One hundred participants, fifty hours of dancing and a cash prize of 100,000 euros for the couple for the longest period. The concept of De Dansmarathon on SBS is simple, but it gives way to a violent battle of attrition between the participants, and amazement among viewers. Not everyone came out of the competition unharmed: the dancers had cramps, back pain, sprained ankles, were exhausted, and some had to be dislocated on stretchers or in wheelchairs.
“It’s almost kind of off-putting,” host Wendy Van Dyck says of a weary participant in the broadcast. The program has also led to shocked and surprising reactions among viewers in recent days, but Talpa is looking back “positively,” and the head of the medical team says the event went “as expected.”
Participants were able to rest during the fifty-hour marathon, but if they wanted to walk away with the cash prize, it’s not smart. Because the couple who takes the least minutes of rest wins. The winning pair, Tawatha and Jermaine, rested exactly 35 minutes. The other 2,965 minutes were dancing.
John de Mol borrowed the idea for a dance marathon from the movie Sidney Pollack They shoot horses, right? In the film, a dance marathon is also held during the Great Depression in the United States: it becomes a brutal battle of attrition where people are killed.
