Originally Posted by Stella Street:
“Yeah because Erin taught him that ballroom. If your using a high standard week one ballroom routine as any indicator of potential then Erin deserves a lot of credit for creating it. So it’s not necessarily a case of give Austin to someone else then everyone starts talking about how great he is.
For their jive could it be that Erin was able to teach better jive technique so he made it look easy? I don’t think a jive is something that you can have a natural ability at. You can’t really have a natural flair for bounce, sharp flicks and kicks. And Austin had a major injury to his knee IIRC.”
It's kind of chicken v egg there, yes I would give Erin credit for Austin's ballroom, but being that good at the beginning rather than working up to it suggests to me that potential was a bigger factor with him than someone like Matt Dawson, who started with a modest Tango and worked up to a beautiful Waltz. Like I said I do think it is tough to try and establish potential, but I would have said Austin started with far more than the average male celeb, even ones who went on to be pretty good.
I do give Erin an awful lot of credit for her celebs' ballroom routines, in fact I think she is by far the best at choreographing slow ballroom routines. I just don't think that makes up for her latin routines.
Originally Posted by
Stella Street:
“I’m not sure how liking to dance is any indicator of ability. I’m pretty sure some of the poor dancers liked to dance but that had no affect on their ability. Erin can’t always rely on the fact that she can dance around her partners and add sparkle so naturally you are going to see more of them dancing on their own. Because she's not a latin dancer it's almost become her style to showcase her partner more. TBH I don't really recall Matt being reluctant to dance latin, or Aled...
You can’t really compare ballroom and latin in that way. Much of ballroom is in hold so there is only a limit to what you can do to make it difficult.”
Perhaps I phrased it badly then. I was really thinking that Austin was very
comfortable dancing on his own. I think that does set him apart from weaker dancers who almost always prefer the reassurance of dancing in hold. I didn't mean to imply that was the main reason for thinking Austin had potential though.
I'm not sure what you're getting at saying ballroom and latin can't be compared though. They are difficult in different ways surely?
Originally Posted by Stella Street:
“I’m actually surprised you would put Austin ahead of Matt DA in terms of potential. I still don’t see what gives Austin so much potential other than appearing to love dancing on his own. Wasn’t Darren’s big selling point that he learned to love dance but I don’t think that had any impact on his latin dancing even at the end of the competition.”
I guess the difficulty here is that it's difficult both to define potential, and to explain it. Matt DA's first latin dance was pretty ropey, and to be honest apart from his Salsa, I'd find it tough to recall another latin routine he shined in. I certainly didn't mean to imply that what I see as Austin's potential is based on his comfort in dancing on his own. That confidence in dancing on his own reflected something more, IMO, and it was based on something solid- he danced with technical ability as far as I can see (I'm happy to be told otherwise on that point though, I don't know anything about the technical aspect of dance, I just have a vague idea about what 'looks' accurate!). There again you could say that is all down to Erin, but in spite of that whenever I watch their Jive it is striking to me how limited the routine looks compared to how well he is dancing what he has been given. I do think that means there is a problem with the level at which the routine has been choreographed.
ON the subject of Darren loving to dance, like I said I didn't mean to imply that Austin enjoying dancing alone was a huge factor in what I view as his potential, but if I did I would point out that Darren freely said he didn't like latin as much. He loved ballroom far more than latin.
Originally Posted by Stella Street:
“As to which pro gets the good partners then that’ll be based on what you want to see. I like Lilia and Flavia's choreography but it’s ridiculous to give only two pros, with distinct styles, all of the good partners especially when what Lilia can do is partly based on guesswork. It’s not even a matter of it being fair it would just get boring very quickly!”
It's not going to happen so that's not really a problem! Yes it is partly guesswork to say Lilia would do well for a natural latin dancer, but it's a good educated guess for several reasons- Lilia always choreographs for her partner rather than herself. She very rarely pitches things at the wrong level for her partner. She has choreographed good and memorable routines for mediocre to reasonable latin dancers. And she is a latin dancer, teacher and choreographer, so if she can produce memorable routines in ballroom it's not a huge leap to say she can do the same in latin.
It's not really a case of giving anyone
all the good partners as if there are some every year. I'm talking about celebs with real potential, whether or not you want to say Austin was one of them- I don't think there's necessarily even one male celeb each year that falls into that category. All I'm saying is, if I was a producer and I realised I had someone on my hands who could potentially dance really well, I wouldn't give him to someone who choreographs dull latin routines or had any other obvious weakness that is going to hold the celeb back.