Ashley Banjo

Ashley Modurotolu Banjo (born 4 October 1988), is an English street dancer, choreographer and actor. He is leader of dance troupe Diversity, who won the third series of Britain's Got Talent. Banjo was a judge on the Sky1 talent show Got to Dance and co-presenter of the Saturday night BBC game show Can't Touch This.

Personal life

Banjo was born in Leytonstone, London to a Nigerian father, Funso Banjo, a professional boxer, and an English mother, Danielle Banjo, a former Ballet dancer, who now helps with Diversity's management and also runs Danceworks Studios. Ashley grew up in Wickford, Essex with his younger brother, Jordan and his sister Talisa Banjo. He went to St Johns School in Billericay.^[1] At the time of Diversity's Britain's Got Talent win, Banjo was studying physics and biology at Queen Mary, University of London, having previously attended SEEVIC College.^[1] Having completed his first two years, he took a break from studying to concentrate on his dancing in the year following winning BGT. He said that "from the age of 14, I started to teach myself routines".^[2] Banjo has been in a six-year relationship with Francesca Abbott, who is a member of another dance troupe called Out of the Shadows. They announced their engagement on 2 October 2014.^[3] They married on 4 July 2015.^[4] He says that education comes first for him and he wants to be a scientist.^[1]

Ashley Banjo is an Official Ambassador of the United Dance Organisation.^[5]

Diversity

In 2007, Ashley and his younger brother Jordan formed Swift Moves with nine of their friends, before later changing their name to Diversity. He was given the nickname 'Chosen' by his fellow Diversity members. In their first year together, they won the Street Dance Weekend 2007 competition before deciding to enter Britain's Got Talent.

Britain's Got Talent

In 2009, Diversity won the third series of ITV talent show Britain's Got Talent. All the judges heavily praised their performances throughout the competition, with Ashley's choreography being described by Amanda Holden as "genius". In the final referring to their winning performance, judge Simon Cowell said "If I was going to give marks on that, that is the only performance tonight I would give a 10 to."

After receiving "yes" votes from all three judges in their audition, Diversity went on to compete in the first semi-final on 24 May, losing the public vote-decided first place to Susan Boyle but winning the judges' vote against Natalie Okri. In the final six days later, Diversity were announced as the winners, beating Boyle and Julian Smith (who came second and third respectively). As winners of the competition, Diversity received £100,000 (around £9,090 per member) and went on to perform before Queen Elizabeth at the Royal Variety Show on 7 December 2009.^[6][7]

Post Britain's Got Talent

Subsequently, Diversity were nominated in the Dance section of the final South Bank Show awards and won an award at the Pride of Britain Awards^[8] He pulled a ligament in his leg during the 2nd run of diverisitoys which made him unable to perform on the last two shows of Diversity's Christmas tour. In 2012 Diversity did their first arena tour called "Digitized – Trapped In The Game". Ashley Banjo choreographed, produced and directed the tour. Diversity sold out the O2 arena with a standing ovation.

In 2013 Ashley choreographed a third tour for Diversity called Limitless. The tour ran from 30 November to 16 December.^[9][10]

Television work

Ashley was a judge on Sky1's dancing talent show Got to Dance for all five series. Diversity appeared as guest performers at least once every series. In total they did nine performances on the show.^[11] In 2015, he presented Perspectives: Michael Jackson's Thriller with Ashley Banjo.

In 2015, he filmed a new BBC game show called Can't Touch This for which Ashley co-hosts alongside Zoë Ball. The series began airing in March 2016.^[12]

Filmography

References