Originally Posted by katie_p:
“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.”
“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.”
Far more what? What I don't get is Austin isn't a performer, he's around the same age, same background as Darren and Matt, it's not as if he had natural groove or rhythm to his dancing like Mark R but because Erin managed to get a high standard of dances from the start then others could have...?
Maybe if Matt had been partnered with Erin then his ballroom would have started at a higher standard and it wouldn't have taken weeks to get to it. It's not as if he was never capable of doing it.
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“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 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.”
Eh?! So you only rate Matt’s salsa but you think that Flavia produces great latin, what celeb do you think she did that for?
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“ 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.”
“ 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.”
Do you remember their training for that? Austin has a knee injury (no cartilege or something)and was in pain for some of it. It's not as if it was easy to get to that level. There was a lot of repetition yes but maybe because Erin stuck to what he could do. She could have thrown in a lot of moves he couldn't do but that wouldn't have made much sense.
I don't get what you mean by dancing with technical ability - hip action, had rhythm....?
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“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.”
“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.”
I actually think dancing and teaching latin is harder than ballroom that's why I don't think it's as easy as saying producing a good ballroom dancer automatically means producing a good latin.
Dull latin routines in your opinion. Erin has managed to take Austin to fourth place, Erin’s latin choreography offers something different to Lilia’s like Austin's paso which was very showy. Even with the criticisms you've levelled at their jive as far as forums, studio audience, judges, youtube views, it was actually very well received. What more can a producer ask for?
I'm trying to be as objective as possible here. I just don't think you can take all the hard work Erin did with Austin and say oh yeah cos another teacher dances latin they could have done much better.
Last edited by Stella Street : 02-04-2009 at 21:57
