I wanna do canter-time pivots!
Um, no. So there are actually four different dances, each almost imperceptibly different from the other – American Smooth Waltz, American Smooth Viennese Waltz, International Standard Waltz, and International Standard Viennese Waltz? And the differences are minutely technical points of allowed moves and approved positions?
And I’m gathering “syllabus” refers to something other than the proposed date of the midterm?
Okay, here’s what I came up with. From Arthur Murray:
From this I infer that [ul]
[li]American Smooth Waltz is slow, open []American Smooth Viennese Waltz is fast, open []International Standard Waltz is slow, close International Standard Viennese Waltz is fast, close[/li][/ul]
Can anyone confirm or deny?
Confirm. The difference between Viennese Waltz and Waltz (aka Slow Waltz) is that Waltz is slow and Viennese is fast. The difference between American style and international style is that American has open positions and international is all closed.
In the lower levels of amateur competition, people are restricted to lists of specific figures. These lists are called “syllabi.” Typically, there are three lists, corresponding to levels of competition called Bronze, Silver, and Gold. (Some competitions also have Pre-Bronze, which may use the Bronze list or may use a subset thereof.) Once you get out of those, there is Novice (a relatively advanced level, despite the name), Pre-Championship, and Championship.
Professional competitions are divided into Rising Star and Open. Rising Star is usually open to anyone who hasn’t won Rising Star at that competition, placed in the finals of Open at that competition, or done either of the above at the national championships. A few competitions have a syllabus event for the pros (mostly those sponsored by the Imperial Society of Teachers of Dance, which not-coincidentally is also the body responsible for the international style syllabus), but it’s not a lower-level event - it’s just an opportunity to show off how you can look good even doing the simplest stuff. It’s usually won by the same couple that wins the Open.
Pro-am competition has even more levels than amateur. (It varies by competition, but a typical list might be: pre-bronze, closed bronze, open bronze, closed silver, full silver, open silver, closed gold, open gold, gold star I, gold star II, open, and scholarship. Each of these is offered in 3-6 age categories.) The reason there are so many categories is so that a single pro can find something to dance in with every student. These guys are machines - I’ve seen them dance up to two or three hundred dances almost back to back.
And Tony Dovlani is Stacy’s partner, not Tia’s. He’s smokin’ hot either way, though.
I like Tia, but I think this may be her last week. Her dances were okay but there was no oomph. Lisa continues to win me over. She has been improving every week. She has a very busy career, two kids, and she’s got a decade or two on the top contenders, Drew and Stacey, but she is catching up to them. How much other stuff do Drew and Stacey have going on? Yeah, her lips are scary but even she knows that and joked about it on the last show. She and Louie are really cute together too. It’s also adorable how her husband is always there cheering her on, he’s seems both impressed and proud.
She’s really impressed me, I’m rooting for her now. But I can never get a vote through so it’s not like I can do much about it.
Well, leaving out Stacy’s samba, during which I can only think that woodies were rising all across America, competition seemed pretty close and for a nimrod like myself, hard to handicap. Hey, but that hasn’t stopped me before, so here’s my entirely subjective rankings.
The judges seemed pretty generous with the points tonight. I wouldn’t presume to argue with the perfect score for Stacy; this kind of dance really plays to her strengths and she shook her moneymaker like there was no tomorrow. I wasn’t bowled over by any of the men’s efforts; Drew was the best from a technical standpoint but I didn’t much care for the routine, particularly the whole thing with the tearaway sleeves. Maybe George is rated higher than he should be, but this was a tough one for a 66-year-old guy with bad knees to attempt, and one has to give him credit for his effort. Lisa gets a nod for effort, but she’s had some atrocious musical choices; “The Freak”, fer cryin’ out loud. The rest, put 'em in a hat and shake it up.
Who gets the chop? From a technical standpoint, should be George or Jerry, but they are both so entertaining, and so genuinely nice, that I dont want to see them go, and I suspect no one else does either. I like Tia too, but for some reason the Wayne’s World crowd hasn’t turned out in support. I think she’s a gone johnson.
I was disappointed with Tia’s dance. I really like Tia and Maksim, but they haven’t done very well the last two weeks so I did something I have done all season. I actually voted. Tia and Maksim, you got two of my votes. If you stay, please do better!
Well, I voted for Tia this week – not her best work, but better than George. Yeah, George is fun to watch, but he’s gone as far as someone his age can go. He’s the last of the non-dancers left, and it wouldn’t be fair for a non-dancer to outlast someone like Tia who’s doing quite a bit.
It’s hard, though – they really are all so freakin’ likeable at this point!
ENugent – a million thanks for your detailed answer – very helpful. (And :smack: on the Juliet Prowse thing – I did know that, I think.)
That reminds me, funniest line of the night, IMO, was when Len Goodman commented to Maxsim, after the group Salsa, “I liked the part where you went under her like you where checking for an oil leak…” (or something like that)
I’m afraid Tia is Toast this week. Her samba routine was flat as yesterday’s Miller Lite. And she hasn’t had fan backing all along. So my money is on her to depart the happy little group.
And although I really don’t like Lisa Rinna (did you SEE her without her makeup during that Salsa prep piece???), she’s hot and getting hotter. But her partner scares me. (And I think they looked alike before she went into the black hair mode. Same square jaw. Same shag haircut. Hmmmmm.)
EW last week suggested if you put her and Louis together, you get her husband, Harry Hamlin – it’s uncanny.
It’s true! I spent the first three minutes of the salsa prep segment thinking he was Harry Hamlin, and wondering why Lisa was dancing with her husband instead of her partner!
Veronica Mars fans will know why I started to laugh when they showed a clip of Harry videotaping Lisa and her partner dancing. 
Maybe he’s their secret love child.
This is the first fast dance Stacy has done. I had my doubts about whether she’d be able to do it, but boy was I wrong. If she decides to take up ballroom seriously, she could be a real threat on the professional circuit in another year or two.
Loved the group dance. If anyone had any delusions that this show was easy, they need to check out that salsa rehearsal clip. They all looked exhausted. Though Cheryl whacking Drew’s nose was priceless.
Lisa looked like she was having seizures out on the dance floor, her moves were so clipped. I think she’s really improved, but she needs to quit treating the dances as if they were cheerleading routines. She doesn’t “feel” the music in the way that Stacy and Drew, and even George Hamilton, do. The stuccato Janet Jackson thang doesn’t work with a samba, IMO.
Agree with everyone that Tia’s dance was absolutely flat. She has an elegance to her that works well with the ballroom dances, but falls flat during fast dances such as the samba. And, frankly, her weight works against her. Had she been given another three months to get in shape, I think she’d have a better shot. You want to shake your groove thing, not your belly fat.
And I totally didn’t “get” the “I’m a woman coming out of her shell” theme. I just thought she couldn’t dance well.
**George Hamilton ** IS very charming but giving him an 8 was unfair, IMO, esp when Drew earned only one point higher and Rice earned equal or lesser votes. They can’t keep giving George an age handicap and call it a fair competition.
Loved Stacy’s dance. She feels the music and really has the whole hip thing going on. The only criticism, one that she has no control over, is her height. It works against her to some degree. Or maybe her partner needed to be taller. In any event, her height adds to her elegance but detracts when she’s trying to let it loose, IMO. It’s like watching a giraffe dance.
Jerry Rice has the same “problem.” His limbs are all over the place. Though he really impressed me with how much he’s improved. He’s starting to get more comfortable and find his rhythm, though I agree with Carrie Ann that you can actually see him counting, which is distracting.
On the other end of the spectrum is Drew, who could stand to use another five inches in height. He definitely has rhythm and is a great dancer, but his shortness is distracting.
I know, I’m shallower than a dinner plate.
Oh, my GOD!
I’m in Japan, currently cut off from almost all western TV, and I really would like to see this, but…
Reading everyone’s descriptions made me realize, I’ve already seen the Japanese version of this show!
If my memory serves me correctly, the Japanese version had no internet/call in voting, and they showed everybody doing at least three or four different dances. The live band was so-so, the singers less so, and the announcement of who would continue on was at the end of the hour or two it was on. One of the “stars” was a soft-porn starlet, and her dances were basically her striking poses, often hanging off her dance partner w. legs spread…
I only saw it once, a few weeks ago. If I manage to catch it again, I’ll pay more attention…
Yeah, apparently the original version was in England (was it El Kabong who’s seen it?), and they’ve set up franchises in different countries.
Speaking of porn starlets, Stacy has a spread (sic) or should I say layout (sic)… um, series of photos … coming up in Stuff magazine, on sale next week. They showed a preview on Entertainment Tonight last night. I’ll allow one of our male Dopers to buy the mag and discuss it in detail.
I keep forgetting to mention – Drew reminds me of some cartoon character, and I can’t figure out who it is – I think it might be a secondary Warner Bros. character – maybe Pepe Le Pew? Some character that looks like he’s wearing eyeliner – does Drew, BTW, or do his eyes just look like that? Can anyone bail me out here?
That’s right. See my posts on the first page of this thread for further information.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. The music? The horror…
“Bootylicious” and “Dirty?” Bleh!
Do we know who picks the music? Does someone at the show pick X number of songs and assign them, or does each couple choose their own and then just make sure no one else is using it?
My understanding is that the couples are told what music they will be using to each week. At one point in the first season, each couple was being given a choice of a few songs, but I think now they’re just assigning it. The pro does get to select the tempo.
(There’s no way they could have just let the couples pick whatever music they wanted - getting the rights would be a nightmare.)
Exactly!