Marcus and Karen Hilton,
from England
from England
Dancesportinfo: Marcus, Karen, you won practically every major professional championship there is. I am not going to ask you about your dance career because you are too well known, you're legends of the dance, particularly in Ballroom dancing. Your career was simply too fantastic not to know it! [Marcus laughing] How do you think dancing has changed from the time you were competing?
Marcus: ....[pause] I think the dancers have become younger. When we were dancing, when we first broke into the final, when we eventually started to win, we were dancing against the people that were a little bit older than us. We had youth on our side. Now the dancers seem to be younger. Although, thinking about this, take Timothy Howson, who just won the International, must be in his thirties. Whilst we won our first Worlds when we were 29!
"the timing aspect, the beauty of the dancing sometimes is lost to, say, go for the sportive look, for the quickest look, for the strongest look"
Karen: Timothy [Howson - Ed.] is ten years younger than us...
Marcus: Everything seems to be, watching it, quicker, faster...
Karen: I think the dancing developed in a different way really... Choreography became faster. I think it's a trend at the moment that choreography is faster. It is really down to the coaches to develop dancing in a different way. People are always trying to do something different. At the moment, syncopation has gone a little "hay wire", particularly in the slower dances like the Waltz. But we have to be very careful not to lose the character of these dances.But certainly the technique and the knowledge of the dances is much greater at an earlier age than it ever has been. Comparing to our own career... Comparing to ourselves then...
Marcus: I think you cannot say for yourself, because you didn't see yourself from the outside, you only felt what you were doing... I think dancing now is improving all the time. Maybe there is no single couple that stands out... maybe years ago, when we were champions for such a long time we stood out then... but now, the overall level seem to be much better. I think, as Karen was saying, the technical aspect, the timing aspect, the beauty of the dancing sometimes is lost to say go for the sportive look, for the quickest look, for the strongest look. Of course you have to be competitive, you have to be positive, but in the end of a day it's an art and you have to look beautiful doing it. I think sometimes that side of it is just a little bit forgotten... for the sheer speed effect.
in their house in London Karen: I think the standard is phenomenal, if we are just talking from the Professional point of view. If you take Professional semi-finalists, each of them would make a great final. Sometimes we don't see them in a finals situation, but I am sure that would be great.
Dancesportinfo: I was talking to one of the Polish teachers, at the International, and he said that from his point of view the time of the masters past... He said that several years ago, he had tears in his eyes when he's seen you dancing or in Latin, Donnie's dancing. But now it's just pleasing to the eye but no strong emotions....
Marcus: It's a transitional period now, I think. When you look at the finals now, there is a lot of top Amateurs who can progress to that status later in their lives. I think you have to give it a bit of time maybe. There is a lot of individual type performances now, which in our time I don't think there was. I think there were the odd two or three couples who stood out, who had their own performance styles. Now, there is more people who are dancing their own way. I can certainly think of two or three such couples in the Professional final who you can smile and say it's their own style! Whilst in our time, there was maybe one couple, apart from ourselves, who stood out as having their own style. Ballroom dancing especially now has branched out to the effect where people have their own styles.
Karen: I think that situation between ourselves and John and Ann [Ed:John Wood and Ann Lewis] when we danced, in the early part of our career, pushed us both to greater levels. Because we were always looking to be better than the other couple so it was a very positive feel for that. And we kept stretching ourselves and we had a time to develop it. So we were very lucky, I think. The same for Donnie.
Marcus: Donnie was in a great position, he was a young man when he found himself on the top of the Latin Professionals, with Gaynor. We worked our way up differently, from Latin to Ballroom.
Karen: We couldn't make up our minds [laughing].
Marcus : But I think we created our own style.
Dancesportinfo: Not many people think about you as Latin dancers, really...
Marcus : No, because for the last 12 years of our career we were mainly Ballroom, only Ballroom. But we were brought up to do both. We used to teach Latin, mainly Latin. Now the tide has changed. But Latin influence in our dancing helped to create a certain look and flexibility. Maybe that side of it, in today dancing is not as strong. People tend to specialise in one or the other branch, Ballroom or Latin. That can shape the performance a little bit, I think.
"But Latin influence in our dancing helped to create a certain look. And the flexibility [...] That can style the performance"
Dancesportinfo: Probably one of the questions you're ask the most is how can you achieve such level. Probably the answer is work hard, but it's a boring answer and there obviously are thousands of couples who work hard and are talented. But they aren't achieving your level.
Karen: I think it all depends on circumstances. They say that some partnerships are made in heaven. And it's true really. We look at it from our own point of view, we live and breathe dancing not just five hours a day, or seven as top competitors. It was always 24 hours a day, not every couple can do that. Not every couple is romantically involved. Everything we did was towards that goal... It went beyond... Couples come in today and say, "oh, we did two hours practice last night," and I smile sometimes, because when we were preparing for a big competition, two months before Blackpool, and we used to do a minimum of six hours on the floor, every single day.
We've already danced together for twenty years but you can see, that's the sort of commitment we were prepared to put in. People say work hard, but how hard do people work? And despite of that still finding the joy of dance which will make the whole thing look magical. That's the balance. You have to find a balance with everything you do!
Marcus : And there is a strong element of luck involved, like with everything! You have to have talent to start with, but it has to be nurtured, trained in correct direction. And we were obviously in the right place, at the right time, when we met each other, we had the correct grounding from our first teachers. We had some bad results, we had negative feeling. But you get over that. We were very, very competitive. So even through the bad times, the competitive spirit brought us back to make sure we did better next time!
Karen : We were always hungry for it, it meant a lot for us. We always took the responsibility of it on board. And responsibility to everybody else. Our greatest disappointment is that Hazel and Chris finished so early. It's a terrible disappointment. It's not only for them. They had so much more to offer, to do, and they were an absolute delight in everything they did. But it didn't mean enough for them to continue.... For an aspiring dancer, everything they did and had was a dream, but it wasn't enough for them.
