Tag: America’s Best Dance Crew

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A Reason to Watch DANCE WAR Next Week, and Other Dance Show Stuff…

In case you didn’t hear yet, on next week’s “Dance War,” the new season of “Dancing With the Stars” contestants will officially be announced. Also, next week will be that show’s finale?! It seemed to go so fast; I was kind of shocked when they announced that last night.

Anyway, this week was “Latin Week,” which I felt pretty eh about — nothing new for me with this show. At least dance-wise I felt eh. Tango hooks in the opening number were sloppy — Kelsey had to re-adjust her position with her partner to get her foot wrapped around his leg. If she was as close to him as she should have been that wouldn’t have happened. But who am I to criticize someone for not maintaining the proper Argentine Tango frame — I was NEVER able to feel comfortable that close to the guy 🙂 — at least not random guys in class I didn’t know…

And is Bruno the king of hysteria-drenched, goofy similes or what? “I’ve taken more punches than Rocky!!!” he wailed with wild gesticulations, over losing twice in a row. I hate to admit it, but at some points, his nuttiness actually kind of grows on me… I’m glad he finally praised Carrie Ann’s team. He needed to do that to show he was a sport. It just really bothers me how he practically equates dance with sex. Those guys’ open-shirts in his second number — oh please! Same thing with the way he had Kelsey last week vamping it up Jessica Simpson-like in “These Boots Are Made For Walkin’.” Dance can be sexy, but when it’s so overt like that it just becomes silly and crass.

I did feel like the singing was a bit better this time — particulary from Zack on the Bruno team and Chris on the Carrie Ann team. When Chris “sang for his life” I have to say I was actually quite blown away. He’s had so many microphone malfunctions, I don’t think I’ve really heard him sing, but he has a pretty nice voice.

I think what annoys me most about this show is its general air of unreality. It was sweet when Phillip’s mom showed up to watch her son, but do the show’s producers really expect us to believe she couldn’t afford to travel from Virginina to California but lo and behold thanks to her church she was finally able to see her son fulfill his dream? Thanks to the show’s producers is more like it, if the whole thing wasn’t phony to begin with. And it was nice that team Bruno did some outreach at the Community Center for people with Downs Syndrome, but if they really were invited because Zack’s brother has Downs, it would’ve been nice if they showed some footage of the two of them together. And even team Bruno’s ultimately winning this time around … if they didn’t win would anyone really tune in next week; what fun is a shoe-in finale? And when Carrie Ann started crying when she lost — and the tears were really there; her face was all wet– I wondered which acting method she studied. There was so much fakery, when that Orville Redenbocher commercial came on — the one about the guy and his wife whose marriage was in serious trouble because she liked natural snacks and he didn’t, and he collapsed on the kitchen floor and started throwing food about madly — did you guys see it? I seriously thought it was a trailer for a new reality show.

Which brings me to MTV’s new show, “America’s Best Dance Crew.” I wrote about it for Huffington and will link as soon as it’s posted, but for now I just want to say, I really kinda like it. It has more authenticity: the competitors seem like real people; they’re kids you like and want to root for, and the judges take them seriously, and seem more interested in imparting constructive criticism than hogging the spotlight and playing “characters” themselves. It’s pretty good. MTV Thursday nights at 10 p.m.

Finally, don’t forget to watch PBS tomorrow night, Wednesday, for “America’s Ballroom Challenge.” It’s Standard, where lovely ladies in beautiful, flowing, bejeweled ballgowns are swept around the floor by their dapper tux ‘n tailed gents. I initially fell in love with ballroom through this dance style, although I’m afraid it looks very different on TV than live and some of the magic is taken away. Anyway, I will be very excited to see US National champ and second in the world, Katusha Demidova, with her new partner, Arunas Bizokas. Also, in the exhibitions, watch for the pro/am couple Max Kozhevnikov and his student Yuk Chun (for people who follow ballroom, Max is the former partner of popular Latin dancer, Yulia Zagorouychenko), and in the junior division Austin Joson and Elizabeth Lakovitsky. These kids train at my old studio and I’ve written about them previously here and here. Austin in particular is a little cutie, and he ROCKS! Okay PBS at 8 pm EST!

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It's Up!

Yipee, my Huffington Post blog is up! My first piece is a general rumination on the current dance craze on TV — kind of similar to my Explore Dance article, but more personal, from my own experiences as a ballroom dancer and balletomane, and more focused on the popularity in general than critiquing the individual shows. I’ll post there, soon hopefully, about the new dance show on MTV, “America’s Best Dance Crew.” Photo, meh, but at least no moustache, right 😀

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New Wheeldon Pretty But Not Profound

 

So last night was the premiere of the newest ballet by Christopher Wheeldon at New York City Ballet, the last he’ll choreograph for the company in his role as resident choreographer. Named ROCOCO VARIATIONS, because it was choreographed to Tchiakovsky’s music of the same name, it was relatively short and minimal, involving a total of four dancers — two male / female couples. Overall, my first impressions are that it was sweet and pretty, but nothing that really blew me away. The curtain opened to a bare stage, no sets. First one couple emerged, then another, the two women dressed in really lovely bronze-colored strapless dresses, the flowing skirts A-level and knee-length. They resembled a cross between ballgowns and a long tulle ballet tutu, and at first I thought it was going to be reminiscent of a Balanchine ballroom ballet, but I was wrong; it was pretty much straight ballet pas de deux. The men wore brown tights and white billowing tops covered by 19th Century-esque beige vests. The music was absolutely beautiful, it goes without saying, and Wheeldon’s very musical; the steps “looked like” the music.

I appreciated a few moments of original partnering and movement: at one point, when all four are onstage, the women stand next to each other and extend their arms toward each other, and the men walk around them and underneath their arms, on the way through grabbing each other and doing a short, jaunty little male -on- male dance. Cute! There was also a nice, evocative shape made by one couple — Sterling Hyltin and Giovanni Villalobos — when Giovanni lunged deeply toward her and she leaned toward him on one toe, her back leg in an arabesque. Where normally the ballerina would keep her head up to maintain her balance and smile brightly at her partner’s face, here she covered his hands with hers and let her head fall all the way underneath their locked hands. It looked like she was really deferring to him, really trusting him, and it was original. Near the end, Adrian Danchig-Waring, the other man, bent down, and his ballerina Sara Mearns, lay on his back, her body straight, almost like a log, and he carried her off that way, bent-backed, as if now bearing a weight.

I was really mesmerized by Mearns and Danchig-Waring. Adrian’s arms were so fluid, they were like water. And both were very expressive with their upper bodies; they had beautiful port de bras (arm movements) culminating with intricate, delicate shaping of the wrists.

I’ll see the ballet again, but, on first sighting, I found the choreography pretty and lyrical, with points of originality, but nothing tremendously profound. My thoughts are that Wheeldon is petering out a bit, wanting to focus now on his own company, Morphoses.

The rest of the evening consisted of Balanchine’s sweetly Romantic “Divertimento from ‘Le Baiser de la Fee'” — which translates to “The Fairy’s Kiss” and is based on a Hans Christian Anderson tale; Peter Martins’s short tribute to China, “The Chairman Dances,” likely in honor of the Chinese New Year (Happy Chinese New Year everyone!); and Balanchine’s fun, raucous “Stars and Stripes,” a patriotic tribute to his adopted country, choreographed in honor of NYC mayor, Fiorella LaGuardia, to iconic Philip Sousa marching music.

I then came home and watched Randy Jackson’s “America’s Best Dance Crew,” on MTV, which I’d taped. I thought it was a lot of fun — very different from the other dance TV shows. For people who didn’t see it, it’s all dancing — no singing, unlike “Dance War” and the groups have been working together for some time, so they’re familiar with each other and know what they’re doing. It appears that the judges give the groups a different song to choreograph to and they have to come up with something original in a short period of time. The crews with the two lowest scores have a dance-off in the end. But the dancing is really only hip hop with some breaking thrown in, so there isn’t a variety of styles, unlike SYTYCD. My favorite crew overall thus far is “Live in Color,” though I’m not in love with the name — too much like “Living Colour,” whose lead singer the lead dancer actually kind of resembles, with the mohawk (though the dancer’s hair is shorter than the singer’s was). I loved how that guy threw in those fouettes at the end (which one of the judges called “art spins” 🙂 ) Anyway, I’m expecting to write more about the show on my Huffington Post blog column, when it’s up (I’m thinking it got a bit delayed by Super Tuesday). If it’s not up soon, I’ll write more about the shows here.

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Night of Premieres

Just a reminder, tonight Randy Jackson’s new reality TV dance show, “America’s Best Dance Crew,” premieres on MTV, 10 p.m. ET (although it looks like it’ll be rebroadcast a bunch of times). Mario Lopez from “Dancing With the Stars” co-hosts and Shane Sparks from “So You Think You Can Dance” is one of the three judges. In this show, whose orientation is mainly toward hip hop, the competition is among several dance teams. But these teams are already formed and have been working together for some time, so it’s not another “Dance War.” For more info go here.

Tonight’s also the premiere of — don’t laugh, I’m honestly kinda excited to see it 🙂 — “Lipstick Jungle,” starring Brooke Shields and based on Candace Bushnell’s book of the same name. That’s on NBC also at 10 p.m. ET.

And finally, if you’re in New York, tonight is the premiere of the last ballet Christopher Wheeldon will choreograph for the New York City Ballet in his job as resident choreographer of that company. After this season he will leave his post (possibly to be replaced by the Bolshoi’s Alexei Ratmansky), to concentrate on his own company, Morphoses. That’s at the State Theater at 8 p.m.

Happy night!

Oh, and also, speaking of ballet, look at these gorgeous pictures by Patricio Melo of Ballet de Santiago’s “Swan Lake”! Wow!