麻豆社

Like Oti, Motsi grew up in South Africa and fell in love with dancing at a young age. She showed immense talent but, like other black dancers, faced enormous racism when dancing competitively. "It was really tough," she admits.

Her mother, who ran a dance school, fought hard for her and other black dancers to be fairly judged. "It was always a fight," she recalls. And a fight to fit in as they would, as Motsi says, "straighten our hair almost to the verge of our hair falling out". But the hard times made the young dancer even more determined.

Aged 18, she shocked her parents by postponing her university law studies and travelling to Germany to establish her dancing career. But it was a gamble that paid off. She competed in international dance competitions and became German champion. With her husband, Motsi now runs a dance school in Germany – the country they have called home for the last 20 years.

In 2007, Motsi joined the show Let's Dance – the German version of Strictly – as a professional dancer, and since 2011 she has been a judge. In 2019 she got the call to join the British Strictly Come Dancing. Both Motsi and Oti say Oti winning the series was a huge moment in their life, after the obstacles they had faced early in their careers. It was about so much more than them as individuals or sisters. "It was about fighting apartheid; it was about a continent… It was about being a dark-skinned woman with natural hair," says Oti.

Originally, dance star Olga Muller wanted to be an ice skater. Olga was born in Russia in 1972.

"From a very early age she tried to get into ice skating. That was one of her loves," states Colin James, a grand slam international Latin champion who works alongside Olga as a dance adjudicator. "Unfortunately, in the system as it was then, the former Soviet Union, even at the age of ten she was too old to go into that field. And so then she turned to ballroom and Latin but also folk dancing."

After meeting her husband and dance partner in Germany, she never went home

Olga trained six days a week. Her and her dance partner were one of the best couples in the Soviet Union. They travelled to Germany to compete in the German Open Championships and it's there that she met the dancer Ralf Muller. And things became complicated, socially and politically.

Ralf asked Olga to dance with him but, being from the former Soviet Union, she had to go back. Then, explains Colin, her existing partner kept her passport so she couldn't move, forwards or backwards. "Ralf ended up paying money for that passport, and then she just stayed. She never went back into Russia," says Colin.

Ralf and Olga wowed audiences

When Ralf and Olga started dancing together, they put on showstopping displays. The couple married in 1991, after which they continued to astound crowds on the dancefloor. They were ranked as one of the top dancing couples in Germany and won the World Amateur Latin Championships in 1996.

They then launched their professional career and once again, at the highest level, made all of the grand slam event finals. "An absolutely amazing achievement," says Colin. They were celebrated as the figureheads of German Dance and won the World Professional South American Showdance Championship three years in a row.

"As a dancer, I would say she was very mechanical but she was so elegant," says Motsi. "She's like the vision you'd have of a Latin-Russian dancer. So, it was all about beautiful lines, very classical, light."

"She was very independent. She could do it all, she literally didn't need a partner… She had that power which I found really, really fascinating."

Olga is an inspiring teacher

In 2000, Olga and Ralf announced they were retiring to concentrate on their teaching in their dance school.

"Her dedication to what she does is what she puts into her students as well," says Colin. "She is so focused, she has her students focused. She leads by example and she's second to none in that."

Motsi experienced it first-hand. When the South African moved to Germany she joined Olga in her studio. At first, the Russian didn't want to teach Motsi, but relented and gave her and her partner a lesson.

"After that lesson she made me feel like I can't put two feet together," Motsi recalls. "She was like, 'Uh-uh, we have to start from zero.'" And so, they built from the foundations up. "She gave me a lot of love. She gave me a lot of attention. She was quite strict with me also but I used to say she was my dance mum. And she believed in me."

Olga taught her that she was the one with the control, and that as a woman she had to know how to make her partner look good but also still shine. "Very few women have that talent, and that’s what she did," says Motsi.

Olga is a constant figure at dance events around the world. Through her role as a trainer, choreographer and adjudicator, her knowledge and talent are being passed on to the next generation of dancers. In 2006, Olga was voted best dance coach of the year in Blackpool.

Motsi Mabuse on 麻豆社's Strictly Come Dancing

"Her spirit, her knowledge, her Olga way of dance has moved on also to other couples and they will give it on to other couples and so on and so on," says Motsi. "When I teach, I tell my couples about Olga Muller." And she believes they will tell their students that their teacher's teacher was Olga Muller.

"She has left a way of dance, a way of movement, that only Olga Muller can do."

Listen to the full episode here.

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