Dancing With The Stars - Week 6

A Teacher's Perspective

By Debra Stroiney

Oh Gilles…. I was actually disappointed by your dancing this week. Jive was just not your dance but you did a good job with something that is so difficult. This goes to show you that everyone has dances they excel at and dances that are more difficult to learn. I felt that the speed of dance was taking away from some of the things that Gilles usually does best. But this will help him to learn that even if the dance is fast you can’t compromise the things that make the dancing good, such as arm styling, character, and performance.

Well here we go with the judges this season. They have been relatively good about giving appropriate scores throughout but to me the scoring was off last night. Unfortunately I was siding a lot with Len. Even if the audience doesn’t want to hear Len’s negative comments, it has to be realized that Len is the only one who is truly a ballroom judge; everyone else has a dance/choreography background. So even if it is harsh what he says is usually correct. First, with Lil' Kim. She performed an excellent number. Great use of the music but there were some mistakes I saw she made and Len was correct in saying that there wasn’t a lot of Jive in the routine. So why did Carrie Ann and Bruno give her 10s???? It wasn’t a perfect routine/performance. 10 = perfect!! Second, I feel that Shawn’s Rumba was better than Melissa’s. Melissa got a point higher, not too far off. I felt Shawn flowed from one step to the next where as Melissa’s was a little choppier. It also seems they are trying hard to get Steve-O off the show. I am not saying he is a great dancer but that was one of his best dances. I couldn’t believe some of his arm extensions… his fluidity was not there but he tried.

I actually like Lawrence and Ty’s Jive. They both did well with a dance that could have been awful for them. After seeing how mechanical they were in the Paso Doble I was cringing a little when they started their performance but each of them did a solid routine. Even Ty who the judges didn’t like so much put out a performance that was better than his Cha-Cha and Paso. I find the Jive harder than both of these dances. So I was impressed he held his own.

Prediction: I would normally say Steve-O but he has had an impressive fan base over the past few weeks so I am not sure if that will be the case again this week. If the fans come through again the bottom 2 tonight will be Ty and Lawrence.