South Tyneside teacher reveals the 'new normal' under the pandemic for lovers of ballroom dancing

And as Covid-19 restrictions continue, a South Tyneside teacher told how demand is as high as ever for dance lessons even though they have to be held in a different way.

We caught up with Stuart Hatton who introduced the quarantine cha cha cha for people at home at the start of the pandemic in his Hatton Academy of Dance and Arts studios in Commercial Road, South Shields.

Now the studio is back open and ballroom dancing has resumed but Stuart said the coronavirus is causing challenges.

“We have a formation team which can’t dance together. We have 12 adults in the team and we have six people doing their lines as best they can without their partner.

"They sit down and then we have the six ladies who get up and do their lines as best they can too.

"It’s a funny old world and the dance world has had to take a massive leap and jump into the 21st century,” said Stuart.

Learning to ballroom dance without a partner is a ‘new skill’ that dance lovers are having to learn, he said.

"My older dancers come in and normally they would dance with me. Now they are having to dance on their own and it is definitely a challenge.

"It has made everyone think outside the box but they also have to think inside the box because everyone has to dance in their own box in the studio now.”

But Stuart welcomed the return of Strictly Come Dancing on television and said it always provided a boost for his studio membership.

"Let’s face it,” he said, “it is a national institution now.”

He welcomed news that the show would be including same sex couples this year and said ‘rightly so’.

"The world is a fast moving place and ballroom dancing should keep up with it,” he added.

Earlier this year, we told how Stuart, a professional ballroom and Latin American dance teacher, had introduced online dance lessons for people in isolation including the self isolation samba and the quarantine cha cha cha.

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