OP the thread title reminded me of the book
"We need to talk about Kevin " , a similar theme , no one mentioning the obvious and the dance seems to be the elephant in the corner now .

I wouldn't be surprised to see Ali and Brian at the top tomorrow either. The rehearsal footage has looked a little subdued, but I reckon they've only been going about 75% on there. I guess it all hinges on whether Ali can really put on a show. At the end of the day she's one of the ones from a performing background so I would think so.

Yippee!

A lovely thread all about the dancing.

Actually, as Sofakat says, salsa is not - there are distinct flavours of salsa.

Historically, SCD has always said "Cuban salsa". However, the dances which have been actually danced, most of the time, have as you say been a mix of, well, everything.

So I can see why you'd get that impression.

To be honest, the only real Cuban salsa I can remember was John Barnes and Nicole Cutler's effort.

Brian is of course a Proper Salsa Dancer, but I think hist routine with Heather Smalls wasn't really Cuban... hold on I'll look it up...

OK, here we go:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9YESjFdsaQI

Actually, it's pretty good - better than I remembered. Good music, good rhythm, a proper salsa routine. Shame about the Heather Smalls factor.

So deffo salsa - but it didn't look much like Cuban to me, looked a bit more like LA style to me... That said, it is at least salsa, not some weird samba/chacha thing.

Ballroom salsa? Really?


The quickest way to annoy an AT dancer is to talk about Ballroom Tango...

Yeah.

Len, when it comes to salsa, knows damn-all. It's like his endless pronouncements on AT - sweaty gauchos blah blah blah....

Actually, Bruce knows much more about salsa than Len, for my money. For that matter, Arlene knows much more about AT than Len.

How radical. A thread about dancing on the SCD boards! I don't know what you were thinking!

I'm looking forward to tomorrow night (now).

How different can two dances be? The salsa and the foxtrot. One classy and beautiful, the other a wild party dance ... I'm looking forward to thedresses too - but then, I've got a thing about the dresses!

I just hope the singers don't murder any of the songs!

Oh, I think that's a given

I have no doubts that Bruno has more knowledge of salsa than Len. But Arlene knowing AT more than Len?

"I just want raw sex?" she said about Matt Dawson's attempt at AT?

Maybe I should start turning the sound down !!!

I thought all the Salsas looked quite good, the music sound appropriate for a change and it didn't look like any of the pros had secretly tried to choreograph a Samba instead.

What's 'rax' sex? Is this some new kind of sex we've not seen before? (And when I say 'seen, you understand that I don't mean 'seen' as in 'watching' as I don't ... watch ... I mean ... um ... I may be tying myself in a knot here ... Hang on, I'll see if I can unravel myself ... )

I'm hoping you imagined it

Hmmm... possibly it'd be a bit like the Hustle then? Salsa doesn't really work with disco for me...


I don't believe there's an official one.


Yeah. I'm with you on that one.


Don't worry, I'll protect you

Typo. Sorry.

It was a comment she made about 80-year-olds dancing with passion a couple of years back, it was clear from that comment that she "got" the spirit of the dance, at least more so than Len and his blathering pronouncements.

Yes, but you would still know

I don't think those 80 year-olds were thinking about 'raw sex' when they did the proper AT with their partners. I feel Arlene just didn't think Matt was sexy, and so that was that for her.

edit: in terms of AT knowledge, again I think Bruno knows more about it than either Arlene or Len. And I think Arlene know as much (or as little) of AT as Len did.

Aw.... dammit! I was hoping no-one would point that out!

I don't know, I think both Matt & Emma's AT's were pretty flat, which is why Mark's was so brilliant in comparison.

Brilliant!

I'd assumed that the FTs tomorrow would score a lot more highly than the salsas as they have tended to in the past on Strictly, but having seen the training footage I'm not so sure now. I certainly think that Ali and Brian should top the leader board as long as she can find the performance. I thought Brian did New York style salsa.

I'm loving Katya! I've maintained for ages that salsa is not that technical, but it is however brilliant fun to learn. I think that's why some of the male celebs have got on with it so well in the past, because it's something they find they can do once they've got over the self conciousnous of finding themselves wearing sparkly tops and doing the 'D' word. Maybe for the same reason Jade will be OK, don't know yet. And if the routines are kept simple, Chris and Phil might get away with it too.

I think the Strictly pros get help choreographing the salsa routines don't they? I wonder how many samba steps that find their way into the routines are down to them?

This is my first post in this forum so apologies if I don't have the 'form' right ....

From what I've seen on ITT the only authentic-ish salsa we're going to get is Brian and Ali's. Brian said himself that he dances cross-body style (which is, in other words, NY style if danced on '1' and LA style if danced on '2' - I presume they'll be dancing on one). From the clips we've seen it doesn't look bad at all and there are even some 'authentic' moves in there. The rest appears to be your normal strictly 'porridge' style salsa (I like that description). i.e using some cuban arm moves but without any 'dlie-que-nos' in there and with strangely big back steps and bits of all other dances thrown in. I hate the normal strictly 'salsas' - I often can't even recognise them as salsa, and often the music doesn't even seem to have a salsa beat. Just dreadful. I am looking forward to seeing Brian and Ali though ...

Looking at the training footage, it looks.... surprising.

Chris and Ola's looks - well, Ola looks nice.

Ali and Brian - I want to say it'll be great, but Ali just looks nervous all the time, so who knows?

Ricky and Natalie. Huh. Frankly, Ricky looks a bit rubbish. His hips aren't moving, he's stomping from one position to another, and he's moving his upper body far too much.

Ian and Jade: Hmmm, not too bad actually. Ian looks like he moves OK, at least.

Natalie and Vincent - am I weird, or does this actually look OK?

Phil and Katya - dunno, can't tell.

Good place to start


That's the way he danced last year with Heather, yes.

If the music from the training footage correlates to the music tomorrow, then he's also the only one using real salsa music.

Although I have a soft spot for Oye Como Va - but it's not real salsa.

Oh I love ballroom tango (prefer it to AT, having danced a little bit of AT as well). Oops sorry . But some dancers do a nice synthesis of the two, although if you're a purist...........

Can't even start to imagine what ballroom salsa would be like though - a very fast rumba perhaps?

Oh maybe not: http://www.ehow.com/video_2390541_th...oom-dance.html

Is that what normally happens? I've never really understood why the judges don't like a lot of the Salsa's on SCD, so maybe that's it.


Hiya! Trust me there are lots of nice people in here, but it has been a bit weird this week!

The dances I'm most looking forward to seeing is Ali and Brian's Salsa and Anton and Laila's FT, as in theory the celebs are dancing with the specialists.

I have only just remembered when typing this post that I'm out tomorrow night and won't see the show live.