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Theme weeks
cwickham
Posts: 10,272 Forum Member
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Right. In addition to the usual Halloween show in week 6, I'm also expecting themes for weeks 3 and 10 going on past performance:
2010: Halloween week 5, Movie Night week 10
2011: Broadway week 3, Halloween week 5, Movie Night week 10
2012: Hollywood week 3, Halloween week 4, Fusion week 10
2013: Love Week week 3, Halloween week 6, Musicals week 10
We've heard that Bollywood is being introduced this year, so that might be a theme night of its own? I'd like to see Television Night myself...
2010: Halloween week 5, Movie Night week 10
2011: Broadway week 3, Halloween week 5, Movie Night week 10
2012: Hollywood week 3, Halloween week 4, Fusion week 10
2013: Love Week week 3, Halloween week 6, Musicals week 10
We've heard that Bollywood is being introduced this year, so that might be a theme night of its own? I'd like to see Television Night myself...
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Personally , maybe with the exception of Halloween themed night, I really don't like the themed nights at all, I'd be happy to lose them along with the props.
We can't all like the same things so trying to include something during the weeks to appeal to most people's taste isn't so bad. The ratings and the fact it is still BBC's flagship show must prove it is doing something right!
Instead, they could let the pros have freer rein over music, choreography and costumes. If the pros can't be creative enough, then they hired the wrong pros.
They should spend more time before the show starts and let the pros try out ideas.
It would be more difficult to make it happen and more difficult to control, but it should be better.
Of course its not going to happen because it would cost more and the producers would have less control.
Its getting difficult to find new suitable music for Halloween week.
Although I agree with you in principle, the problem is that 9 out of 10 dances would end up as show-dances. I think the pros are creative enough - after all, creating routines is what most of them do in their "real lives".
I do absolutely agree about having more control over the music though. A lot of the Strictly music is not appropriate for the dances its being used for. No objections to pop music, or anything modern, but it should be played at the correct tempo. A lot of popular music is re-recorded as strict tempo, and this is what the couples practice to.
I feel the pros need to have far more involvement with the band long before each show, so the band plays the strict tempo version of a tune, not necessarily the original version..
When the pros don't have free range to do what they like, I think it actually makes them stretch a bit more in their creativity. I'm thinking of Natalie and Scott's Viennese Waltz, Artem and Holly's American Smooth as a couple of examples.
I certainly don't want a return to weeks that didn't work, such as 'Love Week' or 'Best of British'. There's nothing wrong with those themes per se, but it all felt a bit tacky.
I would quite like Big Band or Motown as a theme week (Maybe even Eurovision just for the sheer hilarious horror of it all?) but that might limit the dance choices.
Part of my 'dream' is that they hire pros who are experienced enough in the ten dances, the 'judges' can tell if they are not being danced correctly and they tighten up on choreographing and training to try to teach the celebs to do the dances properly. All that and still come up with new music and interesting choreography.
Most of the pros are more than experienced enough to teach the 10 standard dances; not so much the "obscure" dances such as salsa, charleston, A.tango.
Their problem is, if they teach the celebs to do the dances properly, the routines would certainly appeal to Len and probably Craig, and to those who watch the show for the dance element, but to others they might seem rather bland and dull. For the main part, it is the exciting and clever (as in tricks!) routines that get the majority viewer vote, and basically that is what the pros are aiming for.
I don't mind if the dance hasn't got start to finish dancing all the time as long as there is quite a bit of content to show the quality of the celeb's dancing. The start and finish is available to be used to make it different and hopefully exciting.
eg.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ns_zYaL0LXk
I do question if certain of the pros could do that. Some can most of them, others I think do struggle to do proper ballroom. There were a couple of times in the last couple of years that I could hardly tell the pro and celeb apart [naming no names] (and not because the celeb was so good that I couldn't find fault - it was more that the pro on occasion didn't do a step properly ... so I would question if they could teach a celeb properly).
I personally loved Fusion Week too - wouldnt mind them doing that again
Absolutely YES! Loved that routine, and I see what you mean about teaching the dances properly. Based on that foxtrot, it should work every time.
Maybe (but I know it could/would never happen
Likewise, there's at least one who still can't do proper Latin!
I do think they should be more specific about the duration of the lead into the dance and the finish - there doesn't seem to be a limit AFAIK? Maybe allowing 30 seconds total for the start+finish with 60 seconds of dancing? I have seen 35 seconds elapse before the couple got into hold and 42 seconds for a finish. I don't know if in real competitions there is any dancing out of hold which is also considered part of the dance?
But we are veering away from Themed Weeks. I don't like the Fusion themed week as I would rather see the two dances danced properly instead of maybe being danced to music that suits one of the dances. It also seems unfair because you can get a fusion that is easy or one that is almost impossible to do well.
There have been some good showdances in Halloween week and maybe there is a place for a relaxing of the rules a bit for one week? And Halloween is at least topical because it occurs during the show.
I think Halloween night suits SCD. I love it.
Disney night would be great. DWTS last series did an amazing job with it.
I agree, in my opinion, the dancers that specialise in Latin almost certainly cannot dance Ballroom to a good standard, with the exception of a few. I see many, many mistakes the pro's make.
In proper Ballroom competitions, there is absolutely no dancing out of hold at all. The only slight exception, is sometime at the start of VW, some couples like to do an introduction, but this is not too common these days. Absolutely all dancing is in hold, from start to finish, and no lifts at all.
Thanks for clearing that up.
In that case I think it would be even more important to put some time limits on the start/finish either side of the actual dancing (if they do dance any of the actual dance).
I agree with this, I think a 30 second intro is more than enough, then at least 60 seconds, or more, proper dancing in hold, dancing the correct dance to a given piece of music.
Graham Gouldman
Bee Gees
John Barry
Lloyd Webber
Mike Batt
Cathy Dennis http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_songs_written_by_Cathy_Dennis
Nicky Chinn and Mike Chapman http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Chapman
Get Rid!!