This….is….American Idol. Just kidding. It’s Dancing with the STARS!!!!This week’s guest judge is Donnie Burns. He is HUGE in the ballroom world. When Maks called him the Tiger Woods of ballroom, he wasn't exaggerating. It's almost impossible to get him. Plus he’s SUPER expensive. Put it this way. If you want a private lesson with Maks, you’ll probably pay about $150-$175. Heck, for a private lesson with ME, you’ll pay about $100. But for Donnie, you’d easily pay at least $300 or more. Here's an old video of him dancing back in the 90s. It's a little old fashioned, but here's what he looks like dancing.
Group 1 (Cha Cha/ “Born This Way”: Lady Gaga) – Ralph, Chelsie, Romeo – OK. Part of me thinks this was just all a big hot mess. At times it was hot; other times it was a mess. They really were out of sync a lot, like Bruno said, because they tried to go further than full out. I admire them all for giving it all they had (plus some) but it was a bit wild. Karina and Chelsea both fell back on leading themselves (Argh!) and it looked like Mark relied a little too much on sexy stuff for their choreography. However, I could tell that Mark just re-used a good bit of their previous Cha Cha, which I’m pretty sure I thought was a little too sexy then too. Ralph hid behind Karina, and I can’t say I blame him. Romeo stood out a little bit more, but only slightly. Overall, I wasn’t super impressed. Yawn.
My Score: 7 Judges Scores: 30 (8, 8, 7, 7) (Donnie, Carrie Ann, Len, Bruno)
Group 2 (Cha Cha/ “We Are Who We Are”:Ke$ha) – Hines, Kirstie, Kendra –This was REALLY GOOD!!!!! I was very impressed. Louis has a lot of experience with choreographing for groups. The idea is that the steps aren’t all that complicated but they are executed all at the same time. I think this group did a much better job of that. When they were all together, it was almost hard to tell who were the pros and who were the stars. Almost. In the solo dances, everyone struck just the right balance of dance and sexy. I’m very pleased.
My Score: 9 Judges Scores: 30 (7, 7, 8, 8) If you notice, that’s a tie between the groups. And that’s baloney. Group two was a billion times better than group 1. But clearly the judges don’t want the group numbers to weigh down their individual scores. Boooo. OhMiGod!!!! It’s Yulia!!!!!!!!! She is a goddess!!!! Her partner, Ricardo, is good too, but she is soooooooooo much better than he is. Different pros (current and former) have been ripping off her routines for a while now. If you go to youtube and search “Max and Yulia” you might even recognize a few of their routines. Max was her former partner and he was really good too. He decided to retire and she wasn’t ready to, so she got a new partner, Ricardo, but he’s not half as good as Max was. Search “Ricardo and Yulia” too and you might see the difference.
OK. On to the individual routines.
Chelsea and Mark (Paso Doble/ “Unknown song title“) – Mark’s mom, Shirley, came to coach them this week. As she is a former world champion, she had some great pointers. Parts of the dance were good, but parts were bad. Shirley kept trying to get Chelsie to be more aggressive, but, once again, the aggression got the better of her. They seemed off balance because of too much aggression. I have a feeling she’ll end up in the middle of the pack.
My Score: 8 Judges Score: 34 (8, 9, 8, 9) (Total 64) I have to say, Bruno was really rude to Donnie. Donnie and Len agreed that the dance was kind of confusing, while Carrie Ann and Bruno thought it was fabulous and pushed the boundaries. Let’s add this up – the BALLROOM professionals thought it was not all that hot. The NON-BALLROOM judges loved it. Bruno then told Donnie (the friggin 20 TIME UNDEFEATED LATIN WORLD CHAMPION) to come into the future. Um, Bruno? When you know what you’re talking about, we’ll listen to you. Ok? Ok.
Kendra and Louis (Tango/ “Jealousy“) – Luca Baracchi (a standard champion that I’m actually not all that familiar with) came to coach them. Apparently Shirley is coaching the latin dances (as that was her specialty) and Luca is coaching the ballroom dances (as that’s his). Makes sense. Anyway, Luca worked with Kendra on FOLLOWING. What a novel concept!!! *Sarcasm alert* Once she tried the steps with him, and found that he could “tell” her what to do by using his body and she could “listen” by using hers, she started to understand what it meant to follow. She then discovered more confidence than she ever had before. Unfortunately, all the confidence was lost in her horrible feet and sagging frame. God bless her though, because that was some crazy hard (and VERY advanced) choreography and she was holding on for dear life the entire time. Thank you, Donnie, for mentioning how hard that routine actually was.
My Score: 8 Judges Scores: 31 (8, 8, 7, 8) (Total 61)Kirstie and Maks (Jive/ “La Bamba”)– Oh dear. I think they might be trying to kill Kirstie. She’s doing the jive which is THE fastest dance EVER and she’s friggin’ 60 years old!!! Oh dear. As we like to say in the south when someone does something really sad, “Bless her heart.” Her attitude was fantastic, but her levgel of skill is so much lower than the Jive requires. Her kicks were barely off the floor and it really was just a dance that was beyond her. Bless her heart.
My Score: 7 Judges Scores: 30 (9, 7, 6, 8) (Total 60) I think Donnie may have been a smidge too nice on this one.
Ahh. Some gorgeous tango from true champions. God, they give me chills. Katusha and Arunas are amazing. *Sigh*
Ralph and Karina (Quickstep/ “Unknown song title”)– After some minor coaching from Luca, they are ready to go. Judging from the rehearsal footage, either he didn’t stay very long, or when he was there, it wasn’t very interesting, because it looks like he was there for all of 3 minutes. In any case, the routine was quite good! I think it may have been the best dance of the night (and there’s still a couple more to go). Quickstep is very hard and he did great. His footwork was gorgeous and well executed (as Donnie pointed out – Thanks again Donnie!! Can you stay forever?).
My Score: 10! Judges Scores: 36 (10, 9, 8, 9) (Total 66) I think Donnie may be the first Judge with accurate scores. An 8 from Len??? WTH?
*rolling my eyes*
Hines and Kym (Tango/ “Random Tango song”)– Ooh. Luca worked with him on LEADING!!! HOORAY!!!!! My prayers have been answered! In his dashing white tux jacket, Hines is just all kinds of sexy. And he’s leading too!!!!!! It wasn’t Gilles hot, but it was still hella good! I loved it. Looks like I’m giving my second 10.
My Score: 10! Judges Score: 36 (9, 9, 8, 10) (Total 66 ) I agreed with Bruno? I think I may need to get my head examined. And again, an 8 from Len? Seriously? Ugh.
Romeo and Chelsie (Samba/ “Say Hey”) – Dirty Shirley did all kinds of dirty things with Romeo. I’m just waiting for Mark to deck him for grabbing his mom’s butt. LOL. I’m not sure what it was, but Chelsie looked a lot like Lacey. It might have been all of the obvious back-leading. I really wasn’t impressed with this routine. Chelsie was all over the place and just made Romeo stand there. Shame on her. Plus he was all over the place when he WAS trying to move. His movement was all wrong and his footwork was even worse. He’s better than this routine, but he sure wasn’t good tonight. Big step back! Ha ha. See what I did there?
My Score: 7 Judges Score: 30 (7, 8, 7, 8) (Total 60)Judges Leaderboard………………………………………….My LeaderboardHines (36/66)…………………………………………………………………………..Hines (10 individual/9 group)
Ralph (36/66)…………………………………………………………………………..Ralph (10/7)
Chelsea (34/64)……………………………………………………………………….Kendra (8/9)
Kendra (31/61)…………………………………………………………………………Chelsea (8/7)
Kirstie (30/60)…………………………………………………………………………Kirstie (7/9)
Romeo (30/60)………………………………………………………………………….Romeo (7/7)
Who’s going home: KendraEven though she had good scores, I'm afraid Kendra's on her last leg. If Kirstie had a different teacher, I would say she was going home, but Maks is far too pretty to send home now. We need sexy meat on that floor!
Who do YOU think is going home?
*rolling my eyes*
