Dancing With Your Star!

Why was the ABC show Dancing With the Stars, which pulled 22.4 million viewers for its final episode on February 26, 2006 so popular?

Star power was one reason.

From suave thespian George Hamilton, long-legged pro wrestler Stacy Keibler, and soap opera actress Lisa Rinna to NFL great Jerry Rice, rap mogul Master P and the winner, entertainer Drew Lachey, the show's celebrity quotient was high. Pairing celebs to train and dance with world class ballroom dancers in front of a studio audience was a novel idea playing off the allure of competition and the reality show craze.

Another reason the program is a hit is audience interaction, as with American Idol. The show's judges have a say, but audience votes via telephone were worth half of the votes.

Executive producer Conrad Green, quoted on ABC's 20/20, identified yet another basis for the high ratings: "People love to see partner's dancing."

The surge in swing dancing since the '90s is proof that Green's claim is true. Couples swirling, twirling and swinging in tandem to music reprises a duet as old as Adam and Eve.

The 2004 film Shall We Dance?, starring Richard Gere and Jennifer Lopez added fuel to current dance vogue, and the documentary Mad Hot Ballroom (2005), which follows a group of New York City students as they compete for a dancing title, helped people across the nation become aware of this wonderful art. On April 7, 2006 New Line Cinema releases Take the Lead, a dramatization of the same story as the documentary, starring Alfre Woodard, and Antonio Banderas in the role of ballroom instructor and competitor Pierre Dulaine.

Perhaps parents witnessing their children dancing solo to today's popular music released nostalgia for truly social dancing as with the ballroom and Latin American styles featured on Dancing With the Stars and the films above. This is true not just in the United States; the North American version of the series was based on the BBC's international smash, Strictly Come Dancing.

A pent-up appreciation for the good old-fashioned romance of couple's dancing is my bet as another ground for the surprisingly vast viewership of such dance series' around the world. The Waltz, Tango, Rumba, Samba and the Fox Trot all accentuate the eroticism of partner dancing, the drama of courtship and coupling demonstrated in the course of the dances.

Social dancing spotlights the sensual interplay between a man and a woman, and romance is like a pas de deux between two lovers, with playful turns, slow dips and twists of coy and assertive conversation joined with shimmying hip moves timed to the freestyle rhythms of passion and desire.

Couple's dancing enhances non-verbal communication between partners, and many relationships begin with the question: May I have this dance? The sensuality of such dancing also serves to keep excitement and verve in the lives of long-term life mates.

So, vote for your romance today by taking a ballroom dance class offered in your town or city. After just a few lessons, you may find that you're dancing with your star!

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Greg Thomas is a long-time writer and editor who co-founded [http://www.VoicesofRomance.com], a site to enhance the dance of your love life and strengthen relationships via audio love poems, romantic gifts, and romance tips and secrets.