So tonight is story night, meaning each dance must tell a little story.
First on are Jennifer and Derek dancing samba. Their story is that she’s a teacher and he’s her student. At first she (pretend) disciplines him then turns into hot teacher and seduces him. Wow, I thought that went very well. Samba is the hardest Latin dance (imo, but I think it’s pretty well accepted). Part of her stunning performance is due to her pants with the shimmies – they really do make you look like you’re shaking it more! But she did have the twisting pelvic action down, and she did really beautifully with most of it. She got a bit too jumpy in the middle, especially after they had a little flub. But they put that crazy hard samba roll in shadow position in toward the end, and those are damn hard. They didn’t have many of them, but still. Big kudos to her for not screwing up the hardest part. By the way, didn’t she look like Sarah Palin with her hair in a bun and the glasses?
Next, Florence and Corky, waltz: They dance to Edelweiss, and interesting – I didn’t know she ever starred in the theater version of The Sound of Music. Their dance is about two people finding a mutual attraction, she’s resistant at first, then they come together. Aw, beyond sweet! The choreography was very basic, but so beautifully executed and so well acted it made you appreciate the simplicity of the steps. I love Corky for doing that! The emotion was subtle and she acted that perfectly, which makes sense of course since she’s an actress. The only thing – and it may be because I’ve recently seen Janie Taylor in Benjamin Millepied’s Why Am I Not Where You Are at NYCBallet, and her character in that is blind at the beginning – but something about Florence’s performance made it seem like she was blind; seemed like she was kind of happy that this guy was sweeping her away, but that she couldn’t see him, was looking through him. I think it was because she kept her head and upper body so still. She really needs to loosen up her back and shoulders and neck.
Next, Kurt and Anna dance foxtrot. Okay, first of all, he says during practice that being 6’2 it’s almost impossible to look good dancing ballroom; he looks like a big tree. Not so! Roberto Bolle, Marcelo Gomes, David Hallberg – Kurt, practically every male ballet dancer I love is huge! Aw, I loved this dance! Story is it’s raining, he has an umbrella, she’s sitting at a bus stop umbrella-less and a bit down, and he cheers her up by sweeping her away. Perfectly done. He was polished, very gentlemanly, had good rise and fall action. Only thing is that he’s still looking a bit stiff in the upper body too. The ballroom frame does feel really unnatural when you’re dancing. Everyone needs to watch videos of pros – like Mirko Gozzoli and Alessia Betti , Jonathan Wilkins and Hazel Newberry, and Katusha Demidova and Arunas Bizokas. The pro dancers on the show should show their celebs more videos! It just helps to have a sense of what you should look like – an idea at least for you to try to emulate. But seriously, he had the rise and fall down pat, he had really good form, he was a good, proper partner, and it was really beautifully done.
Margaret and Louis, samba.
Continue reading ““Story Night”: Dancing With the Stars Season 11, Week 3″