Well join us. I first did AT in Spring this year. It is great going back to look at the ATs over the years now.

Not necessarily, imo dance is about emotion, if you connect to your audience (in this case the viewer at home) then you're doing something right even if you may not be technically spot on throughout the routine.

I danced until my early 20s but it was in the "traditional" route of ballet, tap, contemporary dance so what I've learnt about the 10 Dances and Argentine Tango etc, has come from watching Come Dancing, SCD and from going away and reading and watching videos. I'm not an expert but I know what steps I should be seeing in a Quickstep, I expect to see Spanish lines and shaping in the Paso etc, but that doesn't mean I can't be completely emotionally hooked by a performance which exudes joy or romance or just sheer fun but which contains no heel leads, not a single fleckrl or reverse turn or where the kicks and flicks are more like jabs and stumbles

SCD is an entertainment programme at the end of the day, if what you're watching entertains you then no-one can say you're wrong for enjoying it

Many universities and business schools have dance classes. It is good to switch off.

On first viewing I thought it was pretty good but on second and third viewings I am less impressed. There were a number of times when the step should have been collected through the brush point and wasn't. I also felt she was too down in her knees pretty well all through.

I am not so fussed about the chest thing because it is choreographed so she didn't need the chest movement to provide the lead. It could be argued that it is part of faking the sense of spontaneous lead and follow but actually when the lead is very good the focus on the chest becomes less important. As I have become more experienced and get to dance with better leads I find I can feel the chest inflexions and am less dependant on visual cues. This means I can shut my eyes, eye up the talent around the room!(joking) or and this will freak you out Henry have a wee bit of conversation besides constantly saying sorry.

But chest or not I agree she did not look like she was being led and did appear as if the dominate force in the duo.

Yes I guess you have to "do" the dance to really appreciate the technical aspects. I like dancing but I haven't been sufficiently organised enough to properly learn the dances. Maybe this will inspire me to get back to the classes

What do you think of my comment re-having the same choreography but in the closed hold? I think you get a far better "feel" and emotional resonance from the AT when it's danced as if they're on a crowded dance floor with no room to move.
This would also, of course, ignore the slight height difference (by giving Natalie shoes with a lower heel) so her knees wouldn't have to be quite so bent and would also have reduced the amount of space they were adding to the steps because of the gap between them.

If you thought it looked stunning then who is to say you are wrong. I have said on another thread that dance is about a feeling. I like to dance to music makes me feel something' I don't flatter myself by pretending I can convey that feeling to a bystander, sadly I am just not that good. But if as a observer you were moved or felt something then that's fair enough. Especially if it was derived objectively, as it appears to be in your case, and not simply because you are so in love with the contestant or pro that they could dance like a cart horse and you would still think it was fab-u-lous.

As for technique and so forth you get so many mixed messages from the judges that it is hard to know what is good and what is bad for a technical or rules perspective. You get more on ITT (although Karen Hardy has gone down in my estimation this year - she seems to love everything) Also there are some excellent and knowledgeable posters on here whose opinion I tend to rely on. Keep an eye open for posts from Diamond Betty, Spin Turn, Sofakat and a new one who has caught my eye and seems to know her onions Jennifer F. There are others but these are the names that come off the top of my head. There are also a lot of pretenders.

I take my glasses off when in close embrace so as not to get into way of the connection. So the only talent I can check out is in my arms in theory anyway. It is right eyeball to eyeball and Boudica bra (if any) wedged into my chest and maybe I can peek ahead through her tresses while we ... [OK I'd better go to sleep now ...]

Sweet dreams tangueras ...

I agree I was aware of Patricks feet last week but the dance made me shiver in a good way. So heel leads - who cares! Well Len did obviously and I understand why. But I was prepared to overlook that fundamental flaw because the whole was greater than the sum of the parts I guess. (and besides Ashley's salsa foot work was equally flawed so on that basis they were even)

Patrick's rumba is one of the few I can count on one hand from every single series of SCD that I can not only bare to watch again but actively enjoy doing so. Colin Jackson's was my fave but that's sadly now deleted from YouTube.

Darcey was with you there ...

I would have liked the dance to have contained more tango walks and preferably in close embrace. When I watched it back I felt it was overly dependant on making shapes - good shapes it has to be said - but I would have liked to have seen more basic between the shapes.

There is a style of Argentine Tango called Carpa. It is when the A frame shape - upper bodies closer together than lower bodies - is taken to the extreme and even more pronounced.

Oh good, I am glad it wasn't just me then as I'm by no means an expert on AT but I just felt all the movements were too big while, as you say, being technically superb.

I couldn't understand tonight why she thought it was a good idea only to have eyes for Artem. Artem isn't the one to connect with - the TV viewers are, and even if she acts a close relationship, the camera just doesn't show that level of detail. Indeed the camerawork is so weak this series its more liely to show her from a great distanc where her face can't be seen , or be in close focus on Artem, or Len........ She needs to portray a relationship but in a way that can be read on the TV screen.

She may just be working as she would to a soap TV camera in very close up on her. The reverse problem seems to occur when some musical theatre trained people pull faces that work from row x, but look odd in a tV close up. Everyone else seems to do it better for me in some way. Patrick can act a traditional song and dance routine even if he has problems elsewhere. Susanna just screams enthusiasm. Sophie has a classical film star's look, and often acts effectively. Abbey can look graceful or dynamic, without us having anything more than a distant shot to look at.

I'm not a dance expert by any means, but just to pick up on the comments about the 'eyes for Artem' thing - wasn't one of the other contestants criticised a few weeks ago for NOT looking at their partner enough during the AT?

I loved it by the way.

Thank you for the mention!!I would love to be able to comment on the AT but sadly I don't have much experience in this area. I did have a few lessons in AT, and as a Ballroom dancer used to such "discipline" in hold etc, it did feel very strange at first. I was told - I'm assuming correctly- that the foreheads touch, body's lean in, and the relaxed hold is very compact.I didn't see much of the above in the AT from Natalie and Artem yesterday, but the footwork looked precise, perhaps a little too much so.She is an excellent dancer though, would have liked to have seen her paired with another Pro though.

Yes, so did I.

And Natalie was told to show more of a connection with Artem. The girl can't do anything right for some posters. I wish all the other dancers were dissected so closely.

Thank you An Thropologist! I like your posts because they are knowledgeable AND polite! My main area of knowledge is ballroom, but with some AT. I know naff all about Salsa and Charleston and so don't listen to me on that! Apart from the names above, the real ballroom expert on here is Wysiwyg (an international adjudicator) who tends not to post more on particular threads nowadays. Also kaycee, who has competed and now teaches, is always informative and very polite and respectful. I'm not that familiar with performance AT. I used to dance AT each week for a couple of years and was meaning to go back to it sometime but haven't managed to fit it in. However the AT I danced was completely improvised and therefore very dependant on the chest movement and other leads.

I think your comments on Natalie's AT are very interesting and agree with them (walks, brushing, collecting, lead). It is true of all dances that the context can make people forget they are being led even though the rule should be the same. e.g. Social ballroom improvised and so requires a clear lead, competitive a mix of predefined rotines and improvised, exam oriented or performance completely predefined. So Natalie should have been waiting for Artem's lead or for Artem to hand it over temporarily to her (as happens often in AT) even though she knew what it was going to be! For me, there was lack of connection and Len's use of the adjective surgical was a bit unfortunate (and Freudian?) since it looked a bit like that to me.

Yes, alert. Don't quote, since it means the offending post appears more than once and moderators have to remember to remove it multiple times.

You have never said anything positive about Natalie. OK we know you dont like her. How about proper constructive criticism?

I alerted as soon as I saw it. If you don't want to know bottom 2 PLEASE don't scroll up because there's a spoiler on this page!

BIB - maybe that's the real reason why Artem prefers side-by-side dancing with Natalie (rather than Ian Waite's excuse of her being taller).

I didn't understand that comment from Craig as I always understood that the AT was the woman's dance and it was always about the female and why I thought she was going to "blow me away" Where I felt it was lacking was there weren't as many "clicks and flicks" as I was expecting. This could have been (as someone pointed out in another thread) due to Natalie being taller than Artem, something I hadn't noticed until last night.

i think natalie has been the dominant force in that partnership from the start, and probably doesn't know how or when to defer graciously, or for the overall good of what they are doing. This would be forgiveable in a teenager, but just looks rather self indulgent and self important in an adult. much like her apparently principled decision to make an imaginary political point by snubbing terminally ill children and their families.

i think this - perhaps along with alleged personal difficulties - accounts for artem's gradually more and more slumped posture and couldn't care less attitude, he's had 10 weeks of it... however, last night was also the most relaxed i have seen them together, perhaps because he's let go of any idea that he can really instruct her in anything.

i enjoyed the AT, and watched all that technical accomplishment without feeling very much at all. i much preferred their salsa.

Good but still didn't have the impact on me that Mark and Karen's AT did.

But can't explain why