Yes she is.

She is just a salsa dancer.

I don't even think she choreographs most of the routines, i'm sure Aljaz helps her out.

Janette appears to think the flashier and showier the better.....to the detriment of any technique. She saw Peter Andre as an ideal candidate for this.....he is very much the showman on his tours. Consequently, whether or not he could have done a good jive is a moot point......since he appears not to have been taught how to do one.

Oh, and as someone who was a right little raver in the sixties....and at the Tower......I can tell you that whoever the hell thought those costumes were right, hasn't got a clue. Andre's trousers would have been laughed out the ballroom.

You're right that the producers are at fault too. But you can't expect Janette to escape criticism when she's not doing a good job. Anton has been rightly criticised for his lacklustre Latin routines as well. As for Aljaz and Giovanni, Len took issue with the rumba and rightly so. But since then, they have bucked up whereas Janette is still not putting enough content. She even admitted that her VW was more American Smooth and she was glad she got away with it..

As for Natalie, well she had Ainsley. And unless you're trying to say Peter is of similar dance ability to Ainsley, I think it's an unfair comparison.

I don't think I allowed janette to escape any criticism just because I didn't emphasise it. I just merely pointed out other pros that are genuine ballroom and Latin pedigree (and should be expected to do better) make mistakes too, and not just this year but over the years. But if I have to spell it out so there is no mistake, then yes, she is at fault if she can't meet the criteria, just as ALL the pros are when they don't meet the criteria of a dance (or more). janette, Anton, Erin and all the pros that can't master both ballroom and Latin shouldn't be hired on the show imo, so I hope I've been blatantly clear if i wasn't before.

When I mentioned Natalie I wasn't talking her teacher overall, I was talking about her jive which she admitted wasn't a jive and even apologised for. I wasn't even comparing Peter to Ainsley as I didn't even mention them (as we're talking about the pros teaching, or at least I was). But if I have to make a blatant opinion on them, then yes Peter is a better dancer and can prob do more, but to be fair to ainsly he could easily have done a proper jive (even a basic one), so it was Natalie's fault on that dance (and I say that as her fan).

If you can't dance something to a high degree then you can't be expected to teach it to high degree, and that is the fault of the producers, as the pro they hire is the pro they get, evidently. Certain pros shouldn't be hired, but the producers seem happy to nevertheless (and I don't blame Anton, Erin in the past or Jeanette for being hired when they can't teach both to a high degree if they can't even dance it to a high degree themselves. They shouldn't be there in the first place to be blamed).

If true, BBC will have let her go. I think Peter/Ola would have been a very good match.
I also think Ola does push the celebrities to get better each week and got some bad press last year.

weren't they chef's trousers? He cooked up a good stink here didn't he

Agreed. Ola wouldn't of took his "Can I just say..." nicey nicey crap. She actually cared about her dancers and to see them improve. Janette seems to be OK with whatever Peter does as long as he tries his best.. but that isn't what Peter needs, he needs his woman to dominate him and take the lead.. not to massage his ego.

Janette is one of my favorite dancers to watch and I like to see her on the show but it doesn't seem as if she is a great teacher, no.

Until Janette gets a genuinely talented (and young and fit) ringer, there is no way to know if she is to blame or not!

So far she's had 3 pretty difficult jobs on her hands - an older man that was universally disliked by show fans (and was only in it for the fake tan and glitter anyway), a middle aged actor who was largely disliked due to his role as a BAD MAN in a very popular TV show, who had littlel time to train, but as an actor was able to sell a routine (if he knew it well enough to feel comfortable performing), and PDuh, a desperate showbiz hasbeen, who has been reinvented as a reality "star" and is firmly resident in cloud cuckoo land, which at least protects him from crumbling in the face of the tabloid press.

As a strictly pro you take what you've got and do your best to shape the raw material any which way you can, whilst protecting your celeb, and showcasing their strength and deflecting attention from their weaknesses.

Yes, the "don't worry about the technique, concentrate on the routine" seems damning, but we don't know the context, maybe Jake had spent days struggling with the routine and there was either no time left to do anything but COME OUT AND GIVE IT SOME WELLY, or maybe Jake was really struggling to memorise a step sequence, because he was unduly worried about a small detail that most people won't notice anyway.

Besides, it takes years for actual dancers to develop proper technique, most (untrained) celebrities will never get anywhere near it, the pro just has to try and help 'em fake it.

Maybe Peter, having had smoke inexplicably blown up his ass by the judges for weeks, despite putting in mediocre performances, decided there was no need to make so much effort, and barely spent any of the last two weeks trying at all, believing himself to be bulletproof? You can't teach a pupil anything that they aren't willing to learn.

Ultimately, a Strictly pros job is to keep their celeb in the competition as long as possible, and considering Janette's raw material thus far, she seems to rather good at it.

As for whether she gets help choreographing or teaching, well, it's very common in dance to ask for advice and share tips, and of course ALL the dancers will occasionally need someone that dances the same role as their celeb to come in and demo or explain role specifics etc (hence Erin popping up in Kate and Anton's VT). As far as I can make out, there are backstage dance staff employed for the purpose of choreo support and Jason Gilki-whatsit is also available for consultation and critique.
Heck, we saw Gleb LEADING Anton in a Quickstep, while Anton made suggestions just last week, it's totally common and normal to ask for help, and the clip probably only made it to ITT for the sake of the Old Hand helps Hot Foreign Newcomer narrative.

I would very much doubt Aljaz secretly does all her choreo work, for starters, the pros get sent to wherever the celebs happen to be for the day job, so it's pretty unlikely that they see enough of each other. Especially this year, when they are both still in the competition.

(this reminds me of the "Kurt Cobain wrote all Courtney Love's songs" rumour, so I guess it must be a reoccurring theory for couples that work in the same business!)

As an aside, Janette seems to very well liked by the other cast and crew, and is often in the other pro girls socialising pics, is frequently mentioned fondly by Vicky Gill and as we've learned this week, is referred to by affectionate pet names by many, including Len, and is Natalie Lowe's favourite co dancer. Plus, Aljaz loves her.

I hope she gets some really good raw material soon, then we can all make more informed judgements!

My impression of Ola is that she treated all her celebs in exactly the same way, ie, recycled her pivot, pivot, knee slide, pivot choreography until her celeb caved into believing himself a hopeless cause, then pulled out a lacy cat suit to distract the eye and gain two extra weeks before being eliminated and spending the remainder of the season looking adorable on the balcony whilst secretly leaking salacious stories to the press

Funny how people can conclude such different viewpoints whilst looking in the exact same direction!

No she didn't. Jake was a natural dancer who needed teaching. He didn't get it, and his ballroom remained poor because she never fixed some basic faults.

Where did you get that one from? Jake was hugely popular.

Someone needs to sit her down and show her old videos of 'proper' dances for each and every dance .
A lot of her work is fantastic , but the vw and the alleged jive on saturday were not strictly vw and jive . The vw was nice enough but far too much out of hold and the jive was simply unrecognisable as a jive . I couldn't believe that was it when they'd done .No jive content worth noting . What they danced was a decent enough dance , but it wasn't a jive and that's down to the choreographer . I think one of their early dances was off piste too, but I can't remember which one .
It's no coincidence that their best dance and highest score was choreographed with help from someone else . Janette needs to get back on track and stop meandering into randomness .

Only after he pulled off that Salsa (week two).

Salsa is Janette's specialist dance, of course, so she probably did find that one the easiest to teach and inspire Jake, which probably did make him feel extra confident.

It's also one of the dances (along with Charleston) that is easier to fake for an audience, so it provides no real evidence of Jake having true dance potential or not.

Don't get me wrong, he seems like a great chap and I enjoyed watching him on the show, and I'm glad he made it as far as he did, I just don't believe that we can conclude that Janette is a terrible teacher because Jake didn't get a good grasp of proper ballroom technique during his time on the show.

She's a great dancer but her teaching seems limited. Jake's Salsa was a rehash of things that she had done on SYTYCD, which were choreographed by other people (I think), and that's literally the only stand-out dance she's done in 3 series. The Charleston was good but again she didn't choreograph it. A better teacher/choreographer could probably have ironed out some of Peter's faults better and given him some proper routines.

Natalie tried to simplify things to make it easier for him. Ainsley could not have a done a basic jive - he couldn't even cope with the routine Natalie gave him.

I really like Janette but I started to see her faults with Jake last year, with another pro I think he would have made the final. Her choreography is always similar and she isn't good at ballroom. She's fab at lifts,latin flicks and tricks lovely girl but given the choice I would rather see Jo with a pro next year.

Even Jay would've struggled with that Jive

Jake was truly awful last year. I somewhat blame Janette for her teaching, but Jake did lack natural ability too.

She's a brilliant dancer though.

Maybe Strictly should have a "troupe" like on DWTS, where certain pros only perform in group dances and are given a celeb when they are deemed ready for it by the producers.

Yet very few people are making the same comments about Gleb, though. He hasnt corrected much of Anita's footwork. His choreography has been equally style over substance.


I agree.

huh?

so whose fault is it then??

I have

I will maintain Janette is a fantastic dancer herself but her teaching is always going to be lacking in the ten dances as she, like Anton, started dancing later than most and mastered other dance styles before she got to the ten dances. It doesn't really change my view on her personality or her own talent as a dancer because she is very good at her job. It's the other parts that being a strictly pro that she flags on. Other people can think otherwise and that's fine. But it will continue to be an issue even if she has the biggest ringa to ring.

Exactly. And from comments she's made since the results show aired I think it's pretty clear she thinks they were very lucky to get through - she's under no illusions as to their position relative to the other couples.

This is the point in the series when I really wish they'd release the training hours, as I suspect Peter isn't training half as much as the rest of them - he seemed to spend more time switching on Christmas lights last week than training. I wouldn't be surprised if Janette had planned to do a routine with a decent amount of jive in it (she does have Aljaz to help her with choreography after all, and they're very open about the fact they do their choreography jointly), but Peter simply didn't put the hours in so she had to strip it back and replace it with distraction techniques. She's by no means the first one to do so, and she won't be the last I'm sure.


Was that not what they were doing in one of the training clips on ITT, where you could see very clearly that she was trying to teach him technique but he just wasn't getting it?


I don't think Janette is a great ballroom and Latin dancer by any means - she's perfectly passable for the entertainment competition that is Strictly, and she's there for her overall dance panache and salsa experience more than anything else, but I'd much rather have her on the show and watch her dance than a load of the other pros we've had through the years.

I think people are being far too quick to blame Janette entirely - while undoubtedly she's at fault for the choreography lacking jive content, I don't think Peter's entirely innocent in all this either - I've sensed some underlying frustration on Janette's part for a while now. I suspect they'll be gone this week (and I think she probably suspects it too), but I don't think Peter would have gone much further with any other pro given the number of training days he appears to have missed...

May be BBC's fault for employing her.