Category: Dance on Television

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DANCING WITH THE STARS' FIRST DANCE-OFF

Sorry this post is late! I went out with friends to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day last night and stayed out a bit later than planned 🙂 Happy belated St. Patrick’s Day, everyone.

So, DWTS had its first dance-off last night. Belinda Carlisle and Jonathan Roberts and Steve Wozniak and Karina Smirnoff were the bottom two and thus required to dance. Both did their Monday-night routines: Belinda and Jonathan the Salsa and Steve and Karina the Quickstep. And I think both received the same actual scored: 17 — although the judges were much more kind to Steve and Karina than Belinda and Jonathan. I thought Belinda was cute, but she still didn’t get the hip action right (of course, you’re not going to be able to get something like that down perfectly overnight — literally overnight) in that it still didn’t come from the floor, working through the foot, and the shoulders and back muscles weren’t involved. So she was “shaking it” like the judges said, but not properly. And I agreed with them that Steve did improve. Somehow he looked more at ease and was more smooth.

I’m sad to see Belinda go because I think she could have improved but I’m glad Steve stayed. There’s something sweet and sympathetic about him that makes me want to root for him and I think he’s trying very hard, seems like he’s having fun out there, and he has a good attitude about the whole thing. He seems to have a strong sense of self and isn’t going to let the competition-nature of the show get to him.

I like that they’re now doing a dance-off. So the couple still has a chance to redeem itself and possibly keep itself from being booted. So going into that results show they probably don’t feel so powerless. But, I guess unlike with So You Think You Can Dance, here the judges’ votes are still only counting for half of that final vote instead of the whole. So, I guess depending on how many audience votes they received the night before, they may or may not still have a chance.

Beyond that, I liked Big Bad Voodoo Daddy, liked that group dance — Julianne Hough is such a performer, she really shines out there — but didn’t care for the Macy’s Hall of Fame dance. That routine looked kind of chaotic to me. And, with Cameron Mathison picking up Bruno’s “dry cleaning” — a pile of thongs — and then the female contestants comparing how many times they’d been centerfolds, I feel like this show sometimes has the tendency to turn into a goofy Benny Hill sketch. I think that’s the person I’m thinking of — that British comedian from the 70s who’d make the corny sexual jokes that were so taboo-breaking to the British audiences back then but that now you just want to roll your eyes at and think “how ridiculously immature”…

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DANCING WITH THE STARS, SEASON EIGHT, WEEK TWO

Steve-O’s injured, but they’re going to wait until later to let us know what that means.

Holly Madison and Dmitry Chaplin Quickstep: Well, she’s cute. It looked a lot like he was kind of pulling her around the floor and she was just hopping without really having the steps down pat. But she hasn’t had as much training as the rest, so there’s that to consider. I agree with Len that her frame was part of the problem — she didn’t have a firm center and that’s why it looked like he wasn’t leading, but dragging her. I don’t think she’ll get kicked off first. I think she can improve.

David Allen Grier and Kym Johnson’s Salsa: Uh, it was okay. I mean, it’s so hard to judge amateurs learning to dance in adulthood. He looked uncomfortable — I mean with the dance form, with the rhythm and speed. But he looked like he was having fun, which is part of the battle. Hmmm, he might be first to go tomorrow night, depending on how audiences feel.

Denise Richards and Maks Chmerkovskiy’s Quickstep:

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LIVE BLOGGING DANCING WITH THE STARS SEASON EIGHT PREMIERE

Yay, tonight is here! I’m ridiculously excited, even though I wasn’t in love with last season. So, have decided to live blog. Upstairs Godzilla unfortunately just came home and is whacking her tail all about, crashing into walls, thundering down on my ceiling / her floor. She must be excited about the show too.

Oh well; I’ve turned on the closed-captioning.

Shawn Johnson trips on her way down the stairs during introductions. Doesn’t fall or anything. Kind of funny.

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BALLROOM DANCE CHANNEL’S ONLINE DANCE LESSONS

 

For people who are interested in learning ballroom dance and don’t have access to a studio (or do have access but would rather learn in the privacy of your home), the Ballroom Dance Channel (a website begun by several Dancing Wtih the Stars pro dancers) is offering downloadable lessons that you can watch via computer, or, apparently now via an iphone as well. I was given a little preview of two of the basic lessons: the samba and the salsa.

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TWO DANCING WITH STARS CELEBS PULL OUT WEEKEND BEFORE SHOW

Katrina alerted me to this. Apparently, two Dancing With the Stars celebrity contestants have had to pull out of the show due to injury, and just the weekend before season eight is to premiere. It was first rumored that singer Jewel had to pull out due to tendinitis, but now, according to ABC’s press release, her injuries are much worse: fractured tibia in both legs. I know from covering the Sean Bell trial that fractured tibia are extremely serious. Two men who were in Sean Bell’s car during the shooting sustained fractured tibia from bullets and a doctor testified it would have been impossible for the one to walk or run on the injured leg and that he would be (and he most definitely was, judging by video footage) in howling pain. Both underwent surgery to have permanent metal rods implanted to hold the bones together. I guess the seriousness of a fractured tibia can vary — I mean obviously, but good lord, you’d think to sustain a fracture in each leg, she would have had to have fallen from an overhead lift or something. Anyway, no wonder she’s pulling out.

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America’s Ballroom Challenge

 

 

So, what did you guys think about the show?

I was worried I’d be mad about the new format but I really ended up thinking this one worked better, at least for TV, even if it is fake. For people who’ve never been to a regular ballroom dance competition before, the competition is really the first parts, the group dances (as shown in the picture above) — that they severly truncated here, showing only a small part of one dance for each of the four categories. But I do think the showdances work so much better for TV. On TV the excitement of the group dances is really lost. But it’s so stunning to see, to feel, all these couples whizzing by you, spinning, shaking their hips at lightening speed, to hear the crowds cheer, scream really, while all the couples try to look so glamorous and graceful, the raucous audience making it seem more like a boxing match. I encourage everyone who hasn’t been to go to a real competition.

Anyway, it wasn’t much of a surprise that Riccardo Cocchi and Yulia Zagoruychenko won — they’re second in the world in Latin, and I’m wondering, after watching them in November (which is when this show was taped), if they could overtake the current champs, Poland’s Michael Malitowski and Joanna Leunis, at some point. I loved their Cha Cha tonight (with her in the sizzling red and him in the open tux jacket), their Samba, and their combo routine to the pure percussion (which I love — I love that they’re not afraid to use that kind of music). I love how they vary the rhythms in an often unpredictable way, I love his speed and how she makes original shapes with her body, especially when she tucks in her stomach, rolls her shoulders, and curls her pelvis, looking almost like a cobra. Or is it a python? The snake that lifts its front part and expands its head, ghost-like, before attacking?… (I don’t really want to do a google image search) Anyway, I really really love them– Yulia and Riccardo.

Since the two top Standard couples — Arunas Bizokas and Katusha Demidova and Victor Fung and Anna Mikhed — were at another competition (I think in the U.K.) at the same time as the Ohio Star Ball and didn’t compete, it was really a toss up who would win. I thought Linas Koreiva and Liene Apale would win — I thought they danced the best — though I loved the balletic look to Mikhail Avdeev and Anastasia’s beautiful waltz. I love how in all their routines

— oooh, Oscar Hijuelos (one of my favorite writers, author of Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love) is on Larry King, PBS! He is WAY the hell younger than I thought… —

sorry,  just had to say that. 🙂 Anyway, I love how Mikhail and Anastasia’s dances were all basic, yet so well done, so beautifully executed. Shows how dance is more about excellent technique and lush, expansive movement than tricks. And I love that they used classical music instead of going for the modern and poppy.

Totally predictable of course that Joanna Zacharewicz and Jose DeCamps would win Rhythm — and how much do I love that there are Joses in the world — how hot was that mambo! And that John Travolta! He is truly one of the most charismatic dancers in all of ballroom.

And Jonathan Roberts and Valentina were lovely. I do believe she is the powerhouse of that partnership. She really shines and her form is so splendid. His is less so (and I caught him pigeon-toed a few times), though he is a solid support for her, which is mainly what the man is supposed to be. I liked J.T. Thomas and Tomasz Mielnicki’s snazzy Foxtrot, though I’ve seen both couples in competition before and can see how Jonathan and Valentina took the whole without winning the showdance portion.

Oh, before I forget, what did you guys think of that Swan Lake dance at the beginning of the program, by Mikhail Zharinov and Galina Detkina in the American Smooth division? It was one of the very first ones, if you can remember. If you didn’t notice — and the announcers didn’t point it out — she was wearing a long white glove on her right arm, with a swan’s face and beak painted on the thumb and fingers. So, the way she was holding that arm up and bending her wrist like she did, when you see it up close (as I did at Champions of the Dance recently here in NY at Town Hall), her whole body really does look like a swan, with her hand the head, her arm the neck, and her skirt — when pulled out and held to the back (either by him or by her) — the body. I couldn’t figure out how I felt about it when I saw it live — whether I thought it was cheesy or pretty, and, after seeing it from further afar, on TV, I choose the latter.

Other things: I love my Vaidotas Skimelis 🙂 Dressed as Mozart! Or was it Louis the XVI and Jurga Pupelyte Marie Antoinette? What a big fun charming goof. But an excellent dancer. Their dance was rather humorous but they still had very nice form and some creative choreography and he had some jumps and stylized runs that showed he really could be a balletic, graceful dancer, large as he is.

And why do I have no problem envisioning Boriana Deltcheva as a cat! She’s so feline already; I love the way she climbed on Delyan’s back and wrapped her legs around his waist. She’s such a tall, thin thing, she looked just like a sleek black catwoman. She has the ideal body. She put a note up on Facebook a while ago advertising that she was selling some of her costumes and I had to laugh — like everyone the planet over wishes they could fit into them 🙂

Another highlight: Gherman Mustuc and Iveta Lukosiute’s Carmen tango in the Standard. They always come up with such creative showdance ideas. Such great music, and her red dress was gorgeous.

Pavlo Barsuk and Anna Trebunskaya: how insanely intense was that Paso! I love intense Pasos! And he is the ultimate in the intensity department, believe me – -if you even see him dance live, he does this thing where his eyes grow really wide; he looks like he could devour you for lunch — or his competition anyway. Such a funny contrast to her sweet face and toothy chipmunk smile.

And of course Eugene Katsevman and Maria Manusova — sorry, I’m really into the Latins, obviously. They recently danced at the Dance Times Square showcase and I totally fell for them. He is so damn fast and slick and precise. And they ended one of their dances at the DTS show with that ending trick they did tonight in the Cha Cha, if you remember it — where he flips and drops her, catching her right before she’s about to hit the floor, face down. DTS audience went WILD.

Anyway, enough from me. What did you guys think?

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Don’t Miss the Jerome Robbins Doc on PBS Wednesday

 

Don’t miss — don’t fail to record so you have it forever — the Jerome Robbins documentary on PBS this Wednesday evening, February 18th at 9pm EST. It’s long — 2hours — and very extensive; includes discussion and excerpts of nearly all of his ballets and Broadway shows. There are interviews with many many people — Baryshnikov, Chita Rivera, Rita Moreno, Peter Martins, Violette Verdy (a former ballerina), Suzanne Farrell, Stephen Sondheim (who is not at all what I expected!), Jacques D’Amboise (who is quite the character!) writers Deborah Jowitt and Robert Gottlieb (the only two critics whose faces I’d never seen), and more — can’t even think of everyone who spoke. And there’s footage of interviews with Robbins himself both recently and further in the past.

He and others talk about his inspiration for and meaning of much of his work — The Cage, Fancy Free (one of my favorites, which was based on a Paul Cadmus painting, which I hadn’t known), Interplay, Dances at a Gathering, Glass Pieces, NY Export Opus Jazz, Afternoon of a Faun, West Side Story, Gyspy, the wonderful Fiddler on the Roof (Broadway) and Les Noces (a rather haunting ballet about a Russian wedding based on Fiddler, which I guess is kind of obvious, now that I know), Goldberg Variations, Watermill (lots of interviewees defending this pretty controversial work!), Suite of Dances, etc. etc. etc.

There’s brilliant footage of Tanaquil Le Clercq and Jacques D’Amboise dancing Afternoon of a Faun (and please tell me if you’ve ever seen anyone better than those two in those roles!), of Robbins himself dancing Fancy Free, of Barysh also dancing FF, Dances at a Gathering, and Other Dances (with Natalia Makarova), of Robbins and Balanchine dancing in a piece Robbins choreographed for the Stravinsky Festival, etc. etc. — there’s so much, I can’t remember it all, but I think they’ve got excepts of just about everything.

There’s also coverage of major events in his life — so upsetting when his ex-fiance talks about discovering one evening that he was in love with Montgomery Clift and was gay and trying hard to marry and be “normal”; his excruciatingly difficult decision that would forever haunt him to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee; his visits to Eastern Europe that resulted in the making of one of his masterpieces — Fiddler; the quite nasty things he did to a Gypsy actress who couldn’t remember some important actions in the play…

And dancers and actors talk about how Robbins rehearsed them, which I found extremely interesting. An actor from West Side Story says he always made people do their own character sketches, which they’d have to present to him — which I love! He was a hardass to put it mildly, but only in a certain respect. He worked the dancers hard mentally (similar to one of his tutors, Antony Tudor), but when it came to the physicalities of the dance, he’d ease up considerably, ask dancers why they were working so hard — the opposite of Balanchine. At then end, Peter Martins remarks that it was mentally challenging to work with Robbins but physically relatively easy; it was the complete opposite with Balanchine.

This is honestly one of the best PBS specials on dance that I’ve ever seen. It does get slow in some points — especially early on when there are all these people talking and you can’t read the subtitles quickly enough to figure out who everyone is — and Robbins was so prolific that the film moves quite quickly and sometimes you can’t figure out which dance the interviewee is even talking about. So, I’d highly recommend taping it so you can watch it again and again. Believe me, you’ll want to. Go here to check local listings. (Type in “Jerome  Robbins: Something to Dance About”).

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Live Blogging DWTS Name-Dropping

I guess I’ll try to post the name-drops (for Dancing With the Stars Spring season 2009) as they’re announced. I think. Unless I get tired. Or need to get a cupcake. I should probably do that now…

Anyway, they’ve so far announced that new stars will include a famous male reality TV show star (who won’t be famous to me since I never watch reality TV), a football star, some kind of celebrity gossip show host, and someone else who I’ve already forgotten… When are they supposed to start announcing the names for real? It’s 8:30 already.

Okay, first four are:

1) Rapper L’il Kim;

2) reality tv star Steve-O (I think that’s the right spelling);

3) NFL star Lawrence Taylor;

4) Nancy O’Dell (missed who she is);

they said the next four will be announced during Desperate Housewives, coming up next. So, making a cupcake run.

Okay, got cupcakes. Did anything happen?

Well, they just said they’re dropping all names in less than 30 minutes, but I’m tired of waiting. Awesome Katrina just posted the list down in the comments! Thanks Katrina, you rock!

So, going by this list that Katrina linked to:

5) Belinda Carlisle, formerly of the Go-Gos. Oh cool, I haven’t seen her in forever. And I used to love them. They were the first group I ever saw on MTV (back when it was first created :S) — ah memories 🙂

6) David Alan Grier. I think I remember him from In Living Color. I can’t remember exactly which one he was though without looking him up, which I’ll do in a minute. I used to like that show though, so this is a good one by me.

7) Jewel, the pop star. Hmmm, I like her.

8) Shawn Johnson, the youngest ever contestant on the show, at 17, and Olympic gold medalist in women’s gymnastics on the balance beam. Ridiculously, I’m not even sure I remember her.It was the Bejing Olympics! What’s wrong with me?

9) Gilles Marini, from Sex and the City. I never watched the series, but Katrina says he’s a hottie!

10) Ty Murray, a rodeo star. Hmmm, a shit kicker? Interesting.

11) Denise Richards, the movie star.

12) Chuck Wicks, singer and song-writer. Don’t know him. He’s dating Julianne Hough, Katrina?

13) Steve Wozniak, a “Silicon Alley icon and philanthropist” who designed for Apple, according to the Reality TV website.

I’ll edit the post again if there are any changes in the announcements. Otherwise, I guess it’s overall an okay cast. I like a few of them anyway. Several I don’t know. Without seeing anything so far, I predict Wozniak is first to get booted. An entrepreneur, intellectual type? Maybe he’ll defy stereotypes, who knows…

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Superstars of Dance Finale

Well, I was going to say it didn’t bother me this week as much as last, but then I watched the first 15 minutes (I had a legal seminar tonight and didn’t get home until after the show had already begun, so had to watch the first 15 after the rest). The Flatley number was horrendous. What was up with that girl in the bikini walking around playing Yankee Doodle Dandee with a flute at the beginning? What is this, a boxing match? Soft-core porn? I actually thought this whole show was kind of porn-ish — generally more about flaunting bodies than artistry.

Except for Maria Kochetkova — the Russian ballerina who competed — and WON thankfully! — in the solo category. I think that’s probably why I liked tonight better than last week — she was on, just about the show’s only saving grace. And I’m not just saying that because I’m a ballet fan. I would really have loved to have seen some wonderful ballroom, but, I’m sorry, I’m just not into that Australian couple. I thought the same of their Jive tonight as I did their Samba last week — fast footwork but just lacking in precision and clarity with an overall sloppy look. At least compared to the Latin I’ve seen at the big competitions.

I liked Victor DaSilva and Claudia Sawides  — the South African duo — tonight better than the last time we saw them. The routine was still about the lifts — those exhibitions always are — but this one had a bit more narrative and emotion, passion to it. I felt like they connected better this time than last. I also liked the Argentine couple. Their Tango was very polished with sharp footwork. Lovely! I pretty much agreed with the couples results.

And I agreed with the solo results too, but only because I liked ballet. I’m sure Robert the popper is excellent at that kind of dance style, as was the Indian dancer at classical Indian dance. As I and others have said repeatedly, you just can’t judge these wholly different styles of dance next to each other.

I’m again annoyed at camera guy though. Camera person, I should say — don’t know why I think it’s a guy. S/he kept homing in on the Indian woman’s face and we couldn’t see some of her beautiful hand and foot gestures. You don’t dance with your face! I felt like she must have been going very fast with her feet at one point because of all the applause, and I think I heard the sound of the bells she wore around her ankles, but I’m not sure because the show’s acoustics weren’t so great. I also think I saw Maria Kochetkova do continuous fouettes with some double pirouettes thrown in, and at one point changing feet right in the middle — which is marvelous! But because of the camera panning in and out, then down to her feet, then a faraway shot, etc., I’m not exactly sure if that happened.

Sorry, by the way, to keep calling most of these dancers by their nationalities and dance styles. The show’s website doesn’t seem to have their names, only those of the judges and team leaders.

I didn’t think any of the group routines were anything to write home about, and both the intro to the American team and that silly Yankee Doodle Dandy number by Flatley and crew up front were ridiculously chauvinistic (I mean in a nationalist way). Why the need to celebrate America and proclaim it the nation with no boundaries, encompassing all the world, etc. on a supposedly international show like this? And is anyone surprised that our team, and our country, won the gold? The whole thing was just so corny. When Flately said at the end to his co-host, “I know, I’ve never seen anything like this on television!”, it looked like he was trying hard not to burst out laughing. At least he should have been.

And what happened to Pasha and Anya? Who knows. According to the website, team Russia was supposed to have two soloists from the Bolshoi, one pair of ballroom dancers, and a Cossack team. I saw two pairs of ballroom dancers and one soloist from San Francisco Ballet. But I missed the first night, so I might have missed the “other” Bolshoi soloist? I don’t know; I’m not a huge fan of the show’s website.

I think the idea behind this show is a good one. I like having dancers from a variety of countries dance different styles — some native to their country, some not, giving audiences wide exposure to the art. But there were just so many cheesy, corny, porn-esque moments, the camera work seriously frustrated my ability even to see what I was supposed to be seeing, and the judging was downright ludicrous.

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Superstars of Dance is Completely Degrading to the Art Form

And you know I haven’t said that about any of the other dance shows. I’ve been very open-minded so far. But the judges tonight seem pretty open about rewarding ass-shaking over artistry, subtlety, dance skill, interpretive skill, ingeniousness of choreography, you name it. What is dance if it is not those things?

That Australian couple performed one of the worst Sambas I think I’ve ever seen. Maybe I’m still coming off of my Alvin Ailey high, or maybe it’s just this show and the horrifying camera work that is completely destroying practically everyone’s dancing, but what I saw from that Australian couple was all flash, no substance.

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