The British dance competition show, Strictly Come Dancing, crowned its winner for the show’s 19th season on December 18th, 2021. And the winner is?−British actress Rose Ayling-Ellis who began the season as the show’s first deaf contestant and now finishes as the show’s first deaf winner. She won alongside her dancing partner Giovanni Pernice who had made it to the final stage in 2015, 2017, and 2018 but had never secured a win up until now. The pair beat out Great British Bake Off winner John Whaite and television personality AJ Odudu who left the competition after an ankle injury.
A little context about Strictly Come Dancing for those of us living here across the pond. The show premiered in 2004, and its success in Britain prompted America to try its hand at dance competition shows, becoming the inspiration for Dancing with the Stars in 2005. The formats of the shows are very similar with well-known Brits competing against each other alongside professional dancers as partners.
While Rose Ayling-Ellis may not be a household name here in the states, she’s certainly a beloved figure back home. Over in the UK, Rose Ayling-Ellis is known for portraying Frankie Lewis on the wildly popular and long-running British soap East Enders which has been following the lives of the residents of the fictional East London borough Walford since 1985.
In the lead-up to Ayling-Ellis’s historic win, she and partner Pernice astounded viewers with a perfect score for their tango in the sixth week of the show, achieving the earliest perfect score in the show's history. In the eighth week of the season, the dancing pair featured a period of silence in their number, a tribute to honor the deaf community. Judge Anton Du Beke described the moment as "the greatest thing I've ever seen on the show.”
A “Sign” of the times
Russell Fowler, who runs a website devoted to courses in British Sign Language, revealed to Radio 1 Newsbeat that course enrollments have risen by more than 2,000% since Ayling-Ellis's started dancing onscreen, with spikes in enrollment every time a new episode airs. “In August we were averaging around 20 to 30 enrolments a day, but by November, we were receiving an average of 400.”
Similarly, it’s been reported that web searches for “learn sign language” and “sign language course” have also risen sharply in the UK, up by 300% and 222% since November 2020. And the Institute of British Sign Language agrees that Ayling-Ellis's presence on the show has “without a doubt” inspired viewers to learn sign language.
Representation matters
Prior to her finale win, Ayling-Ellis shared a video on Instagram that features children in the deaf community sending well-wishes. The video is captioned “Always be proud of who you are” and features encouragement from the children expressing how inspiring it is to see someone like themselves onscreen, performing, and outshining all the other contestants. One little girl exclaims, “Look, Rose, I’ve got special ears, like you!” while another melts hearts when she says, “You make me happy and proud of my hearing aid.”
The video and the public’s general reaction to Ayling-Ellis as a contestant and subsequent winner highlights an important truth: Representation matters. Everyone is unique, but most people have no trouble finding a place where they “fit in.” For deaf people especially, who can feel excluded from communities that have made no effort to effectively communicate with other cultures, it’s easy to feel left out of the loop.
When people from all backgrounds and abilities are included and welcomed, it encourages others to share their uniqueness. As a representative from National Deaf Children’s Society puts it, Rose Ayling-Ellis has “really captured the public’s imagination. We really hope the increased awareness about deafness and deaf issues that Rose has generated persists long after the show has finished.”
Or, to paraphrase one of the children in Ayling-Ellis’s Instagram video, hopefully, her win can encourage deaf and hard of hearing children everywhere to “keep dancing” toward their goals.
Comments