Darrius Strickland and Holly Tuhakaraina were the winners for Dancing for Hospice 2024. Photo / Tracey Scott
Darrius Strickland and Holly Tuhakaraina were the winners for Dancing for Hospice 2024. Photo / Tracey Scott
A Barbie-themed samba was the dance that saw Darrius Strickland and Holly Tuhakaraina win the Dancing for Hospice 2024 trophy.
They and nine other couples stepped onto the dance floor before a crowd of more than 2000 people at the Energy Events Centre in Rotorua on Saturday.
More than $100,000 was estimated to have been raised for Rotorua Community Hospice, a charity working to ensure compassionate care for those facing life-limiting illnesses.
Darrius Strickland and Holly Tuhakaraina receiving the Dancing for Hospice 2024 trophy. Photo / Tracey Scott
Speaking to the Rotorua Daily Post on Sunday, Strickland described the dance as “everything pink and everything fun”.
The couple danced to Copacabana by Barry Manilow with a modern pop twist, layering the music with Dance the Night Away by Dua Lipa, a catchy song featured in the 2023 film Barbie.
The costumes included Tuhakaraina in a hot-pink tasseled dress and Strickland wearing a sparkly tuxedo, and the stage was decorated with a life-sized Barbie doll box.
When the judges announced Strickland and Tuhakaraina had made it to the final round, Strickland said his “mind just switched” and he was trying to think of ways to “up his game”.
Darrius Strickland and Holly Tuhakaraina were the winners at Dancing for Hospice 2024. Photo / Tracey Scott
This included a costume change for Strickland, who swapped his traditional Latin shirt for a tassled black shirt like the one Ryan Gosling wore as Ken in the Barbie movie.
Strickland said neither he nor Tuhakaraina had any idea who was going to win.
“It could have been anybody. Honestly, everybody was so amazing,” he said.
Winning was thrilling, Strickland said, but it was being around the other dancers that made the event special.
Darrius Strickland (left) and Holly Tuhakaraina (right) danced themselved to win for a good cause. Photo / Tracey Scott
“Getting to know these people on stage, learning more about hospice and just having a bit of appreciation for what they do for us in the community is what it’s about,” he said.
Strickland said he was “a bit annoyed” when he had first heard he and Tuhakaraina would be dancing samba, as he had hoped for a “slow dance that would pull on people’s heartstrings”.
Strickland and Tuhakaraina said they believed they were paired together because of their different personalities - Tuhakaraina described herself as “quiet”, while Strickland called himself “confident”.
Tuhakaraina said this was the first time a samba dance had won first place in the competition.
She said the first few weeks of the dancing process had been challenging because she and Strickland did not know each other well.
“The samba is a sexy dance and you have to be quite close together, but after a few weeks we were like, we got this and we can do it.”
