The best man won (DWTS weeks seven and eight)

I'm astonished. The "star" that I thought most deserved to win actually won the discobolusish Dancing With The Stars trophy. (Don't look it up. It's an inside joke.) It's clear that Jerry Rice didn't make it to 2nd place with his dancing, although he finally let go and had some fun during the last two shows. Stacey's freestyle dance on Thursday was a real disappointment, but it did Drew a huge favor. Since Stacey came in third in the popular vote (which she had to in order to be third overall), it didn't matter who came in first and second in the popular vote, because Drew would have won overall either way. In fact, Drew could ONLY lose if he came in last in the popular vote.

Of course the above all rests on the order of the judges' scores. I didn't understand why they gave Drew 9's for his last dance. It's like they punished him for being as good as he was on Thursday, while rewarding Stacey, who merely came up to his level on the last dance. I guess that's the problem with judging something artistic - there's no way to be completely objective.

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No, I haven't forgotten about America's Ballroom Challenge, part II. I guess I was a little underwhelmed by it. In most cases, it was like the judges got inside my head and picked the couple I liked the least. Dragging someone across the floor is not ballroom, or at least it doesn't fit my image of ballroom, and I can't stand the way so many ballroom ladies break their arm lines at the wrist. If you want to see an example of what I'm talking about, go to this page and look at the picture of Erminio Stefano and Liene Apale. They were nice dancers, but that picture just makes me cringe.

DWTS, weeks five and six

week 5: Stacey really shook her thang, George did a little actual dancing, Jerry did a whole lot better. Which is all I feel like writing. So there.

For week 6, an experiment: stream-of-consciousness blogging!

Demonstrations by the professionals - oh goody!

I still don't like Jive. But Ashley does it well - I think it's her strongest dance.

Jonathan and Anna. I miss Jonathan; he's such a nice standard dancer. Oh, foot cam! Does every dance have to end with the lady bent over backwards?

Edyta must like that color. Oops, bird lift didn't work AT ALL. Been there, done that; they did a pretty good job covering it. I get the feeling they all had about an hour to come up with their dances.

Cool dress on Cheryl! She's really drapey. Three out of four.

I don't know the names of either of these dancers doing the Quickstep, but they're quite good.

Jerry and Anna, Paso Doble Can I say, it's awesome to have a professional football player on TV talking about how much he wants to dance. Ouch - bad joke about the quarter! Still a little stiff, but he's really into it. He looks like the king of Siam. 9, 7, 8? 8, 7, 8, I was close.

Drew and Cheryl, Tango My mom says to me last week, "Drew is very musical." This thing with his brother is a little hokey. They couldn't put makeup on the hand elastic? Another nice dress, though. I can't decide if this song sucks as a tango or not. Somehow, it both sucks and doesn't suck. Good intensity. Nice bow! I see 10's coming up. 10, 10, 10!

George and Edyta, Rumba Chernoble, lol. Ooh, I like this song, and nice singer, too. Wow, Edyta looks sexy! He's got the right feeling on those cucarachas. Oh yeah, he's enjoying this. Drag next time? 8, 7, 8? (Inspector Clouseau!) 8, 7, 8, yep.

Lisa and Louis, Quickstep They got screwed on the music last week. Ha ha, Miss Manners! What's that thing on her head? 9 to 5?? It's not working for her. Her hold is really weak. She's got the footwork, though. Cute ending. Let's see how gentle the judges are. Umm, really gentle - I think they're cutting her a lot of slack. 8, 8, 8? 9, 9, 9, wtf?

Stacey and Tony, Jive You know that coat's coming off. She's a performer. There it goes! Pretty good, I'd say. Hmm, I see a tie in the near future. Yep!

Wiener Waltz! Nice bird lift! Uh huh, nice spin, no surprise there. Nice funky chicken, LOL! Good standing foot spin. I don't think they did drop spins in Vienna. Another bird, imaginative exit.

Ok, I'm beat, going to bed. 'Night!

America's Ballroom Challenge, part I

Did you remember to watch America's Ballroom Challenge last night? It was great to finally see professionals dancing with professionals. I haven't seen much of that since I started ballroom, and I was having trouble picturing what a lot of moves should look like. Now I have lots of examples! And I didn't have to pay $100 for a video!

I have to admit that I wasn't all that enthralled by the American dances. In some of the styles you could barely tell which dance they were doing because of all the flourishes and poses. I'm also going to take a moment to kvetch about the ladies' dresses, particularly the Smooth ones. The current fashion is to bare as much midriff as possible while keeping the illusion of a dress. This has led to tortuous cutouts that spoil the dancers' lines. You can be sexy and still be elegant, but this isn't the way to do it. I realize that I may come across as an old fuddy-duddy on this point, but for one thing I'm a traditionalist by nature, and for another, the costumes are blurring the line between ballroom dancer and Vegas showgirl. Dance isn't about showing skin, it's about dancing!

Costumes and choreography aside, the dancers were quite good. I mean, you'd kind of hope so, right? It was exciting to see Viktoria Belova and Eddie Stutts in the Standard final, since I see Ms. Belova teaching all the time. I even saw her and Eddie having a lesson of their own last Saturday. Everyone in the Standard final looked quite elegant (yea, no weird cutouts), and I felt very inspired by their performances. There were quite a few collisions in that group, but it makes sense given that it was the most progressive style.

My mom was paying more attention than I was; Tony Dovolani, one of the top finishers in the Smooth finals, is Stacey's partner on DWTS.

DWTS, weeks three and four

Master P is gone, finally! It was becoming increasingly painful to watch him dance every week. I didn't mind that his technique was not so good; what bothered me was that he was barely even trying. I was shocked when the announcer-lady mentioned that while all of the other dancers had averaged 130 hours of training, P had only done 20. What message do you think he was really sending to the people in the 'hood? Ashley deserves sainthood for remaining positive throughout, at least on camera.

The level of dance in the competition is clearing rising. Some of these people are starting to look like dancers! Someone at some point commented on Drew's musicality, which really shouldn't surprise anyone given that he's a musician. (What do you call a musician without rhythm? "Waiter!") Speaking of music, some of the choices for the Paso Doble were truly appalling. How exactly is one supposed to imagine a bullfighter to "Thriller?"

This week everyone does the same dance for the first time, the Samba. The only dance left on the list is Viennese Waltz, so it will be interesting to see what happens next week.

DWTS, weeks one and two

I missed the first episode of Dancing With The Stars due to a freak occurance on my VCR. I'm not sure what happened, but I ended up with two hours of CourtTV! Anyway, my first exposure was the Friday results show on the 6th, so it was difficult to get a feel for the dancers. I did get to see the current US champions dance to music by Burt Bacharach; unfortunately I can't remember their names, but seeing as their dance was pretty forgettable, that's not so surprising. It seemed like they were good dancers, but they didn't do much actual dancing. It was like watching a ballet piece composed mostly of chassés and arm waving. I also didn't like the way the woman's line broke at the wrist.

Last week I saw the Thursday show but not the results show, again due to trouble with my VCR. (Tivo is looking better all the time.) Stacy Keibler stood out for her Rumba; some of the other women were pretty good but didn't have the lines she did. From her bio it appears that she had a fair amount of dance training when she was young. You can see it in her upper body, that is if you can tear your eyes away from her long legs! This time around I actually recognized some basic steps in the Rumba. I do wonder if the dancers were told to stick closer to basics than the last group did, because this seemed to be true of even the pros who were in the competition for the second time. Speaking of which, it's been really nice to see more of Edyta this time around. She's really a good dancer, quite the opposite of Tatum O'Neil, who got voted off the show last week. Her Rumba was painful to watch - it was almost completely graceless.

The men were pretty good doing the Quickstep. P. Miller wants to keep his rapper look while dancing, and it just doesn't work for him. If he would put on a tux and dance shoes, his score would probably go up 5 points. That's an intruiguing idea, though, mixing ballroom and hip hop. I think it would actually work best in the Quickstep and possibly the Cha Cha. When Mr. Silvershoes and I took the hip hop class, the instructor gave us a brief demonstration of swing dance executed with hip hop style. It was amazing.

Dancing with the Stars, week 2

This week the men did the Quickstep while the women did the Rumba. It's unfortunate that Trista and Louis got voted off, because that means we have to watch Kelly and Alec again next week. To be fair, Kelly and Alec did have the sexiest Rumba. Someone apparently forgot to give the women the other halves of their costumes. (I know that's normal. It just seems unfair.) Critique this time of the choreography rather than the dancers, who performed pretty much in the same order of competence as last time. In the Quickstep, it was easy to see what the dance was about: "dancing while running" as someone put it to me once. Maybe it's because I'm not as familiar with the Rumba, but I couldn't really identify any basic steps; it all seemed to be flourishes. One of the judges commented on this, so I guess it wasn't just me. I was amused by one thing in Rachel did in her number with Jonathan, or more correctly, something she did afterwards. She did a great job with the dance, and the final dip that took her almost to the floor was dramatic and smooth. Unfortunately Jonathan forgot to tell her how to get up from the pose gracefully once the dance was finished. In fact, he should have helped her out of it! Young dancers always have to be told to move like dancers onstage, even when they aren't dancing. At least nobody "adjusted" their costume, if you know what I mean. Cool - pictures of tech rehearsal!

This morning I read in The New York Times about a new ballroom-dancing robot. It's no surprise that it was made by Japanese engineers.

[6-20-05] I'm told that Joey's butt was sticking out during the Quickstep, a real no-no!

Dancing with the Stars

ABC has a new reality series starting June 1 called Dancing with the Stars. Celebrities (or near-celebrities) have been studying ballroom dance with professionals and will be performing live on the show with their professional partners. This is the American version of a show that has been produced in other countries as Strictly Come Dancing. (I keep trying to get my head around that name and can't. Any thoughts?) One wonders then how ABC feels justified in calling this a "totally unique and original series." It might be painful to watch, but how often do you get to see any kind of dance in primetime on a major network? I'm hoping that we'll get to see some of the professionals dance together!