Tag: Quickstep

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TV Theme Week on Dancing With the Stars

I’m sorry for getting this up late, you guys! I went to a continuing legal education class last night (cross examination in buy and bust cases – I know, excitement uncontained!) and then I met up with a former colleague and we spent the whole evening catching up (and watching Yankees lose to the Rangers 🙁 ) Well, Jonathan was happy; I was sad. I need a parade! Anyway, I’m watching DWTS late. Here are my thoughts:

Since this is the mid-way point, they start out with critiquing the contestants’ progress. I understand why they do this but I can’t help but find it boring. I like to decide who I think is most improved myself.

First on are Brandy and Maks dancing a Quickstep to the theme from Friends. This week is going to be hard for me to judge since I don’t watch TV, but I did think her dancing was really marvelous. Her footwork was really near perfect. And she had the perfect pizzazz, sass, everything. She looked pretty polished, not perfect but really really close. By far her best dance. Good for her.

Predictably, Florence and Corky dance to The Brady Bunch theme. Aw, sweet how “Greg” (Barry Williams) shows up. I actually do remember him! How crazy that he’s older than Corky! They dance a tango (a standard tango, not Argentine), which doesn’t seem to fit the music theme-wise at all, though I guess rhythm-wise it does. Well, they do another purposefully cartoonish, purposefully goofy dance. I’m not understanding why Corky’s choosing to do these kinds of purposefully overwrought dances with her. Why isn’t he serious? I do think she did the footwork well and had the timing down, and she came through very well with what Corky asked of her. I don’t know. I didn’t like it but feel I can’t blame her for that. What did you guys think? Do you like to see her do goofy and comical instead of seeing how well she can really dance ballroom? Maybe people think it’s more entertaining this way?

Kurt and Anna dance a Quickstep to Bewitched.

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SO YOU THINK YOU CAN DANCE WEEK 4

Ugh, how heartbroken am I that Alex Wong is injured and may have torn his Achilles tendon. If he’s out permanently I’m going to be so upset; he was the main reason I’m so into the show this season. I guess we’ll find out tonight…

I also can’t believe Nigel basically chastised audiences for putting Robert in the bottom three last week. I understand Nigel was only trying to tell people Robert’s not arrogant, as his internet research has led him to believe is why people aren’t voting for him. I’ve never thought he was arrogant but more that he just doesn’t have the expansiveness and breadth of other contemporary dancers. But people don’t like being told what to think and I think Nigel may have just made it more difficult for Robert.

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THE GIRL NEXT DOOR? NO, MELISSA RYCROFT IS MORE LIKE A GLAMOROUS OLD-TIME HOLLYWOOD STARLET!

Well, I was on a train late last night and missed watching the Dancing With the Stars semis on TV. Now I realize how hard the show makes it for you to catch re-runs. Geesh. Rickey doesn’t have everything posted, so I went to YouTube, and they have most of the competition routines, but the sound quality is crap and subtitles (in, for example, Gilles’s visit to his hometown, Cannes, with the French interviews with his mother and friends) are cut off. And they didn’t have the full episode. The YouTube clips re-direct you to this website, but once there, they just keep making you take these ridiculous quizzes, telling you, eventually the site will be unlocked. Well, it never unlocked for me — instead they redirected me to more and more quiz websites. I hope that site’s not a scam that unleashes some kind of virus or something. Anyway, people beware: don’t try to watch re-runs on watchdancingwithstars.com.

Anyway, I at least saw the routines. I only saw the bio on Gilles. Were there bios on the rest of the competitors? If not, that’s kind of silly, interesting as his little trip to Cannes was.

So, semis consisted of: Mark and Shawn dancing Jive and Argentine Tango; Melissa and Tony Quickstep and Cha Cha; Ty and Chelsie Samba and Viennese Waltz; and Gilles and Cheryl Salsa and Waltz (although one YouTube clip called it a Quickstep).

My favorites were Mark and Shawn’s Argentine Tango and both dances by Melissa and Tony.

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THE MARK BALLAS SHOW: SEMI-SEMI-FINALS

Sorry, am compelled to call DWTS the Mark Ballas show now, because whenever he dances, it is so all about him. Mark! Can the man ever learn to be the frame? “Oh baby, what’s wrong?” he says to Shawn in practice, before hugging her. Oh Mark — just melt me. But it’s nice to see a pro not beating up on his amateur, unlike Cheryl, who gave Gilles more hard times this week… Anyway, I thought Mark and Shawn’s Quickstep was great fun, but again, was only watching him. The quintessential ham. Seriously, though, he’s an excellent performer, and an excellent dancer… which is rare I think. And I love that half-Texan half-British accent. Shawn seemed to do very well.

Chelsie’s taking over and making it all about her with Ty isn’t as bothersome, I guess, since the woman is supposed to be the picture.

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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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