I am not being over protective geez

you mentioned the faffing on the stairs, I was merely pointing out they went up 2 possibly 3 steps unlike some pros who ran up and down them twice

Maybe more?

CCC, Samba, Rumba, QS, AT, Charleston, VW, all start to finish dancing, no props no faffing.

Calm down dear!

The comment was a minor point merely to add to the list as discussed by others. It was hardly a big issue and not worth getting annoyed about. Aliona is lucky as she does not get criticised as badly as others on thie SCD forum.

I think she has had her faults in this series as have others but she is quite rightly through to the final. IMHO The best 3 couples got through.

I have already said I think Aliona gets singled out more than the other pros because it was her choreography for their earlier dances was being criticised. As a result some people watch their routines to see if she's choreographed a 'clean' routine (can't think of another word right now). I'm not sure about rules on the length of intros and finishes. Maybe a dancer will tell us. I think I remember something about up to 10 seconds for an intro, but I'm not sure where that came from because I also have some memory of Len once saying something about there not being any set time limits.

I don't remember her choreography being low in content last year.

I can understand why some might single Aliona out, given some of the things she tried last year. It wasn't at all low on content, rather there was often a lot (and sometimes too much) going on in the routines. Clearly when you are that creative, things will sometimes be hit-and-miss.
What I can't understand is why people on this forum respond so differently to Artem's choreography .

From what Karen said and an email from the BBC (to you?) I think that there is a ten second limit on a break of hold. ie. When you have gone into hold, you can break hold for up to 10 seconds to do something to add some variety before going back into hold.

The last two years have been a bit vague, where they introduced props and started being seemingly very lenient about introductions, finishes, and seemingly at one time - lifts. Even Len just announces that Brendan can ignore the rule on lifts then after allowing lifts for several dances, he then decides to insist on adhering to whatever the lifts rule is.

Just mentioning that because I'm not sure what the rules actually are and judging by Len I'm not the only one.

So its difficult to really judge when maybe no-one knows what is goig to be allowed week on week.

Even when they seemed to be allowing lifts, I noticed in the Jive that Aliona had included a travelling spin she had done with Matthew Cutler on the Pro Tour except with Matthew it was a lift. Aliona fought hard to keep a foot on the floor when Harry was spinning her, so I think she does try to adhere to the rules. The rules just seem to be very slack in some areas.

Thanks for that, well hopefully Aliona will get to at least week 5 next year to claim the record.

Of course Pasha has never been bottom 2 at all, as this is his first series.

LOL! I'd forgotten about that email! I knew 10 seconds had been mentioned somewhere Actually, it shows things come full circle because my email to the BBC was saying that the viewers had not been told about the changes to the rules that series and it was causing confusion! I asked for something to be added to the website, but I'm still waiting!

Confusion rules!

Because Artem choreographs to appeal to the majority.

Artem does a swan lake based AS, and Aliona does a contemporary based AS (last year). Both very beautifully choreographed and very original. Which one would appeal more to the majority? Appart from the Black Sway movie which has made Swan lake and the whole white and black swan concept very famous, I think more people have watched Swan Lake (the ballet) than any contemporary dance. And generally contemporary dance is not easily understood.

Or compare their ballroom tangos from this year. Both low on content and theme based. Artem bases his on Chicago cell block tango, Aliona on some vampiry stuff... again, which one has more followers?

BIB: Her contemporary skills aren't very good. I don't think it was because people don't understand it. Contemporary is more popular than you think and shows like So You Think You Can Dance have helped promote it. Artem's Swan Lake was more aesthetically pleasing and he got the balance about right whereas Aliona's choreography looked like a parody. It was such a cliche. At least that's just my opinion of it. I 'got' the concept. I just didn't think it was a particularly good one nor executed very well. It came across very cheesy and self-indulgent. As did the showdance when she tried to do hip-hop.

Contemporary routines I've liked and hope others do too:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AXPc-HNh-Js#t=00m38s
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_037Ti8hwPE#t=01m11s
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zKA8y8JxErY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DgymlIUfXSQ#t=01m15s
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=otlJOF8Or3g&

I'm glad she's changed tactics with Harry in the last few weeks though and I think a rock n roll showdance will suit him very well.

I have hardly ever watched conteporary dance so I didn't put Aliona's AS last year into that category - to me it was a Foxtrot AS with slightly different styling. I did love the routine (not the running round spin bit) because it was telling me the same story as the song. Also I thought Matt danced it better than I thought he could have danced a dance like that. Like the Rumba, I thought it was a real test for him and he did well in both.

Vampires? I suppose it depends on the audience but the Twilight craze has been pretty mental for a while now.

Can't understand the posts seen in other threads from people "wanting Harry to win" but "Don't want Aliona to win". Too many people, so not just one "jellus hatah".

When Aliona first burst onto Strictly, she was frequently criticised for being too "selfish", choreographing difficult steps for herself which her partner just had to frame. But with Matt last year and Harry this year, we have seen a new creativity where the partnerships and output are far more even.

My favourite to win is stil Chelsee with Harry as runner up. But if these roles were reversed, I would applaud just as loudly. Both Aliona and Pasha have produced splendid results.

^^ this

I would also like to see Pasha and Aliona dance together but apparently he refused to be partnered with her (according to this forum anyways). I still don't have a clue why...

I found Matt & Aliona's AS last year beautifully choreographed and very moving to a great song. At the time I thought it was like a Russian style Freedance you would see in competitive icedancing. I wouldn't call Artem's Swan Lake AS Contemporary at all, it was simply copying the Classical Ballet style with a few Foxtrot Ballroom steps thrown in. I hasten to add I enjoyed it very much. What was Aliona's choreography a parody of? Wasn't it an original concept? Unless you mean it was a parody of Contemporary dance? To be honest, it was only on ITT that Aliona mentioned the word Contemporary after Claudia asked her about the criticism of the routine from the Judges (Len in particular).

clearly you are well educated when it comes to contemporary dancing. I don't think you can consider yourself a good representative of the general public. And SYTYCD has a smaller audience who are more dance-entusiast than SCD viewers.

I agree that the concept was wrong for Matt. But only because the style of contemporary is (as Craig would say) out of Matt's skill set, because his back is far too stiff for it. But the choreography I liked and would've liked to see it done by a more capable dancer.

hmmm. Well you're right. But isn't it mostly popular with the teens and early 20s? And the SCD viewers are more diverse than that I'd assume.

I can't comment on this any further. I don't like vampires and don't really know anyone who does either. But I watched Chicago the movie 4 times and have been to the musical twice (yes I'm serious!) and pretty much most of my friends have watched the movie or the musical at least once.

I agree entirely (sorry for chopping your last paragraph, we diverge on choice of winner!) The posts saying people don't want Aliona to win have been coming thick and fast on this forum since she joined the show, seems to still be in fashion

I think the final will be exciting because we've got 2 such innovative choreographers in Aliona and Pasha, and a third very competent, if slightly more reserved, one in Kristina. I hope the showdances are last this year, as they should be, but that we do get to see all 3 - it'll be interesting to compare the different takes on it...


And as for the vampires v Chicago thing, wasn't the former done in Halloween week, where Aliona basically had to use that theme? Not really a fair comparison...

I agree, Aliona is a great choreographer.
She took stick based on what she could and couldn't do with that two left footed Rav person a couple of series ago. Dreadful man. Aliona is ace.
I have to say they (the professionals) have all been very good this series, what is more they seem to have enjoyed it tremendously.

I think there is much more support on here now for Aliona than there used to be. Your still going to get some negative comments. She is in the final once again. That is all that matters.

I only ever notice Aliona, dancing.......Harry who.

Oh - I'm not well versed in contemporary. I enjoy it a lot though. My thought is, it doesn't matter whether you know about contemporary dancing, it's kind of immaterial because a good contemporary piece will grab you emotionally.

I don't think people are adverse to mixing ballroom with a contemporary style. This is a wonderful example of trying to mix the two:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w1B9_kc5XUc

If Matt's AS moved other people then that's fine, I'll accept that. I just found it a bit patronising to suggest people didn't like it because they don't understand contemporary dancing.

Having seen the rehearsal footage I'm going to give Aliona a big thumbs up!
I ragged on her a bit for last year but having seen ITT - she's proved to me she's not being self-indulgent and playing to Harry's strengths.

Really glad to see the AS looks romantic and lyrical. As long as it doesn't have the looking to the balcony/smell the fart acting in there, I think it'll be a great routine. Reminds me a bit of the VW from Anya on sytycd
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ob7Ve7Q__IE

Picking a showdance that is jive based should really suit Harry. I hated her 'hip-hop' showdance because neither of them could pull it off but this showdance has the makings of being great.

She's turned my opinion of her the last few weeks so she deserves the praise. I even kind of miss the wackiness. Definitely showing more maturity in her choreography this year, so well done to her.

I'm going to have to disagree here, I thought his "Grease" based Jive was dreadfully lacking in actual Jive content. I think she'd have done much better to have gone for a routine which used his ballroom skills, a combination of Quickstep, Tango and AT with some AS style lifts would have made best use of his skills.

It was lacking in content but the characterisation was better suited to him. But it's the showdance and content tends to go out the window anyway!
He's already doing 3 ballroom dances (if you count AT) so a 4th in the showdance would be over egging it.