Benoni girl hits Strictly Come Dancing

At 20 years old, Marcella Solimeo is the youngest professional dancer on the Strictly Come Dancing show.

Solimeo recently toured with the stars of Strictly Come Dancing UK, covering over 74 cities in England, Wales, Scotland and Jersey.

She left in March and returned at the beginning of July, to participate in Strictly Come Dancing South Africa.

The Farrarmere star started dancing at the age of three, with ballet, and started Latin American when she was 12 years old and has loved it since.

It’s where her passion lies and a part of who she is.

Solimeo has always had a love for dancing and has always wanted to make it her career.

Despite difficulties in pursuing such a career, she never gave up.

“Passion and love for something will always beat any difficulty,” Solimeo said.

She has always made it a priority in her life and has always sacrificed to spend time practising and improving striving to always get to the next step.

Besides dancing, Solimeo has never had any interest in any other sport, but she enjoys reading, listening to music and good dinners as a form of chill time and relaxation.

“Eating chocolate is a huge hobby of mine,” she said.

Solimeo’s ultimate goal in life is to become a world champion, through reaching her fullest potential and being the best possible dancer by learning all that she can and continuing to gain any skills needed to get there.

“I am more than prepared to do that to get there; it would also be to inspire people through dance and be able to get people to relate to emotions through dancing,” she said.

Her inspiration is drawn from her everyday life experiences.

“Whatever experiences I go through in life, good or bad, I express and pour out in dancing,”Solimeo said

Dancing is her form of therapy so any emotions become an inspiration and she translates this emotion into movement.

Solimeo says she will never forget the day she got the email saying that she would be one of the new professionals on Strictly Come Dancing SA.

She was sitting at a restaurant in Scotland and just screamed the place down when she read the email.

“It has always been a goal of mine to achieve and to see all my hard work, efforts and time spent paying off, there is no greater feeling or more satisfying feeling than that.

I am extremely grateful for this opportunity and am completely over the moon to be a part of it and will always give my all throughout the season!

There are no words to describe such a feeling, “said Solimeo.

Making dancing her career has always been her goal and priority and she is solely focusing on that.

She would love to study and obtain a teacher’s degree for nursery school, as she has love for children.

“Nothing in life comes easy and when there are hardships thrown at you it’s so easy to just give up; my biggest advice would be to never ever give up purely because something is difficult; it’s so much more rewarding to succeed and reach your goals knowing that you worked for it and overcame everything and anything that brought you down,

Always follow your passion and as cliche as it may sound, nothing is impossible”.

‘If you want it you will do anything and everything to get it and always do it whole-heartedly, rather use the negative to push you harder and express it through your passion instead of allowing it to stop you,” said Solimeo.

“I would probably be completely gobsmacked and speechless if I win Strictly Come Dancing; it would, without question, be a dream come true.

“There is definitely tough competition, but we are working beyond hard to win that trophy and we keep on pushing and working on anything that the judges critique us on.

“Siv is very hard-working and determined and I’m very grateful for him as a partner; I have no doubt that we have the potential to win this competition,” she said.

The City Times ran an article last week, on Janine Davies, who is also a participant on the Strictly Come Dancing show.

The show is aired live on SABC 3, every Friday, at 8.30pm.