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Donnie Burns, MBE*  - Part 1

from England

Dancesportinfo: Taking to you about dancing is something special. Paul Killick mentioned in this "infamous" article that world-champions are seen as semi-gods. So in comparison to them, you must be a god! [Donnie laughing]. So, out of curiosity, is there anybody else in a history of dance who had more titles than you?

Donnie Burns: ....[pause ] I don't think so. I think that the nearest, which is very near, is an only one title difference with Bill and Bobbie [Irvine - Ed.]. Unfortunately Bobbie has just passed away which is a tragic loss... of an icon. So I don't think so, I think Gaynor [Donnie's partner for many years, Gaynor Fairweather - Ed. ] and I had a record by virtue of having 15 world titles

Dancesportinfo: 15? I thought it was 14

Donnie Burns: No, it was 14 World Professional Latin plus a World South American Showdance. So it's 15. I think it's a record.


in his house in Kent

Dancesportinfo: There are several things I would like to talk to you about. We have the impression sometimes, that in England dancing is, if not dying, much less popular than it used to be. But we hear from many people that this is just with regard to competitive dancing, and that social dancing is very popular. In other countries it is flourishing, e.g. China, Japan, Italy or Russia. Do you think we can do something here in England to improve the popularity of dancing?

Donnie Burns : Everything in dancing and everything in life is timing. And if you had asked me the same question two or three years ago I would have said it was very difficult. But actually now I think, yes, it funnily enough had started. You see, my opinion is, my humble opinion is, that countries which have the longest legacy are the ones which have the biggest credibility problems. For example Great Britain or England is a country with a great dancing heritage and in this country we have a big credibility problem for dancing with the general public.

"If you want to make a dancing programme start with a blank sheet of paper and design it according to what you want"

Some of that is based on Come Dancing [BBC TV long running dancing programme which was shown in England between 1949 and 1998 - Ed. ] and the fact that they used to say, oh it's Joan, she is a toilet cleaner by day and she saws her own stones at night. So, good intensions, but it didn't do us any favours. And by that time, I don't think that dancing made a very good television and television made good dancing. I don't think we helped each other. I always recommended to BBC and other companies that I don't think it's necessary good idea to take TV and transplant it onto a preexisting event. I've never seen logic in that. I've always recommended if you want to make a dancing programme start with a blank sheet of paper and design it according to what you want. Now for the first time it seems to have happened in this country.

Dancesportinfo: Are you talking about 'Strictly Come Dancing' [a new BBC TV programme shown for the first time this year featuring TV celebrities dancing with professionals and competing in ballroom and latin - Ed.]?

Donnie Burns: Yeah! I think it a good television; I think it's very good. And I think it can be good for the business. I think that a business did go through a hard time. But I think that we are out of it now, we are on the way up. And both parties, the gloom and doom people who say it's not as good as it was - and it is true, comparatively, and the other people who also say, yes, but it is at the level of Markus and Karen, Donnie and Gaynor, Chris and Hazel are also right. But if you look at social dance in this country, it is actually much bigger than you think.
The countries to which you refer, China for example, Russia, they are much younger in dance, so I think they are experiencing the boom that we did forty years ago or twenty years ago. That is happening to them now. So therefore, I am not sure whether dancing world wide is on a up or down, or is geographically redistributing itself.


in the studio

Dancesportinfo: That's an interesting point of view

Donnie Burns: I am not sure! I think so.

Dancesportinfo : Some people I was talking to said that twenty years ago or so, other countries looked up to England, to the English approach to dance, and improved, moving the "scheme" in which dancing operates to a higher level. Now England has to catch up in a sense...

"So it is more of a case of a hunger for success and the artistry in DNA of the individuals rather than a system of the countries!"

Donnie Burns : I am not sure whether it's a scheme... Let's take Italy as an example. There is this myth that Italy is big, big, big, successful, successful, successful, popular, popular, popular. I don't doubt that Italian dancers today are fabulous, whereas twenty years ago I used to look for Italy in a programme, hopefully you would see them in early rounds because you knew they were quite early. Anybody, anybody would congratulate Italy on a miraculous success and achievement they made. However, if what I am hearing is true, the numbers in Italy now are drastically reducing. So I think that Italy, in numerical terms, has hit its peak. So therefore I don't think it's a system that it's massively better.
What we have now is ex-Soviet block and communist countries are opening up. Which means, countries which are artistic, genetically in DNA artistically gifted, hungry for success and relatively new. Which means, it's in contrast with a preestablished countries, which are not new, and in which life, artistically and materialistically has become more comfortable. So it is more of a case of a hunger for success and the artistry in DNA of the individuals rather than a system of the countries! However, I don't think that we British are any good in marketing. As marketing and publicity goes, we are probably the black hole of the world!! But does that mean that our system is terribly inferior? No. I think that what they have is very talented individual dancers and lots of them.


lesson with Dmitrii Timokhin and
Anna Bezikova

Dancesportinfo : If I am looking at Junior competitions here in England, I may see seven couples competing. You go to a similar competition in Russia and you have fifty, seventy or more dancing Juniors. As the law of probability says, you have a better chance of finding a real champion in fifty competitors than you have in five.

Donnie Burns: Yes, it is a statistical numbers game. But is it because of a better system? I don't think so, I am not sure about that. If the system in this country, which I am not defending because I am always the black sheep, I an always criticizing what we have. Because I believe it's healthy and I want everything in the country I live in and earn my living to be better. And we are too complacent and that's why we've lost so much. But to be fair I don't think it is so bad as it's said either, so being devils advocate I say like this: If our system was so bad we would not have the best three events in the world which we have. It's no doubt that the Blackpool, the International and the UK Open are the top three prestigious dance events in the world. And that's not from nothing. It is a combination of years if tradition and the perceived integrity of those events. Now I am not sure that any other country in the world has even one event on a par with the perceived integrity of ours.

"I tried to make a very logical point that without the social dance schools with all the kids you don't have dance sport as they call it"

Dancesportinfo : That is true, but, if for instance you look at the results of Blackpool or International or UK, and especially Junior Blackpool you see that the top English couples are getting to the semifinal...

Donnie Burns: If they are lucky...

Dancesportinfo : Yes! The explanation we've heard is that children in England are simply too lazy. But, children are the future of the dancing. After all, today's champions will be gone in 20 years...

talking to us in the kitchen
Donnie Burns: I think that there is some truth in that. I don't think you can generalize but as a numbers game, yes, I agree with that. And that's what I said.

Dancesportinfo : Another reason we've been given is that in some dance schools children are not even told about the open circuit. They are extremaly proud of getting a silver or gold medal and they strongly believe that they have reached the pinnacle of dancing.

Donnie Burns: Well, I don't think it is a good reason. I'll give you an example, when I was a kid I only took one medal, a silver medal. My teacher put my in the competitions immediately.

Dancesportinfo: That is what I am saying, teachers often don't do it.

Donnie Burns: Yes and no. Maybe they don't do it because it became so bloody expensive! The other thing... to be fair, until recently you had Peggy Spencer, which was the household name, you had Bill and Bobby [Irvine - Ed.], Michael Stillianos to a degree, Markus and Karen [Hilton - Ed. ] to a degree and Gaynor and I when we were competing and for all these years we had a lot of exposure on the BBC TV which was very good to us. I think in a way we almost became the household names in dancing. When Gaynor and I first started having success, and when the press one way or another, because we didn't have the Strictly Come Dancing then and all that machinery that we have now in our favour, we made most of our publicity progress on an individual basis. In other words we have an agent, I still have the same agent and he handled it. Outside most of the dance machinery we made our own progress with the press. The first question that they asked us, too see if we were any good, was: Are you in a formation team? [laughs] Because the household name with which they identified at that time was Frank and Peggy Spencer's formation team. So the yard sticks by which they judged us was if you were in Peggy Spencer's formation team you were very good. [laughs]. So it took a long time even to redress that balance. And that was a problem then.
I agree with you that there is a slightly different problem now. This is one of the arguments I had with IDSF when I first met the IDSF, about six years ago. They made an incredible statement that they were only interested in competitive dancing and that the social dance schools with the kids were of no consequence. I have never been able to get my head around that because I tried to make a very logical point that without the social dance schools with all the kids you don't have dance sport as they call it! But for some reason, at that time, it fell upon dead ears.


Donnie, with his wife Nicole
and his golden retriever

Dancesportinfo: Just like football clubs being interested in professional football only, and not in children playing football at school or on the playground

Donnie Burns: Yes! Or like saying I am only interested in forests but not in trees. I have never been able to understand it. But I assure you that was minuted, that's what they said at that time. The IDSF, at that time, had no interest in social dance and such dance schools were considered of little or no consequence. To me, if you came up through the medalist structure, as I did in Glasgow, and went to competitions, that's an incredible statement. On the continent what they seem to be doing is mixing it between the professional dance schools and amateur dance clubs. But I don't think it that much of a difference.
To take you back to the original point, I think what a lot of these countries have is people hungry for success and a cycle which is 10-15 years behind ours. And the reason I would back that up, trying to prove the point is Germany for example has exactly the system what Russia, Italy and those countries have but because the German cycle was in phase more or less with ours they have very few competitors of any consequence left as well. They've got some numbers but not that great any more.

Dancesportinfo: That leads me to another question, probably difficult to answer. Should Amateurs be allowed to teach? I have heard many arguments for why not, the main argument being that they are not prepared, that they are not ready, pr that they don't know how to teach. On the other hand I've seen many professionals who have less knowledge of how to teach than amateurs, because anybody can pass an exam and became professional, you don't have to be a dancer! Well, it is true that you don't have to be a good football player to become a coach, but anybody can go and open a dance school and start teaching! I believe that professionals should teach top amateurs, top amateurs should be able to earn some money in teaching other, lower level amateurs so that they can spend money on professionals' lessons. And maybe low level amateurs should teach beginners, creating a pyramid where professionals are at the top and social dancers/ beginners are at the bottom.

teaching Dmitrii and Anna

"It appears to me, that these couples or the dancers who have the least wanted to get the most"

Donnie Burns : Well, you ask lots of good questions but I am afraid that there is no black and white answer. There is a lot of gray in it. I always questioned the reason... Life is complicated, especially in the year 2004. Probably always was... And the complication that we have is that some amateurs in some countries have been allowed to teach. Whether that's good or bad but it's there. Now you can't have a competition in which a playing field is not level. So from the point of view of fair competition, one would have to accept that if amateurs from certain countries can teach so can amateurs from the others. Because otherwise you putting the amateur who can't at a substantial disadvantage. That is acceptable, I think, to most reasonable minds.
The other side of the coin is that for example myself and Gaynor, we were never allowed to teach. In my time when I was amateur and the rules in this country were you could not earn one pound from dancing otherwise you had to turn professional immediately. You couldn't do shows, you couldn't even win money. There was a guy who I admired greatly and we had good connection with at that time, he was from Norway and his name was Raymond Myhrengen. He was an amateur world champion, he beat Gaynor and I by one mark. He won the Worlds, we won the Blackpool, we won the European, he won the International. We were like this, one week we won, one week the other. At that time he was allowed to do shows, he was allowed to teach and he had about 20,000 pounds a sponsorship. I'm going back to eighties, 1980. Gaynor and I were not allowed a penny! And I remember how strongly I felt the disadvantage. And it is not about Raymond, he was a great guy and marvelous competitor and we found it so difficult to beat them so I am full of respect for Raymond! And if he was from a country where everything was more advantageous, it was Norway, so good for him. However, we represented Scotland, part of Great Britain, and in Great Britain it was absolutely opposite. We didn't have anything. I felt a great disadvantage, because my parents were not rich nor were Gaynor's so we struggled. I struggle enough without having somebody who sponsors you from head to toe against you.
But I tell you this. If we go back to the beginning of this conversation and if we are correct in our thinking that it's the hunger for success that makes the difference then I would question the wisdom of making people materialistically better off. Because it appears to me, that the couples or the dancers who have the least, wanted to get the most. Now, the proof of that pudding, my evidence that I would like to give is since we allowed amateurs to teach and do shows in this country I haven't seen the results improve one percent.

Dancesportinfo: Amateurs are not allowed to teach in this country, are they?

Donnie Burns: They are. They are allowed to teach under professional supervision in professional schools and they are now allowed to do shows. And I haven't seen one percent of improvement in the world class results as a result of that policy.


with Sergei and Mela

Dancesportinfo: I would argue that it is not wide-spread enough. Permission is given to a limited numbers of top amateurs only...

Donnie Burns: But what difference does it make? I think we have pin pointed the illness, but I don't think we've found a cure. I've got no personal objection to amateurs teaching, or doing shows. I really haven't because they are up against other people who can do it. But I don't think that is a problem. I agree with the illness but I don't agree with a cure.

"I've got no personal objection to amateurs teaching, or doing shows. I really haven't, because they are up against other people who can do it"

Dancesportinfo: So what cure would you propose?

Donnie Burns: I am not sure that I know the solution. How does one inject people with artistic hunger?

Dancesportinfo: Maybe by introducing it early, by raising them the right way...

Donnie Burns: It is from within. It may come with a right environment, but it is also internal. There are many, many links in a chain that make dancer successful. But in the end of the day the most important is the hunger and the guts! I am not sure how much you can make someone have it... I think you can help but in the end of a day it has to come from within.

See Part 2

*MBE - Member of the Order of the British Empire, the honorary title given by the Queen