Dancing With The Stars, Week Eight

By Armando Martin, former undefeated US International Champion and the current National Dance Director for the Fred Astaire Dance Studios chain.

With the semifinals beginning next week, all the competitors put their best efforts forward last night on Dancing with the Stars, and what a night it was! It had all the ingredients of a good Soap Opera with controversy, drama, fun, bad dancing, great dancing, good looking, sexy people and a very touching moment when Laila performed for her father, Muhammad Ali, who looked on with pride and amazement in his eyes as she danced across the floor.

All the competitors had to dance two numbers tonight and you can tell by the quality of the dances that they are getting more comfortable with every week that goes by.

The first couple tonight was Ian and Cheryl. Their first dance was the Fox-Trot. Contradictory to the judges' opinions, I thought that Ian did a great job with this dance. His interpretation of the music he was given was right on cue, he was light and bouncy, looked great in his smooth suit, and looked like he was having fun. I thought that the two 7s he received from the judges were undeserved. Their second dance was the Rumba. In this dance, his posture was not very good; for a guy who is as young and in shape as he is, it looks to me that his core is weak and does not support the connection between his upper body and his legs as well as it should, creating some weak looking top and shoulder lines.

Next to take the floor was Joey and Kym. I was very surprised to see them in the bottom two this week. His Waltz was truly fantastic, he was soft, light and showed all the right characteristics of this dance. I was especially pleased with the way that he stayed in his side of the dance frame showing good control and an excellent ballroom silhouette throughout the entire number. Folks - this is very hard to do. Unfortunately for Joey, his Mambo was by far the worse number he has done the whole competition. The judges did not agree with my assessment on this one but what I saw was a lack of understanding about this dance from Kym (who is Australian and not familiar with the Mambo) when choreographing it. Again, I must disagree with Len about his comment regarding Joey dancing on the two beat because they never once during the dance hit the right beat. In my opinion, Joey faltered a bit when he started the dance and he never truly recovered.

Dancing the country Fox-Trot this week was the self proclaimed hillbilly Billy Ray. For a guy who is a very good singer and can obviously put a lot of feeling and emotion in his voice, when it comes to dancing that feeling gets lost somewhere between his head and his feet. He basically just walked around somewhat to the beat of the music with no technique to speak of. His Mambo, on the other hand, while still lacking any technical attributes was a lot of fun to watch and reminded everyone what has kept him in the competition this long. I think that Karina, being a smart choreographer, let him do his own thing to the music and used that in their routines instead of actually trying to make him do things he did not do well.

Laila and Maks danced a beautiful, soft Waltz tonight, which she dedicated to her Dad. As always, Laila showed great balance and control throughout her performance. Unfortunately, for me, the choreography lacked the beauty and risk factor that is so important at this stage of the competition; to Laila's credit, she did fantastic with what she was given. Her Jive also left me wanting more from her this week. She made good use of her boxing footwork during this dance with all the kicks, hops and flicks but her shoulders made her look a little heavy and her elbows must be closer to her body in order for her to look more centered and lighter. I also think that Randy, the costume designer for the show and a very talented guy, did not do her any favors with that black dress; in hindsight, if she had worn a dress that showed her outstanding physique a bit more, I would most likely not be talking about her elbows today.

What can one say about Apolo and Julianne other than - Bravo!!!! First of all, I have to give Julianne kudos for the incredible job that she is doing teaching this young man and choreographing his numbers. We must remember that she is only 18 years old and, although being a very experienced dancer, she has risen to a new level as a teacher and choreographer. Apolo did a great job dancing a Tango to Swing music, something that I think the judges did not take under consideration when giving their critiques. But who remembers that Tango after he danced the Paso Doble? In my mind, that dance put him in a level all by himself in this competition. This young man has true talent and I think has a very real possibility at a second career as a professional Rhythm competitor when he retires from speed skating. His footwork, feel, partnering abilities and incredible shapes made his Paso Doble the judges choice for the encore performance for Wednesday night when - once again - he did not disappoint us.

It was nice to see Tony and Elena dancing on the Wednesday night show - keeping us well aware of what real dancing should look like.

I'll be back next week to share my thoughts about the first week of the semifinals.

Happy Dancing,
Armando Martin