FROM meeting his idol to growing in confidence, we spoke exclusively to The Greatest Dancer contestant, Ryan Gibson, about his time on the show.
Ryan, 19, from Sandhurst, made it to the live shows of the BBC series The Greatest Dancer — a show which sees dancers battle it out to win £50,000 and a chance to perform on Strictly Come Dancing — but was voted off last weekend.
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He described the experience as "a dream come true" revealing he "was really shocked" and "thought it was a mistake" when he was chosen to perform on the live shows.
He said "other groups were so talented" and “personally didn’t think I was that good".
During the first auditions, dancers perform behind a mirror where the captains — singer Cheryl, Glee-star Matthew Morrison, Strictly Come Dancing Star Oti Mabuse and choreographer Todrick Hall — and audience are sat on the other side.
If contestants receive 75 per cent or more votes from the audience, the mirror opens and the dancers go through to the next round and the captains choose three acts to be on their team.
Ryan, who describes his dance style as "unique", was chosen by his "role model" Todrick to be on his team.
He explained he had "admired him for a long time" and worked a lot harder on his audition piece when he found out Todrick was a captain.
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He added: “Every time I met him I was still so star struck.
"It was very, very unreal.”
Each week of the themed live shows, dancers are given a challenge and on the first week it was Best of British where Ryan was given "the Swinging Sixties" as his challenge.
He revealed this was his favourite performance on the show as it was “good to work with the camera and costumes” and it felt "like a music video".
Ryan, who works at his local M&S and The Army Dance Company, has been dancing since the age of three but explained he started dancing properly when he joined Vanquish Entertainment, a dance company based in Bracknell, at 13 years old.
He revealed he is "quite shy on the outside" but dancing gives him an "alter ego" adding that being on the show has given him more confidence and "helped me to be all I want to be".
He added: "It’s been such a good and eye-opening experience.”
Going forward, Ryan is going to focus on training more, improving his flexibility and gaining more experience.
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