Judges for 'Dancing With The Stars' announced
The three judges on RTE's 'Dancing With the Stars' are Julian Benson, Brian Redmond and Loraine Barry.
The multi-talented Julian Benson will be one of the three judges. His expertise and experience knows no bounds having worked as a choreographer, producer, director and talent agent. Trained in the art of modern jazz, tap, ballet and latin dance western at the Australian Academy of Performing Arts and later in Paris, Julian is well versed to take on the role of judging. And of course given his time as a talent agent he will be well armed to dish out advice and guidance to the 11 celebrity dancers taking part in the show.
Julian says: “I’ve been dancing for many years, and produced and choreographed a number of highly successful shows. My fellow judges would be a lot more technically-minded, I’m going to be the peoples’ judge. I’ll be looking for ‘the three Ps’; passion, performance and personality.”
Ballroom dancer and coach Brian Redmond is one of the most successful male ballroom dancers to come from Ireland over the last three decades. He began ballroom at the relatively old age of 11 and went on to win eight All Ireland ballroom, Latin and show dance championships. Having trained in London with some of the most iconic coaches in the history of ballroom dancing, he has danced, competed and taught all over the world in some of the most prestigious venues including the world famous Albert Hall. He retired from competing in 2005 to begin coaching and opened his own dance studio which has evolved in to Spin Activity Centre.
Brian says: 'There’s already a great bit of banter between the judges. I’ve known Loraine for 25 years, we’re both from a ballroom background, but we have different ideas of what we like and what we don’t. There’s guaranteed to be conflict. Equally, I’ve gotten to know Julian very well over the years. So as a trio, we get on but we won’t be afraid to tell each other what’s what.”
And lastly introducing ballroom royalty - Loraine Barry, who couldn’t have more awards under her belt if she tried! With over fifty national and international titles to her name, Dubliner Loraine Barry is one of the most successful ballroom dancers Ireland has ever produced. She started winning titles at just 17 taking home the Open British Youth Ballroom Champion and didn’t stop there, going on as a professional to win an outstanding three Open British Championships, two World, two International, two European and six Closed British Titles. Her services to dance have been recognized with four British Dance Federation Awards, The German Open Award, The Japanese Prince Mikasa Award, The Arthur Murray Award and last but not least The Irish Dance Federation Award. She still tours the world sharing her knowledge and experience and it is only fitting that she take her position on the judges’ panel to share that valuable knowledge with our contestants!
Loraine says: 'I’ll be a very fair judge to the celebrities, we have to understand that the majority of celebrities have little to no dance experience so they’re being taken completely out of their comfort zones. I’ll be mainly looking for characterization of dances in the early stages but I’ll expect technical ability to develop as the show progresses.”
The eleven celebrities who will be waltzing their way around the dancefloor are: Aidan O'Mahony, Des Bishop, Des Cahill, Dayl Cronin, Katherine Lynch, Dr Eva Orsmond, Teresa Mannion, Thalia Heffernan, Hughie Maughan, Denise McCormack and Aoibhin Garrihy. The series, presented by Amanda Byram and Nicky Byrne, begins on RTÉ One for 12 weeks from 6.30pm Sunday 8th January. Each pairing will have a different dancing genre to master every week from the cha-cha to mambo to tango and they’ll have just seven days to perfect their routine before performing live to the nation.
They will be the scored by Julian, Brian and Loraine, the expert panel of judges and the viewing public at home. All the contestants will be safe for the first two shows, but after that one celeb and their dancing partner will leave the competition each week.
If the main show isn’t enough for dancing fans, Friday nights at 8.30pm on RTÉ One will feature Can’t Stop Dancing, the preview show for Dancing with the Stars hosted by Bláthnaid Treacy. Every week Can’t Stop Dancing will go behind the scenes with Bláthnaid getting low down from the judges, the professional dancers and the stars.