A BURLESQUE dancer caught on camera falling off the stage on a new televised dance competition has put the incident down to a twist of fate.

Fabia Cerra, 36, of Centaury Place, Greater Leys, Oxford, shot to fame when she performed a striptease on last year’s Britain’s Got Talent TV competition.

But on So You Think You Can Dance?, screened on BBC1 on Saturday, it wasn’t her outfit that got the judges’ attention, but the moment she lost her footing and fell from the 4ft stage, knocking herself unconscious.

Miss Cerra said: “I fell off the stage basically because I couldn’t see, it was too dark. I had a black dancefloor and a black background.

“I remember waking up and looking up and there was a paramedic there. I was very frightened at the time.”

Miss Cerra, who reached the semi-finals of ITV’s Britain’s Got Talent and has been viewed more than 680,000 times on YouTube, said the fall — watched by 7.6m people— actually did her a favour.

Miss Cerra, mum to five-year-old son Leone, had been due to have an operation on three slipped discs in her back at the end of October, but after the accident at the audition on October 7, her pain had gone and she cancelled the surgery.

Miss Cerra said: “I wasn’t embarrassed by falling, that’s just how the audition went, you can’t say things will always be perfect.

“I think it’s hilarious, you have to take it with a pinch of salt and move on, which is what I have done.

“I think I was supposed to go on, fall off the stage, correct my three slipped discs and now I’m moving on.”

It was the first episode of the new television programme, which is presented by Cat Deeley and judged by Nigel Lythgoe and choreographer Arlene Phillips.

During Miss Cerra’s performance, Mr Lythgoe is seen holding his head in his hands, although the judging panel got to its feet as the dancer fell from the stage, with Mr Lythgoe calling for a medic.

She was taken to St Mary’s Hospital, London, with leg injuries but decided not to wait three hours to be seen after ambulance staff said her leg was not broken.

Miss Cerra, who is now planning to enter a BBC writing competition, said: “I am not disappointed I didn’t get through because, looking back, I would not have coped.

“They were dancing until 3am and I couldn’t have done that, I’m 36 and I have a son.

“The dancing standard was through the roof, I was so impressed.”

She said it was difficult to watch the footage on Saturday knowing she was about to fall and hurt herself.

fbardsley@oxfordmail.co.uk