She does look a bit like Nicole, doesn't she?

I like her so far. Looking forward to seeing Karen & Nicky dancing.

One thing is for sure, with Nicky we will get plenty of chance to see how good Karen is, they will go far.

Nicky and Louis seemed to be the male celebs to watch this series. But from what I've seen so far I'm looking forward to seeing Nicky and Karen much more than Louis and Flavia.

She looks good, can really dance too and a change from all the blondes. Seems a nice lass

Nicky didn't look exactly overjoyed to get her as his partner though did he.


What is her ethnic background? Can't place her.

Maybe Hawaiian/Polynesian in there somewhere? She's gorgeous, great dancer and a dead ringer () for Nicole Scherzinger. Westlife never danced so I don't understand why people think Nicky will be much cop. He'll landslide votes, though. If a threat to the good dancers, I can see the judges involving in suspect scoring to engineer a dance off.

Fabulist, were you drunk when you posted that? It doesn't seem to make any sense ?

I like her.....but I'll miss Katya.

Were you drunk when reading it? It makes perfect sense!
I will simplify:
Katya=great
Karen=nothing special
Bruce/Tess/Darcy=awful

Karen was in Burn the Floor, with Artem and Robin. She was amazing in the show. Artem and she will be a good partnership, better than Aliona.

Sorry fabulist, it all seemed to merge into one sentence

Artem and Aliona were fabulous. Looking forward to Aliona and Pasha though.

I get a good vibe from her.

I like Karen and think she was great dancing with Artem but the real test will be when we see her choreography.

I miss Katya though especially dancing with Pasha

First impressions ✔ᵛᶢ.

Apart from obviously having the ability I think it's important for a pro to offer something distinctive in terms of look and style and personality. In that regard she's impressed me so far.

According to the Metro she's Venezuelan, brought up in New York - and a mambo champion!

sorry, but when I saw her face thought, Is that a guy????? Its the jaw line.

Karen, like Pasha and Artem was a contestant on the US So You Think You Can Dance, I couldn't really warm to her during that show, but first impressions of her on Strictly last night were better.

some videos of her on sytycd:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b-k_UBzz6o0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F1yqfFGpm_E
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EqK63...eature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ARub1...feature=relmfu
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jF-6A...eature=related

First impressions were good. Came across a smiley character.

She's also quite good at interacting with her twitter followers which should help her popularity a bit.

I dont think Nicky wasnt impressed with her. It was probably more a case of not knowing her. She is the newbie and if he had got Ola, Flavia etc he'd have known what they bring. Not knowing her puts him at a disadvantage from the other contestants. If anything she wasnt overjoyed either but she doesnt know who he is. They seem fine with the pairing up on twitter with both twitting about each other last night. They just need to work on their partnership and after a few days training this coming week, Nicky will see what she's like. For the viewers, it will take a few weeks to get to know her.

Plus Westlife may never have been known for their dancing but if you ever went to a Westlife concert then you'd know they danced very well and Nicky was the natural one amongst them. Westlife have a rep, which i have no problems with as they did stand up at the key-change constantly in the early days but i dont think its right to judge him before he dances. Looking at him last night i believe he'll fight it out with Louis for top bloke but im more excited about Nicky and Karen than Louis and Flavia if im honest and thats got nothing to do with being a Westlife fan.

Her latin seemed quite impressive. It'll be interesting to see her ballroom!

Never very interested in Katya, but met her at her live show and she was notably friendly when she had no need to be. Karen looks OK but would like to have kept Katya and lost Erin, purely because the latter has had a good go.

LOL I noticed that too, re her arms!!!

She waggled her arms like that behind Bruce during the intro sequence. I think it's her "thing".

I thought this too. When I saw her in the group dance I quite genuinely thought wow how forward thinking one of the bbc one of the dancers is a transexual.

Me too she seemed to have a gurn or something on her face in the pro dance didn't look like any smile I had ever seen I found her quite off putting but she may grow on me