'Strictly' Inclusive: Co-creating the past, present and future

Strictly Come Dancing is a hugely successful BBC programme with an enormous following of fans, with viewers averaging at 8 million per week. This public engagement project will involve the public with research about BBC's cutting-edge work in televising dance, focusing on Strictly. Drawing on research expertise at the Centre for Dance Research, we will partner with the BBC and utilise both BBC archive analysis and public engagement activities to better understand and celebrate the impact of the programme on audiences. We will specifically focus on how Strictly has addressed inclusion and representation of gender, sexuality and disability. Along with this we will share our knowledge of archival research, dance analysis and 'kinaesthetic empathy' of the viewers (Wood, 2010); supporting participants to critically and creatively reflection on televised dance. This project will engage dance enthusiasts from D/deaf and LGBTQIA+ communities in the Midlands region of the UK by collaborating with Coventry Pride, the Deaf Cultural Centre and Deaf Explorer in Birmingham to select archival clips, host discussions and generate creative responses as an approach to reflect on inclusion and representation in Strictly Come Dancing - past, present and future. We will host workshops and discussion documented through film; facilitate creative responses through stop motion gifs and artistic films; and celebrate the material developed through a public launch and sharing in local/social media outlets.