LOVED, LOVED Aliona on ITT tonight ; She was on FIRE . Great interview tonight with Jay. I laughed at the bit where she rolled her eyes and made hand gestures when talking about Jay's criticisms of the facial expressions by the judges .


One of the most exciting Christmas line-up in a while.

So happy to see Abbey back ; I remember her saying that she would have loved to be partnered with Brendan if she wasnt with Aljaz; And besides her and Brendan knew each other prior to her taking part in the show. Great pairing

Poor Robin

Happy for Oti to have a great partner but not keen on Tom Chambers
Harry with Joanne should be good.

He's only inarticulate immediately after the dance as he gets all choked up with the emotion of it all. That's led some people who only see him there to think he doesn't have a lot of personality. In interview he's funny and really down to earth and he and Aliona get on really well. His impressions of Aliona are hysterical (check out the interview just after that Quickstep). And neither of them ever gush (thank heaven!)

Why didn't they pair her up with Brenda again? You would have thought they would go for original partnership when available.

He just reminded me of a lot of blokes I know... And I like them. To be honest, he's never seemed that awkward on the show either

*Nods*

Jo's Latin skills are a bit of an unknown

Yes, that's a bit odd I guess. Although I suppose it was a while ago now.

Their Bacofoil show dance left behind scars deeper than we realised

Maybe as Abbey couldn't have Aljaz she got first Bagsy being a recent winner.

I forgot that Brendan taught her a bit of ballroom on BNTM

Just watched Tuesday's ITT.......I agree entirely with Karen with her comments re Jay.

He is a great dancer, his frame is beautiful. However, there is no "passion" in any of his performances, it is like he is going through the motions only, and I agree that if he continues without showing personality and some emotion on the floor, he is destined not to win.

And from week 1 I really have wanted him to win.......although in these last few weeks whilst this has been a comment repeated over again by the judges, my vote is tending to go to Georgia who is coming on a storm!!!

Come on Jay!!!!!!

Karen is very perceptive

I don't get this at all. Jay is incredibly expressive through his body and has the right amount of facial expressions imo. Like Aliona said ( something I've also said for a couple of weeks now ), they had a lot of moody or quite serious dances recently so his facial expressions were more or so appropriate . I agree that some of his dances may have had a little more emotion ( their Argentine Tango) but to say that he doesn't emote at all

Why on earth would he be passionate in the foxtrot or American smooth especially given the song they had for these dances He conveyed the right amount of emotion required for these dances imo.

If he had the charleston, Samba, salsa, rumba...and didn't emote at all I would agree but foxtrot, AS, ...... ?

This whole jay needs to emote thing is starting to feel like something that the judges and some people choose to highlight to just beat him over and over with. It's really starting to get really old.


I thought that Harry judd was expressionless for most of his dances but he didn't seem to have this many criticism over his facial expressions.

She comes from a latin dancing family
she danced both styles to UK Champ competition level until 16 and she does latin dems with Giovanni BUT would love her to do a quickstep or tango with Harry

Jay is fine. He expresses the dance through his body much more than anyone else which is always going to be more appealing than someone who has awkwardly shoved themselves into the right frame and plastered an inane smile on their face. To me .. that is emotionless.

Karen Hardy talks **** .. that's why a lot of people much preferred Jo etc.

I did that to my thumb, it hurt for months afterward.

Yes, Jay is fine, yes, he's a beautiful dancer, yes, he has expressive arms, yes, he's maybe the best male dancer the show's ever had, but he could be gobsmackingly amazing if he could sort out this lack of emoting. No, it's not about OTT facial expressions, I think it's about letting the emotion of the dance show a little bit more on the face, and aim for even more expression through the body. Karen and Darcy both gave pointers in that direction (Darcy about the head placing this week, Karen a while ago on cc about how to reach out with the arm).
Only Aliona will know how far she can push him and what he can achieve, and maybe he's not able to get there, but I hope he'll crack it eventually.
Reminds me of Natalie, who I also loved and who also had this issue. It's so frustrating when you know how good somebody could be and it's just not happening. Natalie finally got there in the last couple weeks and went from very good to absolutely brilliant. Touching the divine - that's what I want Jay to do!!😄

This needs for emoting seems to be mainly suggestive though. My problem lies with some of the judges and some people presenting it as " facts ". You need to do this to become absolutely outstanding.

Not everyone is a fan of OTT facial expressions or gurning. Some people like sublety . I didn't like Karen Hardy and Camilla as pros for these reasons; they just went into full on OTT mode with facial expressions in their dances; I found it cringeworthy at times.
Funnily enough, I actually started to like Karen H once she left

Reply:
The tiny smiles Jay did in the Waltz were perfect for the television audience.

In the Jive he did too much emoting. He was supposed to be dead pan throughout the dance, but you could see him smiling and enjoying it.

He is actually having to work very hard each week to produce the dance to the level he is capable of, and that is what Aliona has been concentrating on. As the weeks go on, he will get more used to learning all these new dances and Aliona's instruction to 'focus and don't enjoy the dance until the very end', will hopefully no longer be necessary.
She is starting to bring more emotion into the dance - in the Foxtrot - but unfortunately Jay made a mistake, and that might be connected to him losing focus on the dancing because he was thinking about emoting.

Hopefully more people will realise that we do have a bunch of celebs who are working very hard and they are all pretty much in the same boat. We have seen Georgia, Kellie, Anita - all emerging as contenders - and Helen is likely to do the same, so Jay is just one of a crowd who are working very hard each week to produce their best, and it is a work in progress.

Reply to Edy:
Yes, of course it's subjective, I briefly thought about editing my post to add an IMO at the end, but thought it would be clear I'm stating my opinion rather than fact.
I have a slight problem with the extreme polarization of the performance issue. Asking for Jay to be a bit more expressive doesn't automatically mean asking for full on panto facial gurning. There's a lot of middle ground between being bland and being totally over the top. Jay is just a little too reserved, I think.

Eta: I'm not saying I think Jay is bland, btw, I don't think he's at that end of the scale

I think Jay should work on taking smaller steps in order to get a natural hip action in his salsa. Anita might need to strengthen her core for the paso as her arms were good but she looked a little floppy. I'm hoping they both do well.

I watched Jay's foxtrot again last night and for me (apart from the stumble) it was stunningly beautiful dancing. I did not feel the need to look at his face at all because I was watching his body (not in a perverse way, I hasten to add!). That movement for me created all the emotion of a romantic foxtrot. Whilst I agree that some dances do need facial expression, I do not feel the foxtrot is one of them.

Well said. Right at the end, after the stumble when he does the rather awkward lean to Aliona's chest, the body probably isn't telling the emotional story very effectively , but now we know they were improvising, it's forgivable.

I appreciate Craig probably didn't know the ending was made up, but I still wish he could have found something positive to say about the dance up until that point - he just seemed to write the entire thing off because Jay isn't smacking him in the face with 'emoting'.

Yes, I know, it's all part of the panto..*sigh*.. but it's a pretty mean-spirited part.

I was really impressed when Aliona said it was Jay's improvisation at the end, leading her into spins etc. I never guessed at the time it wasn't choreographed - normally when it all goes to pot you can see the pros, whether they're the lead or follow, having to shove the celebs round quite obviously if they have to deviate from the routine. Well done Jay for that!

This. Couldn't agree more - especially the bit about Harry Judd.

She really is pretty ghastly.....

Well said! I found the whole interview really impressive and informative