they dont!! you are quite right - no one knows if they are back or not - they might all like to come back and have said they will return if asked but until the contracts are sent out, no-one knows

I disagree; I was completely undecided by as to who I wanted to win the final and what swung it for me was the showdance, which although not as technically impressive as Ricky and Natalie's won me over for being so bloody enjoyable. The same thing happened the previous year, where I went into the final wanting Rachel to win, but was completely blown away by Tom's showdance. I would say the Charleston kept them in to get to the final, but you could say that about the Charleston in general, as both non-Charleston dances were in the dance-off that week.

On-topic, I'd like to see Darren, Lilia, Flavia, and Ian as definite returnees. I wouldn't mind giving Aliona, Natalie, and Katya another go as well; you just have to look at Flavia coming 2nd in series 5 to going out 1st in series 6, or Karen winning in series 4 and going out 1st in series 5 to appreciate that sometimes there's nothing a good pro can do with a duff celeb. I think the new girls should get a second series to prove whether they're one-shot ponies (Natalie) or if they can be champions when all the ingredients are right (Aliona and Katya, both of whom I thought were brilliant on the pro-routines).

I'd give Kristina another shot as well, because her choreography for JS was inspired, and there was very little she could do with Joe (on the dancefloor anyway!).

I'm not that fussed about hether or not most of the rest were to go. If there were to be definite cuts, I wouldn't mind if we were to lose Anton or Brendan or Brian because I'm pretty indifferent to what they come up with - I'm much more interested in their celeb than I am in them as a pro. The rest I at least look forward to as much as the celeb, if not more. (Although Vincent's 'Italian Romeo' schtick is a bit off-putting, so I wouldn't mind if he were to lose that.)

As a fimal point - if Karen wants to return in either Len or Bruno's seat then that's absolutely fine by me as well!

But surely Karen didn't choreograph the AT either? I thought Vincent and Flavia have always done all the AT choreographies between them....and that unfortunately gives her as little credit with his 'defining dance' as Ola with Chris'. That's not a slight on Karen at all - I think she's a fabulous dancer, teacher and choreographer, but it's just pointing out how Ola isn't the only one to fall outside your defining terms

I assume Karen choreographed the Salsa (although I'm not sure - don't they get salsa specialists in as well?), so she of course gets deserved credit for that. But it all goes back to the fact that a pro doesn't necessarily have to be a fantastic choreographer at everything in order to have success. Ola's ballroom is more than passable, and indeed I think many will remember her and Chris' foxtrot as well as their Charleston.

And I think, as was said in a previous post, Chris' showdance will also be remembered as a defining dance, and Ola does take credit for that one

Mark's AT is the only one of the dances I mentioned that wasn't choreographed by the pro in question though.

I'm not trying to say Ola shouldn't be in the show at all. I think she's beautiful to watch in latin, and she's grown steadily more popular with the viewers. I just don't think she is an all-rounder as some of the others are. She doesn't need to be great at ballroom to dance with a celeb, but I can imagine for someone like Austin or Matt Dawson, who had a lot of ability in ballroom, her choreography wouldn't have cut it.

I think we need to see Ola with a celeb of that ability in order to make a fair assumption about her choreography skills.

We saw her with Spoony, and her choreography was not good.

I didn't really see that series, but if I'm right it was her first? In an earlier post I said I thought Aliona, Katya, and Natalie should be asked back this series as I think it's unfair to judge a pro based entirely on their first series, as it takes a lot of ingredients to be right to create the right mix for a good routine.

You culd argue the reverse, and that her choreography kept Kenny, Andrew, and Chris in well past their sell-by dates!

Flavia choreographed some great routines for Matt D (and I say that as a non-Matt fan), but some of the work with Craig this year was, to be honest, awful. Same as some of Brendan's choreography over the years (like some with Claire King) when some of his other routines were excellent (Kelly Brook's rhumba, tango, AS).

I also think I remember another post somewhere suggesting that Spoony's exit was as much about other celeb's popularity, and the middle-of-the-board curse, as anything else. In fact, I think some have claimed that Spoony's early exit was the reason for the creation of the dance-off, in order to prevent the public sending home talented celebs at the expense of the less good ones because of popularity outside the show.

I don't disagree that her ballroom is some way below her standard in Latin but I completely disagree that that leaves her on a lower level to other pros - there are others who are just as limited in ballroom (and I use limited in terms relative to e.g. Vincent and Flavia's ballroom standard, not in general, as I don't think anyone would argue that Ola dances ballroom better than at least 90% of the British population!). I think Erin's Latin is just as limited relative to her ballroom standard as Ola's is the other way around, if not more so (hence I suppose the whole debate about whether Austin would have won with a better Latin choreographer).


She was a debutante that year, getting used to the format of the competition as well as all the backlash thrown at James that year, which she will inevitably have had to cope with too. Spoony didn't get far enough in the competition for anyone to know if he would ever really have been good in overall comparison to Mark.

Ola's ability to choreograph routines to suit her celebs is almost unparalleled in terms of it clearly working by keeping her partners in the competition for 3 years running longer than they should have been were it judged on dancing ability alone! And indeed she's never had a naturally talented celebrity who looks a winner on paper.

Every pro has off-days - Brendan's jive with Kelly springs to my mind - but I think it's unfair to say that Ola's is less of an all-rounder than the other pros and her choreography poor based on her first year's choreography and the fact that her and Chris' best dance happened to be the one she didn't choreograph (which, as I said, goes for Karen too in s4). She's markedly improved her ballroom since s4, and she is by no means the worst.

As long as it is not is Anton. But as someone has already said his Latin is not his strogest dance. Also he was not too well the other week, hope he is OK and soon back to our screens

A

The ATs are choreographed by Kele Baker and Ralf Schiller (from Kensington Dance Studio) - and that includes those from Series 4, Series 5 (including to a certain extent Matt and Flavia's - although Flavia did do some bits), Series 6 (except Vincent and Rachel's) and Series 7 (excluding Ola and Chris's*). Evidently Ola (and James) were not patient enough to get much help from Kele and went their own way after only 2 short sessions with Kele.

And as regards Salsas - I think Richard Marcel helped with the salsas for the first couple of years.

Of the ones I mentioned who to me are the real all rounders, in their first year:
Darren won
Ian came second
Lilia came fourth
Vincent came fourth
They had also all topped or come second on the leaderboard by the third week of the series. So I don't necessarily agree that a pro needs time to get used to the format before they can do well if they have a talented celeb. Jimmy and Siobhan were so obviously awful that I don't think anyone could blame Flavia and Matt for not getting far in their first years. That's not to say I don't agree that some of the pros have improved over time, because they have. But I think there are plenty of examples of pros who hit the ground running in their first year. On paper I would have expected James and Ola to be one of them, since they spent (I think) a lot more of their pro career up to that point teaching than some of the others.

Not sure on Andrew, Kenny, and Chris being kept in by Ola's choreo either. Did people vote for Andrew's headbanger Tango because they liked it, or because they wanted to throw one giant 'sympathy plus screw the judges' vote his way? Who's to know I guess! I always thought both Kenny and Chris gained much of their popularity from the relationship they had with Ola, and in Chris' case from his enjoyment of the show versus the competitiveness of others. But certainly that is completely open to interpretation.

I think I will agree to disagree on this, because it's gone way OT and I also feel like I'm slating Ola when I actually quite like her! I originally mentioned her because I disagreed that she is an all-rounder in the sense that Ian, Matt, Darren, Lilia, Vincent and Flavia are. I stand by that. I know that people disagree, which I guess is because it's actually quite subjective.

We only saw two dances - her ccc was critised for being too simple which can be chalked down to a rookie mistake I think and the tango looked fine to me. I think he had the potential to be a very good latin dancer so it's a great shame he went early but I think it was a combination of mid-table curse and people finding Spoony a bit cocky although Ola who is very attractive and not afraid to flaunt it and a bit reserved but not a taskmistress I think wasn't someone who appealed to people immediately - she has a lot more support now people have got to know her a bit better. Another reason why Ailona deserves another chance.

It's funny that you mention Vincent doing well in first year when he critised by the judges for making some of his cheorography too complicated (i.e the samba - where he was told Lousa was given too many steps to be able to perform it to the best of her ability) and then when he tried to simplify it for Louisa's AS he got it in the neck for making too simple. Brian seems to have struggled this year with pitching the cheorography at the right level for Ali too and she messed up a few routines because although very capable her nerves got to her on the night and routines she coped with fine in rehersals were suddenly too much. This shows that it's pretty hard to get it because so much depends on the ablity and temperment of the person concerned who is unknown quantity at least at first.

I always thought that Spoony got knocked out primarily because he made a very obvious mistake in his tango with the head-turns (which is probably the move everyone most associates with the tango) and then cracked up about it. The performance order didn't help either - he was the sole good performer in the middle of a sea of car crash jives (Jan Raven's in particular *shudder*) on an evening that started and closed with a lot of strong performances (particularly in the male tangos - overshadowing his effort) and a big controversy (whether Louisa deserved her 10 for her jive). He just got lost, and he hadn't built up much of a fanbase beyond "ooh he might be good" from week 1 so he fell out of the competition. The tango choreography itself seemed alright although nothing to grab you by the throat.

I don't think if Ola was to blame it was because of her choreography - I just think her personality didn't really come out, especially as the other new pros (James, Vincent, and arguably Matthew counts given his role in Series 3 was negligable) were making such a big splash.

Brian back!! Ola back!! xx

I noticed Ola's personality in her first dance - a Cha Cha Cha which is still the sexiest dance ever on Strictly. Pity the BBC have removed it, because she acted the part brilliantly, with just the right facial expressions. She maybe could have given Spoony more to do, as Craig suggested.
To me, she has been very imaginative with her choreography, and music choices (over 100,000 views on Youtube for her Paso with Chris). She is one of the foremost entertainers on the show.

I'm just going by what the general opinion during the last series was, which is that her partnership with Chris was the first time she'd really come out of her shell, that people noticed a marked difference in her, and that she was more fun. I got the impession that the general public felt like this, after 4 years, was the first time they'd seen the "real Ola" - hence me saying she made less of an impression than the other new pros in her first run.

In the 3 series up until this last one if she's been praised or noticed it's unfortunately (and perhaps sexistly) usually been for her looks and her body, rather than her talent or personality. Indeed Bruce's jokes this series carried on in that vein throughout this series - even as she made it to the final and was obviously going to win she was still referred to as a clothes-horse and a "treat for the dads" rather than as an intelligent woman or skilled choreographer or good teacher.

I think with Kenny, Ola tried to teach him to dance, but after a few weeks, they decided they had to entertain instead, and we saw more of Ola's fun side then. And who else could have got Andrew Castle to do a bit of head-banging?

I noticed in how they talked about Ola, that both Kenny and Andrew had developed a lot of respect for Ola - eg when Andrew said that he didn't worry about what the judges had just said, he just cared what Ola thought.

She has certainly livened the show up, even when people argue that she bikinis up too much, but it would be a sadder show without her.

Totally agree with all of this.

I think what she does incredibly well is reading her partners - she made a decision early on to choreograph to what Kenny, Andrew and Chris could do, rather than trying ever more complicated moves which would just make them look bad. She's very skilled at pitching her choreography to her celebs, and maybe that doesn't come across too well with the judges all the time, hence she's been criticised a couple of times for lack of traditional content, but it creates a performance from her celeb and it clearly works.

It is a shame she's not recognised more as a good teacher and choreographer, because it does come across in VTs, and in what her partners say about her, which the public do see and take notice of (especially if they happen to mute certain judges half the time like I do!) as they (the VTs in general) tend to be a bit more interesting than some of the judges....anyway, I'm going off on a tangent again, but I do think the show would be poorer without her, and even if she gets a dud celeb (which is likely) then at least if she comes back we'll see her in more of the pro dances this year