Sheffield charity director who teaches breakdance to blind students appears on Strictly - It Takes Two

Nathan Geering, who runs Rationale Arts in the city, was invited to appear due to his work teaching people with visual impairment breakdance as a means of injury prevention and to improve spatial awareness.

But the special feature focused on one of his students, 16-year-old Crispin Gell from Chesterfield, who has shown real talent for breakin’.

While breakdance is often used to refer to the dance art form, for commercial reasons it is now called breakin’, explained Nathan.

A student at Royal National College for the Blind in Hereford, Nathan said Crispin has gone from "strength to strength" although he just started dancing a year and a half ago.

Crispin totally lost his sight since he was six, due to hereditary glaucoma and aniridia.

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"At first, he didn't want anything to do with dancing, he didn’t like it because he never really tried it,” said Nathan.

"But then one day, he came in for work experience but there wasn't any opportunity. So I brought him to one of my dance classes, he took part and he got hooked.

"Since then, not only has he learned breakin’ on a professional level, he has also gone on to perform on various showcases, protests and involved in activism.

"And now he's on national TV, all in a year of dancing. It's been pretty great. Now he's considering a career in dancing. It's a complete turnaround."

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Nathan said Crispin had a great experience shooting for the Strictly Come Dancing companion show, which aired yesterday, Wednesday, December 16.

An artistic director, Nathan is known for working with the visually impaired since he developed dance that is accessible for people with visual impairment to take part in by creating a beatbox sounds system as a form of instruction to a dancer.

Nathan began his dance career in 2002 and in 2017 was appointed as the artistic director for the Special Olympics Opening Ceremony.

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