ocelot

I really don't get how this rumor has so much traction.

I'm sorry that my post was too harsh. You didn't do anything wrong or offensive, you don't need to be sorry. I get too passionate in these conversations and should watch myself more. I really apologize, please don't let my post deter you from posting here. Also, I do think Derek is an amazing latin/ballroom dancer. I would never call him a bad dancer.

He didn't, I was talking about his fans and specifically referring to the post I quoted. That's why I said to compare the men in the dances not the women but I understand your point. Any of the jazz dances Derek has done actually, the effect is the same--there's just a fundamental difference in dance ability. We could argue he's dancing down for his partners, but I've never seen him display anything more advanced than that, ever, so idk. Derek's fans say he IS as good as a professional broadway choreographer, and they often say he is actually better ("brilliant""genius") at their profession than they are.

I'm the one who said Derek doesn't have classical (ballet) technique and he doesn't. That's just a fact. Not that he doesn't have good technique, he doesn't have technique period. He is a pure ballroom dancer. It is really disrespectful to people who train their whole lives, to just pretend he is a master at something he has never trained in and is not good at. And Misty works with lots of people who are not in ballet, and works in the commercial side too. She's not a snob. I watched the thing he did for her--it's BALLROOM with pointe work. If we are really going to argue about Derek having technique, I've got the gifs and images ready. Not even he claims to have that, so this is so confusing to me. Edited to add: and just btw the Industry Dance Awards are not a respected award show. They have categories that are literally filled with nothing but dance moms girls. They mix commercial dance with competition (as in children) dance in an actually bizarre manner. They're unprofessional and disorganized as heck. Oh and I saw you put in Derek's Too Darn Hot, so I thought I'd add this. Compare Derek's dancing in his Too Darn Hot to the male dancing in this one.

So wait how is it working next week, finals on Monday and then announcing the winner on Tuesday?

Ohh okay, I was confused because someone mentioned 'the end' of Amy and Derek's dance and that didn't happen in the end of their dance. Thank you. ETA: okayyy I'm an idiot, I thought you guys were referring to their contemporary and not their freestyle. Sorry, I'll try to learn how to read. It would be really awesome to have one full length pro latin or ballroom dance every week. I wish they would do that. Btw I was pretty impressed with Hayley in that cha cha bumper? I thought she was Jenna at first. She's better than Allison at least. I thought he did a really good job and the choreography was better than Witney's usual contemp choreo (and better than some that have gotten all 10s this season). I'm confused at the response he's getting.

Or is that not the move you guys were talking about?

People talking about Witney's contemporary stealing the final move form Amy and Derek's contemporary, have you seen Fix You (2010) which has the exact same final move as Human (2014)?

Thank you omg. I'm so sick of it. Like I said before I understand we (all 3 of them) can't dance with our legs and feet for reasons, but the arm dancing is actually going to be the death of me at this point.

Somebody did this lol.

Imo there was too much similarity between Make It Rain and Gravity, not just in theme but in parts of the choreography, in tone, in their characters. But I understand that's just my opinion, and I should have clarified my point was more that it was highly reminiscent of Gravity in an episode with a few other things that were also highly reminiscent of popular dances that came before. It was the cumulative effect.

What exactly was going on last Monday though. 1) Mark and Alexa's re-do of Gravity 2) A wicked games contemporary from Val and Tamar (why would the producers do that to them that's just kind of mean imo) 3) followed by that lift from Derek and Bindi (nobody owns a lift but that one was so distinctive from the Travis dance, which people might have already been thinking of because of the contemporary to wicked games in the same episode.....) 4) Witney and Carlos reminded me of Mercy with Katee and Twitch, with the door It was too much for one episode. Gravity, Wicked Games, and Mercy are all like iconic sytycd dances. They all have millions of views on youtube. Just seems like really weird choices.

I don't know if it is diminishing Derek's success in winning two emmys to note that he has done so since the rule change that allowed all 18,000 Emmy voters to vote in that category? It isn't a peer award. People who have zero dance experience voted on that award. It still means they picked Derek, he was their favorite. I think this is actually exactly what you've been saying though. It's the same way most people voting on DWTS have no dance experience. And there's nothing wrong with that at all, it's supposed to be FUN. I'm rude about him a lot, but Derek is obviously a spectacular ballroom dancer as a champion winner like you said, and I think that he has really mastered the weird combination of dance+TV that is unique to this situation. He also seems to care deeply about all of his partners, and does a great job teaching them and choreographing for each of them personally. Which is what he's supposed to do.

For sure, dance is subjective! And of course people can prefer Derek's choreo. But I think you hit the nail on the head, it's not contemporary imo. Contemporary on sytycd encompasses like contemporary ballet, contemporary jazz, modern, lyrical, all of those styles. The contemporary on dwts is not any of those things. It's its own thing. So if they called it interpretive dance instead, I'd be cool with that. I know people hate the flailing and the tilts and stuff but legs and feet are like the most important thing to me in those dances so I love it haha.

I understand that that's what they're trying to do, in my opinion they don't do a good job, and the praise they get for it is absurd. So like I said above, it's really only the praise I have a problem with I guess? Idk. For me, and I feel like you're saying the same thing here, experimentation is awesome when the people who are experimenting are already experts. Mark and Derek aren't. They lack any kind of technique, style, or knowledge. So watching them experiment outside of ballroom is really not fun for me. And adding to that, I don't really see how what they are doing is different or new? In my opinion Derek's contemporary choreo is boring, simple (even sparse), and cheesy and Mark's is clearly an imitation of other choreographers.

I can't blame him for doing what he's told and attempting to do other styles, of course! I can blame him, the show, the judges, and the fans for acting like what he's doing is good let alone brilliant. So I agree with you, and I should change my statement to if Derek sticks with ballroom dancing and what he attempts outside of that genre gets treated like what it is, an attempt, I would have no problem with him.

Derek is an amazing ballroom dancer, I don't think anyone could deny? It's when his fans try to claim he is a genius, brilliant at other styles of dance, that it becomes disrespectful. If Derek stuck to ballroom dancing I honestly would not have a problem with him.

This week's episode was awful in my opinion. The show suffers so much without Kristen (and Jake too, for me). There are a lot of things that I KNOW she would have brought up if she were there, that just went unsaid. I like Suri and Darvina fine as people but they were actually insufferable in this episode. Suri has been really bad the last few weeks and with her as the moderator she was much worse. And they pretty much just agreed with each other on everything? Effusive, over the top praise to Mark, Derek, and Sharna and their partners. It was hard to listen to. Like I understand that they're supposed to give their opinions but I thought they must be joking at several points??

Yeah I feel the same way. They have duets where one partner represents a personal issue literally every year on so you think (just off the top of my head I can remember obviously the Person/Their Drug Addiction duet, a Person/Their Bad Past duet, and a Person/Their Depression duet). It's actually like the second most common type of contemporary duet we see lol, after romantic partner/struggle duet.

I'm seeing some people on twitter saying Mark&Alexa was a ripoff of Gravity.

That elimination is messed up

Oh crap I thought they were gonna show the dance from dress rehearsal on the show? Omg that actually sucks that they're not dong that. ETA: oh wait sorry I think I misunderstood you. I don't know what's going on.

Why would they make them do a contemporary to that song??? That comparison is gonna be harsh.

I'm sorry if this is being talked about somewhere else but I just saw this. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5PZfKumRpYU That's so terrifying! I'm so glad they caught it early.

I actually really enjoy their partnership. While the editing is shenanigans a large part of the time, and I'm not a huge Val fan, I do strongly get the sense that he's working towards the best for her, and I think she's a great dancer. I really hope she makes it to the finale.