Karen Hauer has begun a new chapter away from Strictly Come Dancing after turning her attention to theatre, taking on a role that she says arrived at exactly the right moment in her life.

The Venezuelan-American dancer, who became one of the longest-serving female professional performers on the BBC show, has joined the cast of a new production of Richard Harris’s comedy Stepping Out at Eastbourne’s Devonshire Park Theatre.

For Hauer, the production represents more than simply another acting opportunity.

After spending more than a decade performing in front of millions of television viewers, she is now exploring a different side of her career and embracing a story that has made her reflect on the importance of friendship, confidence and community.

Hauer plays Mavis, a dance teacher who leads a group of amateur dancers attending a weekly tap class.

The story focuses on the relationships that develop between the members of the class as they gradually become more confident and begin sharing the personal struggles and experiences that have shaped their lives.

For Hauer, the themes appear to have struck a particularly personal chord.

Speaking to BBC Radio Sussex, the 44-year-old said she had been “loving her time in Eastbourne”, although she admitted that the summer heat had created its own challenges while rehearsing and performing.

“I was sweating my socks off when rehearsing and performing at the theatre,” she joked.

Despite the heat, Hauer said she had been enjoying her experience in the seaside town, even finding time to appreciate some of its coffee shops and saunas.

But it is the opportunity to perform in a completely different environment that appears to have mattered most.

Stepping Out marks Hauer’s first stage appearance since she left Strictly Come Dancing in 2025.

Her departure brought an end to a remarkable run on the BBC programme that had lasted from 2012 to 2025.

During those years, Hauer became a familiar face to millions of viewers and worked with numerous celebrity contestants, becoming known for her technical ability, energetic performances and distinctive personality.

Yet after leaving the programme, she was ready to explore what could come next.

Her chance to play Mavis arrived remarkably quickly.

“I’d just finished Strictly when I got an email asking if I’d do a self-tape for the role,” Hauer explained.

She already knew the story because she had seen the film adaptation of Stepping Out.

“I’d seen the film before, so I knew the story,” she said. “It was something I really needed.”

That comment perhaps reveals why the role appealed to her so strongly.

After years of working within the highly competitive world of televised dance, Hauer was stepping into a production centred not on professional perfection but on ordinary people discovering joy and confidence through dance.

The contrast appears to have been significant.

While Strictly is built around elaborate choreography, costumes, performances and weekly competition, Stepping Out explores what happens when people who may not consider themselves dancers find a sense of belonging through a shared activity.

Hauer said she felt particularly “connected” to Mavis and believed the opportunity had arrived at precisely the right time.

The character also gave her the chance to reflect on her own experiences as a dancer.

Hauer has spoken about how much she admired her own dance teachers while growing up, and she said playing Mavis reminded her of one teacher in particular.

She described that teacher as someone she “greatly admired”, suggesting that the role allowed her to draw on memories from her own journey.

There is an intriguing parallel between Hauer and Mavis.

Both understand the power of a dance class to bring people together, but Hauer has experienced that phenomenon on an entirely different scale.

For years, she was part of a television show in which dance became the foundation for friendships between professional performers and celebrities.

Now, on stage, she is portraying someone whose job is to create that same sense of connection among a group of amateurs.

Hauer said one of the things she loves most about Stepping Out is its focus on ordinary people and their lives.

“There are lots of different characters and experiences that people can relate to,” she explained.

“A dance class brings people together. You share stories, build friendships and create a real sense of community.”

That sense of community sits at the heart of the production.

The characters arrive with their own personalities, insecurities and personal histories, but the weekly dance class gradually becomes a place where they can escape the pressures of everyday life.

As they prepare for a public performance, their relationships deepen and their confidence grows.

For Hauer, who spent years working under the intense scrutiny of Strictly, the story may offer an interesting reminder of why people fall in love with dance in the first place.

On Strictly, the pressure is immense.

Celebrities are judged by professionals, performances are analysed by viewers and contestants can be eliminated after only a few weeks.

Professional dancers must constantly produce increasingly ambitious routines while helping their partners cope with nerves and expectations.

Stepping Out, by contrast, is interested in the emotional rewards of dancing rather than the pursuit of perfection.

That distinction appears to have resonated with Hauer as she begins to establish herself beyond the BBC programme.

Her departure from Strictly marked the end of one of the most recognisable periods of her professional career.

She joined the show in 2012 and became one of its most experienced professional dancers.

Over the years, she appeared alongside a wide variety of celebrity partners and took part in countless live shows, rehearsals and television performances.

Leaving such a long-running programme inevitably meant entering unfamiliar territory.

Theatre now gives Hauer an opportunity to demonstrate that her talents extend beyond the ballroom.

Although she is best known as a professional dancer, playing Mavis requires her to combine movement with acting and character work.

It is a natural progression for someone whose career has always been based on performance, but it nevertheless represents a significant change.

Instead of performing a routine designed specifically for television cameras, Hauer must inhabit a character and tell a story to a live theatre audience night after night.

The experience also appears to have given her a chance to reconnect with the simpler pleasures of performing.

Rather than competing for judges’ scores or preparing for another televised elimination, she is part of an ensemble production where the emphasis is on storytelling and relationships.

For audiences in Eastbourne, the production offers the chance to see a familiar television personality in a very different setting.

Hauer’s presence is likely to attract fans who followed her career on Strictly, while the production itself has the opportunity to introduce her to theatre audiences who may know her less well.

Her enthusiasm for the role suggests that she is embracing the change rather than looking backwards.

After 13 years on one of Britain’s most popular entertainment programmes, Hauer could easily have been defined by her time on Strictly.

Instead, she is using the next stage of her career to test herself in a new environment.

Her decision to take on Stepping Out also highlights how naturally dance can move between different forms of entertainment.

For Hauer, dancing has been a career, a profession and a lifelong passion.

Now it has become a way to explore a character and tell a story about people whose lives are transformed simply by finding somewhere they belong.

As Mavis, she is not teaching celebrities how to survive a televised competition.

She is helping ordinary people discover confidence, friendship and a renewed sense of themselves.

And perhaps that is why the role feels so meaningful to Hauer at this particular moment.

After leaving Strictly Come Dancing, one of the defining chapters of her career, she has found herself back in a dance studio — but this time with an entirely different story to tell.

The stage may be smaller than the television spectacle she left behind, but the message of Stepping Out is one that Hauer clearly understands.

Dance can bring people together.

It can create friendships, build confidence and provide an escape from everyday worries.

And for Karen Hauer, it may now be doing something else too: opening the door to an exciting new chapter after Strictly.