role of Millie in Thoroughly Modern Millie as well as Alex Owens in Flashdance and the eponymous Marilyn Monroe in Norma Jean the Musical. Karen began joined the professional dancers of Strictly for series 12 and 14, meaning a few nailbiting nights for Keith and Judy. But what of the two siblings themselves, and rivalry...? >> Words: Rob Davis.
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