Originally Posted by DavidJames:
“Also, dancing, funnily enough, is not all about footwork.
Personally, my view is that far too many people focus on footwork instead of things like connection, musicality, posture, and so on.”
A very large part of ballroom dancing is about footwork (whole books written about it) and without correct foot (and leg) work a dance starts to lose some of what makes it unique. So it is reasonable to expect to see it (In other types of dance it might be less important.) Obviously the other elements are also very important. As said previously by SCD Observer you really expect to be able to see the whole thing.
(Actually although there is quite a lot of noise about footwork from the judges, there is very little in quality comment, presumably because they think the general public would find it a bit boring. )
Originally Posted by SilverBird:
“ I agree it's not all about footwork, but have you seen Jimmi's training clip? He's showing some good moves, but what's with the hip action? I'd like to see if any of it is coming from the legs. I'm looking forward to his dance though...”
SB, there are other people better qualified to comment than me, but to me it looks wrong. He is wiggling his hips from side to side although that might be because he's doing something different from the standard cha cha steps. As you've kind of implied, good hip action in cha cha and rumba comes from a very straight standing leg and then relaxing the one other hip downwards before moving off the standing leg. And so it also has a backwards and forwards element to the action (it's a sort of figure 8 rotation). I wouldn't have known it was a cha cha except for the New Yorkers. Perhaps he is doing some advanced steps I've never seen.

Can any advanced dancers help?