Two new professional dancers are joining the Strictly Come Dancing line-up when it returns to screens in the autumn, the BBC has announced.
American-born Alexis Warr and Australian-born Julian Caillon will feature in the BBC One show alongside 18 returning professional dancers.
Warr won US dance series So You Think You Can Dance in 2022 and has performed as a guest professional dancer and in the dance troupe of Dancing With The Stars, the US version of Strictly.
Caillon has appeared as a professional dancer on three seasons of Australia’s Dancing With The Stars. A former personal trainer, he has also completed two triathlons this year.
“I’ve admired Strictly for years, so joining this incredible family is such an honour,” Warr said in a statement.
“I’ve watched it for years, especially cheering on all the amazing dancers I know and work with who’ve been part of it,” Caillon added.
Warr and Caillon are being interviewed about their new roles on BBC Radio 2’s Breakfast Show on Monday morning.
Craig Revel Horwood, Motsi Mabuse, Anton Du Beke and Shirley Ballas will be returning as judges, with Tess Daly and Claudia Winkleman as hosts. The celebrity line-up for the series will be revealed later in the year, the BBC added.
The show, which has been airing since 2004, has faced multiple controversies over the past year relating to the behaviour of some of its professional dancers and celebrity guests.
Professional dancers Giovanni Pernice and Graziano Di Prima left the show last year following allegations about their behaviour towards their dance partners.
The BBC announced new welfare measures for Strictly last July. These include having chaperones in all rehearsal rooms, adding two new welfare producers and providing additional training for the professional dancers, production team and crew.
In January, Welsh opera singer Wynne Evans, who had been a celebrity dancer in last year’s series, made what he described as an “inappropriate and unacceptable” comment during the Strictly live tour launch. He took time off from his BBC Radio Wales daytime show after the incident, and the BBC said in May that he will not be returning to it.
EastEnders star Jamie Borthwick was suspended by the BBC last month after The Sun reported that he used a slur against people with disabilities while backstage during Strictly rehearsals in November. Borthwick apologised and the BBC said his language was “entirely unacceptable”.
