I struggle with the whole best (Strictly) dancer thing.

I think Jill, Alesha, and Kara all have/had specific strengths and specific weaknesses.

Many thanks Marinamau, UK is often missing the Spanish perspective. Blackpool Festival draws the entire world, except South America. I believe their approach to and flavour of latin dance is very different?

I am going to have fun over the holidays with so many styles of dance over the holidays.

I'm confused...

So we pick five dancers that will joined another list of dancers picked from nowhere and then we vote again to decide the winner?

You pick 1, the greatest dancer. On Christmas Day the bottom 12 dancers out of 17 with fewest votes will be eliminated. The remaining 5 dancers join 12 new dancers in the Final. A brand-new poll will start from scratch for the Final 17 candidates. The Greatest is the one with most votes on New Years Eve. No multiple voting.

To make the Final it is essential not to be ranked lower than 5th in Round 1. Round 2 is very tough, with the likes of Fred Astaire joining.

Delilah - unfortunately all videos of her dancing were lost in the great fire of Sodom. Her photos were all lost in the earthquake of Gomorrah.

But how were those 12 new dancers selected?

By the BBC behind closed doors.

Corrected Cleopatra dance link - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pJbz0rL7338

Damn! I wish I hadn't jumped straight to the poll and picked Nureyev. Michael Flatley in a tutu is a revelation! I can see I'm going to learn a lot from this thread!

Surprised Cyd Charisse didn't make the lists though, as she is probably one of the biggest female dancing star of all time in films and I prefer her to Ginger Rogers.

In Silk Stockings

What do the Spanish make of what the English make of the Spanish dance paso doble?

Well done on putting together the clips soulmate!


Someone who can do arms and hands (Karima). Craig would probably approve


Love this clip. (Although I do think using Nureyev in two clips is cheating a bit )

By far Kara and Alesha

Thrilled and so proud that our very own Kara is way up there on merit.

Every dance school should play the video to demo that after half-a-week's tuition you could (well Kara could ) dance the rumba like that.

Love, love, love Kara but don't be daft...

Bit difficult to judge the dance merits of Salome and Cleo as I haven't got a time machine. Can anyone give me a YouTube link?

Notice that Michael Flatley is in the next round - I know it's not for anyone to dictate how others should vote but please, please, please no! Anyone who has had the misfortune of working with him would agree. I remember him making a fuss about his 'substandard' dressing room and everybody working there being overjoyed when the very mild-mannered theatre manager was pushed enough to say 'If it was good enough for Nureyev, it's certainly good enough for you!'.

MF also complained that there weren't enough fans at the stage door...

Those who did not see Kara at the semi-final and have no access to YouTube will not believe what happened that night. But the unbelievable did happen, and those who missed it will have to take the word of eyewitnesses.

Salome's Seven Veils Dance caused audience uproar with one man completely losing his head. Ann Boleyn's dance evidently was not 10-10-10-10 as her head was eliminated. The office PC blocks YouTube, but here is her elimination dance:

Anne Boleyn dancing
1 min - 20 Apr 2009
Uploaded by JuzTudor70AD
youtube.com

er yes Soulmate.... I'm assuming that comment is tongue in cheek although if we are talking audience share for a single performance you would have a point. but I think I'll carry on registering my vote for Salome next round if she gets through.

I'm intrigued that Aliona makes the list of candidates from the ballroom world, but female dancers such as Karen Hardy, Nicole Cutler, Gaynor Fairweather, Karen Hilton, Carmen Vincelj don't. You've obviously been nursing an undeclared admiration throughout the series

(Noone lost their head for Anne Boleyn as a direct result of her dancing, but there was a delayed effect.)

Aliona had a very bad press after she crossed the Atlantic and fatally changed her hair colour, so in the interest of balance and fairness the jury ought to have access to her previous form on DWTS.

Delilah, another dancer who messed with hair, is not doing well in the poll.

We are rather amused by it. A bit like Argentineans do of the ballroom versions of Tango and AT. Or a bit like baseball for english people.
I mean we can see that it comes from the real paso doble, what it is dance in the villages fetes in Spain and some inspiration from flamenco and toreros, but not the real thing. Even the better pasos in Strictly don't really capture what it is all about. In actual fact, the slightly worst ones are the ones that feel more like a real paso, the ones that are more dance within that danced with technique. when i see ballrooms pasos by the world champions and the like I am like !

Salome's Stricly version has to be this one (the same that i posted before)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2zTy...7D756&index=32

As Aida Gomez (Salome in the clip) is actually one of the judges in the Spanish version of Stricly.

I love the clips you've posted marinamau. The dancing is beautiful.

(Interesting, what you say about the paso. )

Lol I bet Kara would chuckle at being ahead in a poll against historically professional greats.

Prey please tell which worst Stictly Paso's are like the real Spanish ones! Not Ann W's surely!?????

Not Ann's,

IMHO, there can be two types of pasos that capture the spanish flare. The type that is danced in villages by 50+ year old people, that has some tenderness while maintaining the femininity and masculinity in place, or the paso that reflects the elegance, the inner tension, the control, power, sublime masculinity of toreros (for male dancers) and flamenco dancers. Ballroom male dancers very rarely exude that extreme masculinity. Many a times I watch the pasos and think they overacting them. It is not about acting it is about embodying those elements.

as male celebs pasos are concerned the most realistic ones are: John Sargent (really, , his was obviously the first type), Matt's and Austin, those last two were the only that had similar body inner tension that toreros display.
Great technical dancers like Ricky (my favourite last year) produce a great dance, but it is just does not have imo the fire, the inner tension that a paso inspired in bullfighter should have. That is why I think Matt's was so good, because all that tension that he carries while is a handicap in other dances, it is a huge advantage in my eyes for the paso. I felt the tension, his technique may not have been perfect but when you are a flamenco dancer/ lover, but the intensity and power was there and that sold it to me.

Female celebs only Laila last year had the spanish flare. As much as i loved Kara's paso, it didnt have enough spanishness to qualify in my eyes as a proper paso, but as a dance was magnificent.

It is a wellknown conundrum that many musicians will read sheet music and interpret it in terms of their own experience rather than what the composer had in mind. As a toreador walks into the arena alone to accept death for the bull or for himself, so a dancer ought to dance in the belief it may be the last dance of his life. In England perhaps only a bomb disposal expert would face such dramatic tension and intensity. Years ago possibly the jockeys riding in the death-or-glory Grand National, before the fences were made easier.

I am in favour of fidelity and authenticity, not a version transformed to suit local customers. An authentic paso ought to reflect the spirit of a classy bullfight. The truth is many in the ballroom audience are ambivalent about blood in the sand, so the dance is turned into a flamboyant knees-up. I love castanets, but suspect the Spanish would insist on guitar, Olé.

Kara learnt the VW and rumba within one week. Very very few people in the world could have done what she did. Kara has what cannot be taught, and wonderful help from Artem.

Darcey Bussell had a 20-year dance career, Margot Fonteyn 50. Even Salome would have applauded Kara's promise.

What do you think of Jill's Paso, marinamau?

(I really wish they had chosen a different piece of music though)

Here's a lovely clip from Flamenco, if you can stomach a room full of what-seem-to-be impossibly beautiful women...