Dont really comment but im not really getting all this bashing for Aliona and her Choro.

I still think her dancing and performing isnt all that much different from everyone else's yet she gets pelters from all angles.

If her choreography really is as bad as everyone makes out, maybe she's not as good as the others at putting a routine together but this doesnt spoil her as still a great dancer...

Cheers

It does mean that she is wasting her partner's potential though.

Harry could be a superb dancer, but she isnt teaching him how to do the dances.

Its not a hate for Aliona but a hate for her choreography which is a bit of a hit and miss.

I don't hate the girl, I don't even know her. She is just so furstrating and the worst choreographer on the show, but its been picked up on by the judges so many times last year and now this year with Harry about the lack of content and I don't know if she is just stupid or arrogant, I cant quite decide on that, but she has a very good partner again and she is just doesn't seemed to get it.

It's all very annoying.

I don't hate her. I think she is an amazing dancer.

However I am very frustrated by her arrogant attitude towards the judges & by the lack of content in her routines.
She has had two great dancers & has let both of them down with her weak choreography & faffing around.

I don't think she gets that SCD is about showcasing her celeb not herself.

Agreed, I'm sure she's a lovely girl, but she's got a great partner, one who can actually do this and invest far more musicality into his dancing then others I could mention, but she spends so much time faffing - I can see why those with weaker partners faff, but she really, really doesn't need to - she should be showcasing Harry's talent, and she's really not at the moment

He went from being scared stiff and self concious performance in his Cha Cha week one, to coming out and giving a full on performance with complete comitment to a charachter week 3 in his Jive. I didn't see even a hint of self conciousness during that performance.

Like wise Harry danced the first half of his 2nd ever Ballroom routine in the 4th week of the competition to a standard so high, Len Goodman said it was 10 standard. The difference from FT to W is astounding.

To get someone dancing to that level so early in the competition is a remarkable achievement on Aliona's part


If that isn't teaching him how to do the dances then what is????

These are changes that I'm used to seeing people make over the course of a series but Aliona has got them out of Harry over the course of a couple of weeks.

And two of the main reasons are Aliona's teaching and her choreography allowing Harry space and room to breath so that he can focus on nailing the technique and performance early on, rather than trying to sqeeze as much content as possible, so that all he has time to do is learn his steps. With no time for polishing let alone mastering his technique or working on his performance skills (and boy did they need working on)

you can either look at the big picture or the small picture and I think Aliona is looking at the bigger one.

Remember the pros are trying to teach these celebs what it takes most people a life time to learn.
There is no set in stone method of doing so. Whatever Aliona is doing is working incredibly well. it may not be conventional but who wants convention? not me
She is using these early weeks well to the lay the foundations for Harry, of course its a gamble (he might get knocked out next week and all the foundation laying will have been for nothing) but Im hoping its a gamble that pays off.
I will take her slow and steady approach over Pasha chuck every thing he can think of into a routine and hope that Chelsee can learn her steps in time, method any day.

I think she gets that better than anyone, which is why she concentrates on routines that are memorable and that bring out her partner's personality and individual abilities, often ditching a handful of bars of "required content" to do so.

This idea that she makes the dances "about her" and not her partner is ludicrous crap that has sprung out of lazy, hateful thinking. I've yet to see a developed argument for the idea that she's showcasing herself more than her partner.

But foundation laying starts with basics & she isn't teaching him enough basic steps.
She is teaching him to faff around & waste time.
When it gets to two dances per week they will struggle.

So he's got two 10s and has regularly finished near the top (if not AT the top) all by his natural, inherent brilliance and in spite of that egotistical woman's attempts to sabotage him, right?

There is no need to be rude.

Do you have any evidence or further argument for this?

Does anyone ever bother backing up these random claims about Aliona? People seem content to make all sorts of condemning statements about her but not justify or explain them with examples or anything.

Completely agree with you hun!



LittleNothing, I get that you're a Harry uberfan, but you're missing the point imo.

It's much easier to teach your celeb a quarter of the dance and get that to a really high standard then faff for 45 seconds to a minute, rather than do like Pasha did and fill a QS with content and recognisable steps and storytelling and bring them all together in an amazing dance that pleased everybody.

Aliona claims that she sacrifices content for storytelling but that's a cop out imo, you can do both.

If you think about it another way, we're actually praising Harry. He's capable of more, so give him more, don't take the route that other pros with poor partners HAVE to take because their partner is just not as talented. It's selling Harry short imo.

She's also cheating all the other pros and celebs imo who are bothering to teach their celebs the proper dance for the allotted period of time. They stick to the rules and shouldn't be penalised because Aliona is taking a much easier option.

Was she really that bad last year ? I thought she produced some memorable (for the right reason) routines, alongside some that didn't quite work. In fact, her early work with Matt was sometimes quite stunning..so much so, that the boards here were full of praise.
I think she's a bit avant-garde, and likes to take chances..but is that such a bad thing ?

when has she claimed that?

There was nothing wrong with the majority of Matt's dances. Certain FMs just got it into their heads that he was as good as Nureyev and that the only reason he wasn't getting straight 10s every week was because of Aliona's choreography.

I mean, he was never in the bottom two and finished second to an amazing team. And still people argue that Aliona somehow "held him back"!

When she was talking about the waltz and the story fitting the music even though it meant lots of faffing about on the stairs.

She didn't use those words to be fair, but it's what I took from the explanation. So excuse me if I'm surmising more than was actually there.

All Aliona needs to do is choreograph one dance with 10 seconds either end of faffing and everyone, including me, will get off her back, but either because she won't or can't she will continue to split opinion. Maybe she likes that, but it's a dangerous route to take when it's essentially a popularity contest.

I thought last year that Matt was such an old fashioned type of man that she took him far outside his comfort zone & if she had produced classic, clean routines for him he would have wiped the floor with Kara.

Or he would have been perceived as boring, and get voted out half way through the competition.

Matt had a LOT of technical problems with his dances. His hands first off were awful. His ballroom posture was not great. His heel leads overexaggerated. A more classic style of routines would have highlighted these issues.

We'll never know what would have happened if he was choreographed differently.

I really like Aliona and she is a great dancer. Her choreography is unique in many ways, but I really don't see that as a reason for the constant complaints about her. If I have any criticism at all about her teaching it is that I wish she would sort out the position of Harry's left arm when they are in ballroom hold. On the other hand, she could have told him 100 times - you can take a horse to water, etc!!!!

Artem's choreography is also unique in his own way, but no one seems to mind that, and question whether he is letting his partner down.

There is when people are making such horrible claims, or copying other people who makes such claims, without ever bothering to back them up with any evidence or example.

Harry himself commented on how hard Aliona has worked with him and how he's only doing as well as he does because of her teaching. Where's the evidence to the contrary? Has Matt Baker been going around saying that he had to work out the dances all by himself, as Aliona sat by filing her nails and looking in the mirror?

I think she let Matt down last year. Len once said to her "it should be more We and less Me" and I think he summed it up for me.

I'm not a Harry uberfan actually (im a Dougie girl ) I am a big McFly fan and a big Strictly fan however.

and Im not missing the point I know that Pasha's method is incredibly challenging for Chelsee and it is admirable. I also know that like Vincent with Louisa that it can pay some weeks and fail miserably others. I haven't thought much of either of Chelsee's Latin routines so far, but her ballroom when she is in hold and following Pahsa I love.

The point of Strictly for me is a professional dancer teaching a complete amateur how to dance, improving week on week and with the aim of taking them to the final. That is what Aliona is doing. Every single week Harry has improved in some area of his performance. Some weeks not just little improvements but massive ones.

Aliona provided two routines (Cha Cha and Foxtrot) that were full of content, which is rarely mentioned on here.
Two (the Jive and Waltz) which were impressive and memorable routines that though they lack a little on content showed massive improvement in some areas Harry really needed to work on.
His performance
His posture
Leading the dance.

It may well be that after the first two routines Aliona took a step back to look at the bigger picture, Harry's strengths and weakness and came to a decision about the best way to improve on the weaknesses.

Im looking at this from the perspective of a teacher and pupil relationship as I do with every strictly couple. Whatever Aliona is doing it is working.

Maybe im wrong maybe she is an attention seeking, ego maniac

Well said Alli-F.

I agree. I think (with Aliona's magic) Harry will blow Jason and Holly out of the water in a few weeks. The only danger is Chelsee.
People seem to forget that Harry didn't look at all comfortable in the first couple of weeks. The massive improvement must surely (largely) be down to Aliona..thats's only logical, isn't it ?