I know, I'm crazy wanting to discuss dancing, but I'll give it a go.

One thing that occurred to me watching the performances, is that we don't really discuss the relative strengths and weaknesses of the professional much.

Yes, OK, we know Anton can't Do Latin, but apart from that there's not much debate.

Looking at tonight's performance though, I think it's clear that Natalie Lowe's choreography skills are lacking. Ricky W is clearly a great dancer, but I don't think Natalie's really bringing the best out of him.

Compare with Erin, who's clearly a Choreography Goddess - look at the things she's done with Ricky and Austin.

So, what do people think are the strengths / weaknesses of the other pros?

In defence of Natalie - she didn't choreograph tonight's Rock N Roll did she? I thought it was the Rock N Roll professionals that they kept speaking to on It Takes Two (is it Ryan and Jamie?)

Lilia's the best choreographer, imo.

Ditto Fudd, I don't think Natalie choreographed this weekend's routine. Having said that, I haven't been too keen on her choreography this series. At times I think both her and Brian have asked too much of their celebs. I know they're good dancers, but I think that sometimes it would be better to keep it simpler. Just my opinion though!

I disagree. I'm not a fan of Natalie, but I think her choreography is brilliant.

As much as I'd love to discuss the dance I feel inevitably it will descend into bash the pro you like the least as per usual

Have to disagree about Nat's choreography. Everybody's choreography tonight was done by someone else so don't see how that particular comparison is valid.
As for the other dances, the thing I notice about her choreography, is how full the routines are. They could actually be routines you would see in a competition (excluding the salsa and the jive routines). She actually takes quite the risk with her routines as they aren't your bog standard beginner routines. The reason they don't fully work was because Ricky was under-rehearsed. He could actually do it but not enough practicing from him.

As others have posted, hard to know how much to read into tonight's performance, given Ryan and Jenny will have been telling them what to do to a large extent.

On a technical note, I don't get the massive flailing armleads they were using on all the (underarm) turns - it's not efficient, and in a fast dance like R&R you really need to be efficient (this is even more true when you've got aerials to recover from and prepare for).

As far as other pros choreography goes: I think Matthew is very good at matching his dancing to his partner, in contrast to James and Brendan who tend to make sure their dancing looks as good as possible, even if it makes their celeb look very poor in comparison.

I loved Ricky W's Waltz and Tango for their choreography...I think Natalie is a great Ballroom choreographer.

Ryan Francois and Jenny Thomas.

As I understand it, the protocol for this kind of thing is that the experts provide a rough structure and some guidelines, but that the pros then have some input into the choreograph.

But it wasn't just this week, Ricky's Jive was particularly disjointed also - it simply didn't seem designed to show off his strengths that well.

I agree. Ironically, these are the two pros with the best dancers - but those two pros seem poor at matching choreography to their partner's strengths.

To be honest, I didn't even like Brian's salsa choreography that much, and he's an expert on this area.

Fair enough - can you give examples of where she's choreograhed a routine particularly well?

It damn well better not. Every other thread is for bashing, gossip, and trivia; people can use those areas.

This one's about dance. If you don't have an opinion about the dancing, please don't post on this thread.

Yes - they're very content-rich. Too much so, I think - that's why Ricky keeps making mistakes, it's too much to take in.

There's not - to me - enough transition points in the routines normally; you know, the bits where you can take a breath and recover from any mistakes, using musicality to inject pauses in the routine in a natural manner.

I think Brian had similar issues - again, referring to the salsa. But I think he's improved a bit in that area.


Well, that's as maybe, but Natalie should make allowances for that factor and tailor the routines accordingly.

Waltz, VW, Quickstep, Tango, Rumba, Paso and Samba.
Choreography wise - very well done. You cold argue the execution by Ricky wasn't 100% on some of them but the choreography itself was actually quite brilliant.
I find Ricky's 'journey' the most interesting because he's not given easy choreography. It would be easy for her to just choreograph to his level, but she doesn't. She pushes him to improve and I think it is better for him to try and fail here and there, than do safe routines.

It did look a bit like a CERtain Other danCe didn't it?


Sounds reasonable - I also think Darren is good at that, considering how far he managed to take Letitia Dean.

I look forward to you policing it

I do agree with something you've said in the past that all the pro's should do some extensive training in the Argentine tango as they know its going to come up every year rather than ignoring it as a curiosity. I also think they are all guilty of this attitude (apart from Vincent & Flavia naturally)


I really enjoy Matthew,Brendan,Darren,Ian,Vincent,Flavia and Lilia's work. I tend to find Ola's a bit hit and miss (more hit this year than usual) James tends to be a lot more miss for me (although I did like his AS and rumba with Cherie) and I find Anton's latin to be below what I'd like to see. I'd like to see more of what Katya can do in the future. I can't honestly say I've seen enough of Aliona's work to judge and Natlalie's ballroom I like but unsure of her latin.

As a dancer, I enjoy Matthew's choreography and Lilia's.

No offence, but that's pretty much saying "all the dances" -
could you provide some specific example of great choreography? (Where "great" means "working within their partner's limitations to do the best job possible")



See, I agree with this, but I don't think it's the pro's job to do this at the expense of showcasing their partner's strengths.

I could find several obvious examples of how someone like Erin (or Karen) is brilliant at choreography in this way - Austin's paso, for example, or Mark's salsamba. But I can't see it so clearly with Natalie - the only one I felt worked really well choreographically was the waltz, and waltzes are generally quite simple.

What can I say, it's a hobby


Yes - Brendan annoyed me last year with those comments. There's even more of a case for them learning salsa of course, as that always comes up quite early on.

I'm not overly keen on Natalie's choreography either. I think she puts a lot of content in, but she seems to think it's imperative to dance it at top speed. The time she did a more subtle routine, she then put that random lift in. I dread to think what she'd do with a less able partner.

Good hobby




Well as a Brendan supporter I would probably poke you with a sharp stick but as I say I think they are all very guilty of ignoring it.

I really dislike salsa as a dance but that maybe because the pro's do need to brush up their skills on that. In saying that Brian is an expert in it and I didn't like his salsa's either

Thanks DJ.

I am not a fan of Natalie's choreography at all.

She seems, to me, to work from the outside in, rather than the inside out.

I think Ricky has timing issues, because she doesn't stress the music and character and style enough. This was very clear in the As and the R and R.

I can hardly believe she's done such a poor job with such a big, natural talent.

She's 'exciting' I suppose, but, to me, it's all superficial. Ricky can carry her to a degree but it falls down, regularly, because she doesn't get the basic understanding of the mood, the dance, the movement that's appropriate and the attention to detail which transforms the good to the great.

I think she's flashy and knows the moves, and her choreography is, perhaps, good for a professional partner, who would understand the basic things instinctively, but not for an amateur, however good they are.

I think she is sort of the opposite of Erin, and, actually, Vincent. Erin understands people, Vincent understands dancing at some crucial fundamental level, and then understands people.

Both great teachers, as is Ian, and a lot of the other pros, really.

I singled-out Brendan because he made such a big deal of his ignorance last year, whilst avoiding answering the obvious question "Well if it's that stressful, why haven't you bothered to learn it over the past 3 years then?"

But I'd have said the same of any pro in that position.


As an ex-salsa teacher I would probably poke you with a sharp stick - but if you've simply seen the performances on SCD I can't blame you.

We've not really seen much salsa on SCD - it's typically a weird hybrid of a samba, a chacha and some other rubbish thrown in.


His salsa with Ali was a bit poor - again, to me, too much content. His salsa with Heather last year was pretty good though, I thought.

The quickstep is probably the most standout performance of choreographing intricate steps that mirror beautifully with the music; from the arm and leg placements up to the little head movements to the accents in the music. Everything really came together in that dance. The dancing up the steps at the end provided that wow factor and there was a high quality in his movements.