Luca Baricchi is originally from Italy. He is famously known in the United Kingdom and performs demonstrations all over the world. He is very handsome, charming and charismatic. The beautiful, elegant, and talented Loraine Baricchi is from England. She is revered as one of the best dancers in the world. In the hearts of Chinese dancers, Luca and Loraine are the “Gods of Dance.” They have retired after many years of dancing, but their story will continue on in the awe and fascination of admirers.

Finally, they to come to our side by Rose Li’s invitation! They came to Shenzhen and performed their very last demonstration in China in December of 2009. Now let us share Luca and Loraine Baricchi’s legendary story!

Become a legend is to be yourself
—Interview with former world champion Luca and Loraine

by Sally Garden
Dance Fashion China

I just want to dance
Luca was born in Italy, Reggio Emilia. When he was 9, he started to accept the systematic training of dancing, and deeply fell in love with it. At the age of 15, he went to the United Kingdom and began his legendary career in dance. Same as Luca, Lorraine started dancing when she was six, and then went to London at 17, and began to emerge into a star in dancing from then on and become more and more shining afterwards. “From the time I started dancing, I knew dancing was the only thing that I wanted to do,” Lorraine said, ” besides dancing, I don’t want to do other things, for example, I never thought that I could make myself work in an office.”
Though she has boundless enthusiasm and deep feeling in dancing, it’s not easy to become a shining dance star in London where lots of dancers gathered. Lorraine recalled: “In UK, the amateur dancers are not allowed to teach, and couldn’t get sponsors for their dancing career. When I was an amateur dancer, the living condition was very simple and crude, I lived in a small room even without electricity, so I couldn’t watch TV or have any entertainment. I didn’t have enough money to buy beautiful clothes. ”
With the love of dance and the solid faith in dancing, from the Youth Champion in Blackpool Dance Festival, Lorraine gradually turned into amateur. In 1989, when she received the Amateur champion in Blackpool Dance Festival for three consecutive years, she turned into professional, and soon became a shining star in the dance world.

Meet each other in 1993
For Luca and Lorraine, 1993 is a year worthy for memory, because, they–the two people who infatuated with dancing met each other in UK and instantly impressed by each other, they took each other’s hands and decided to dance beautiful dancing together.
They danced in the British Open, UK and the European Championship, WDDSC World Professional Championships and other major events. They won the titles wherever they went. Luca’s characteristic and handsome dancing combined with Lorraine’s elegance and charisma makes their performance incredible! In their dancing, the grace and elegance of British combined with the Italian vigorous and unrestrained passion, which has caused strong repercussions in the whole dance world.

Luca’s Teaching Theory
However, when they reached the pinnacle of dancing, Luca chose to retire. In 2001, Luca and Lorraine announced their retirement.
After retirement, they devoted themselves to research, turning the precious dancing experience that they have gained through these years into text and theory, that’s “Luca’s Teaching Theory” which was called ” the Dance Bible” by people afterwards .
“It is a very scientific teaching theory, which states that speed and power have nothing to do with muscle and strength, you need to learn your own body and the breath, and then use the technique to practice yourself and your dancing. Compared with young age and strength, basic skills and techique are more important and competitive. In short, it is a teaching theory that produces twice the result with half the effort . Rose, who is their student said that , “Luca and Lorraine are advocates of nature. Their dancing is very emotional, characteristic and fashionable, and the use of technique is superb.”

Seek the essence of dancing
Recalling the dancing experience, Luca said, ” So far, in our dancing career, I think we are always being in a state of forward-looking. In other words, we are always working hard and making ourselves improved. Of course, it will be very difficult in the beginning, but you must keep on learning and improve yourself continuously. If not, then your dancing will go backwards. ”
One time, Luca met a person who was researching the theory of “Balance” in Japan. He told Luca how to coordinate the dancer with nature, and also the coordination of the human body itself, to gain the “Balance”. So, Luca applied this theory to his dancing. Besides that, Luca and Lorraine also study REKI and Yoga which will be helpful in breath control; So does Buddhism and Chinese philosophy of Yin and Yang (the two opposing and complementary principles in nature) and Chinese culture.etc, which are all been applied to their dancing. “The reason why people love our dancing is that we study continously and are always trying to do better and better !”

You have two choices
Luca believes that dancing is a kind of art from the bottom of heart, and could bring happiness to others. Dancing is also helpful to the ones who are good at expressing his or her inside feelings by language. “Human body is full of energy, when two human bodies come together, the energy doubles! Along with music and the true feelings of your heart, dancing would become superb and with endless power, could make people deeply touched, that’s what we called ‘successful’dancing.” Luca has unique interpretation of dancing, while his opinion on competitive dancing is more intrinsical and comprehensive.
“As a dancer, you have two choices, to win the game or become a great dancer. For me, my dream is to become a great dancer. Because competition is just a competition, sometimes you win just because others are not so good. As a dancer, you couldn’t control the results of the competition, but you could control your own dancing . ”
Lorraine also said that if you have chosen to become a good dancer, then the dance itself is the thing that you should pay attention to. “Even when I am poor , I did not dance for money. However, when I do it good enough, people would suddenly come and ask for your teaching and they pay money for you, that is the truth. So, first of all, learn to enjoy dancing and create your own dancing, that’s very important.”

Create your own legend
During the interview, Luca emphasized on four keywords such as “true”，“deep”, “focus” and “emotion” again and again . In his opinion, the four words are the essential elements of successful dancing. If without these four elements, your dancing would become shallow and superficial.” Now, great number of dancers devote their attention to the ranking only, “happy when win, sad when lose”, in their mind “to win is a success in dancing”. On the other hand, they stop the intensive pursuit of dancing, which is very dangerous indeed.” Lorraine said, ” If Chinese dancers think Luca is the ‘Dance of God’, then I think he really deserves it, because he never stops exploring dancing in a further step, deeper in each step, then his dance level would be higher than the others. After decades of efforts and exploration, he has made great achievements that other dancers would never achieve, that might be the so-called ‘God’!”
Though Luca is a Legend in people’s eyes, he seems very cool and indifferent to it. He said: “My goal is to become a great dancer, I know I still need to work hard along the road to the goal and improve myself little by little. Every good dancer has his or her own talent, if he or she could focus on dancing itself, enhance and carry forward their own uniqueness and characters, then they would be the legend of themselves. “