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Interview with Darren Bennett & Lilia Kopylova from Strictly Come Dancing
When did you first start dancing and how did you get into it?
Darren
I started dancing when I was 6, both of my parents were professional dancers and competitors and they were very successful. My brother and I were born into the industry, so dancing was something that we had always done.
 It was quite difficult being a young boy dancer, I found that when you do anything find different and people don’t understand it, and there is a sense of naivety, when people are not familiar with something.
I found that the best way to combat this was to make it very well known that I danced, the more people that knew, the better accepted it was. I travelled all over the world, told people about competitions, I found that, the more they knew about it, the more accepting they were.
Sharing my experiences with people, took away the mystery of the dance. If you try to hide it, people wonder why, I am very proud of what I’ve done and so, I didn’t hide it.
Lilia
I started when I was 4 years old, I did ice skating and part of that training was to learn how to dance, I took ballet, did lots of physical activity, some gymnastics, I started ballroom when I was 9. There were 10 types of dances, 5 Ballroom and 5 Latin American, I also did what was called a ration programme, 2 or 3 folk land type dances, it was all part of the dance structure.
Is the dance industry a difficult one to become successful in?
Darren
Like any other industry, it’s difficult, there can only be one winner, so it’s about being the best at what you do.
That goes for any career you want to be successful in, compare it to football, at the end of the day, whatever you go into, the application is equally as hard at whatever you do, takes dedication to be the best.
You have to train everyday, eat, breath, and sleep dance. We’re champions in our field because we’ve worked so hard.
Lilia
Yes, it involves a lot of hard work, determination, sacrifices throughout your career. You have to push yourself, the scene is very competitive, and everyone is there to win.
I’ve been competing for years and years, I’ve spent most of my life dancing, no time for friends or hobbies, and it was school then straight to dance. Weekends were spent competing, it was very hard, you have to stick at it to do it professionally.
What has been your most memorable moment?
Darren
I treat my career as a bookshelf, each shelf has a different moment, many moments have been proud of, I’ve been British champion twice, Latin Fever, Strictly, the fortunate thing is, is that there have been a wide variety of things that have been memorable, winning competitions, difficult to name just one, so I tend to look at them as different entities instead of lumping everything together.
Lilia
For me, it was probably making the world ballroom final as a professional dancer. There is a British championship, considered to be biggest championship of the year, bit like the Wimbledon of the Ballroom and Latin scene, I represented British team a year after turning professional.
There is no comparison between doing Strictly and competing, they are very different.
If you were not a successful dancer, what other profession would you have chosen?
Darren
Some form of teaching, I used to teach 10 lessons per day, I was a very successful teacher. I trained youth champions, even at an early age.
When you train children, they need constant supervision, and so we had to sacrifice teaching for Strictly. The great thing about being a dancer is that you can revert back to teaching once your competing career is over.
Lilia
It would have to have been something artistic, I’m a very creative person, so I definitely couldn’t do a 9 to 5 office job! Maybe performing or something along those lines, I’ve always been very creative since I was very little, both of parents are architects so I come from a very creative background.
Do you have any embarrassing moments to share with us?
Darren
I accidently kissed Emma Bunton‘s breast on live TV, she was sitting on my knee at the end of the dance and as I turned round, my head ended up face down in her cleavage on live TV!
Lilia
It happened recently, during Latin Fever at Peacock, I came on stage too early, only it was too late when I realised, as once I was on the stage, I couldn’t go back! I ended up being responsible for making everyone else looked wrong and I looked fine! I wanted ground to swallow me up!
Darren
Theatre is a very different environment to comps, you can cover up, when other people involved more difficult, and it was her birthday so she was forgiven!
Lilia threw me because she was completely early when she went on, but you need to remember not to take yourself too seriously, you’ve got to have fun too!
What are your plans for the future?
Darren
We have Strictly Come Dancing for the next 5 months, (obviously that depends on who you get, lol), then the live tour.
We’re hoping to tour Latin Fever next year, we’ve had lots of emails from people who would like to see the show, so we will have to wait and see!
Lilia
We’re always so busy, we’ve had a great competitive career, this is our sixth year with Strictly, Latin Fever is becoming a very successful west end show, so our hands are very full! It’s really difficult to wish for anything more, we’re very happy with the way things are at the moment.
Is there anything else that you would like to add?
Darren
We’ve had a very successful year, there’s a project we’re involved in called Essentially Dance, we’re also on the council for the government obesity project. Our aim is to promote dance in whatever form it may be, all forms of dance are relevant to different people.
Next year will hopefully encourage people to use dance as communication, as social interaction, to help fitness, learning a social skill, health department have looked at, dance was 2nd biggest sport in schools, particularly as girls see dance as one thing they want to do. We want to help introduce dance to encourage health and fitness in schools.
Lilia
Yes, the school project - Essentially Dance, it’s an initiative for schools to teach as many children to dance 5-16 year olds, its teaching teachers to teach dance. We’re trying to get as many kids dancing as possible, as Darren said, Dance is the 2nd biggest activity after football, very successful.
The great thing is that everybody benefits from getting involved in dance, as we have no time to teach, we are teaching others so they can teach new people to dance.
To find out more about the project Essentially Dance, go to www.essentiallydance.com. Sue Cooper is the contact.
Interview conducted by Mel C
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