DANCING WITH THE STARS - QUOTABLE DANCER

Now that the fake tan dust has settled on the dance floor after Nicole Scherzinger and her professional partner Derek Hough's lifted the coveted mirrorball trophy on Dancing With The Stars, here are a few choice quotes by and about Ms. Scherzinger (rhymes with 'ringer') after her triumph ...

All quotes by Nicole unless otherwise noted

“I'm just so flippin' happy right now!”

"This has been probably the greatest reward personally, this whole personal journey. I've learned so much about myself."

"The experience has made me a stronger person, I've learned I can't control everything. I've learned to let go. It's been enlightening."

"Anyone who thinks this comes naturally to me should come into rehearsals. It's not easy."

"I don’t think I’m gonna return to the ballroom. I’m gonna return to the music. I did enough ballroom for a hot second. Derek can hold it down in my music videos with his ballroom, but right now I gotta go back to the music."

On the mirrorball trophy -

"I feel like I just won a Grammy ... A dancing Grammy!"

'It’s not about the trophy. It’s beyond the trophy. The experience and the challenge and everything you go through - it’s a lot of life-changing experiences in three months and it’s just so intense.'

"I'm going to give it to my mom because she's the reason I really did this show ... This is for her."

On her professional partner Derek Hough -

"Luckily I have a bomb-diggity partner and fortunately he never takes a day off and he's great to work with me!"

'This is new territory for me. I am in Derek Hough Dancing With The Stars ballroom land. It's good that I kind of don't know what I'm doing.'

"I've learned so much about Derek Hough - he's made me a better person through this."

On her tactics for the final - 

 "It's not good being a perfectionist. I decided to let it all hang out"

On their tango -

"After the tango, Derek and I started crying backstage ... it felt so good, and we knew we were going to be OK."

On their freestyle routine in the Final -

"Oh lord, seeing Derek and Nicole doing Proud Mary was worth suffering through every second of filler. Wow, Len is blown away and practically declares Nicole the winner. This was a fabulous TV moment - seeing these two dance this dance. Viva, Nicole, the judges give them a perfect 30 - and it is a totally righteous score."
David Zuwarik, The Baltimore Sun

On the professional dancer controversy -

"I like to see the growth, Nicole today is who she was when she got here - she was a great dancer and she still is ... There were moments you couldn't tell her from the pro dancers."
Niecy Nash

"This Nicole Pussycat person won. Imagine that? A professional dancer won Dancing With the Stars. This is why I do not watch it anymore."
Gilles Marini

"Nicole was the best dancer from day one. She was obviously on a different level than everyone else, but her choreography was more difficult, too. She absolutely deserved to win."
Edyta Sliwinska 

"Winning seemed like a foregone conclusion for 31-year-old Scherzinger, who has had years to become used to stupid costumes and elaborate routines as the leader 'singer' of the Pussycat Dolls."
Kat Angus, Vancouver Sun

"Nicole Scherzinger took home the 10th mirrorball trophy during Dancing With the Stars frenzied, bloated finale. And rightfully so. Yeah, I said it. Scherzy had dance experience. She did it for a living. Often more than singing. To which I say -- SO WHAT. She was on the show. She struggled. She cried. She initially got lost amid bigger, um, personalities Pamela Anderson and Kate Gosselin. But once the excess was excised, Nicole upped the va-va-voom and left the lesser in her wake."
Joey Guerra, Houston Chronicle

"Nicole Scherzinger and her partner, Derek Hough, walked away from the 10th season of Dancing With the Stars with the mirror ball trophy, and for good reason: Nicole was consistently the best dancer. She didn't noticeably learn anything or improve in any way. She was a highly trained dancer when she entered the competition, and she used that training (as well as a boatload of natural talent) to dominate throughout."
Linda Holmes, Today.msnbc.msn.com

"Nicole and Derek were best. Never mind that she had dance experience as a Pussycat Doll. They let her in the competition. She deserved the chance to win, too. Now, if they’d really like to up the ante, they should bring back all of the winners OR all of the second place finishers and give them a second chance. Either way, they’ve got 10 “seasons” under their belts and they’re ready for a best of the best. Even in that arena, Nicole would be a good bet to win. Watch her stuff and you’ll see. She’s remarkable (and Derek isn’t half bad, either)."
Bruce Miller, Sioux City Journal

"Congratulations to Nicole Scherzinger. Winning Dancing With The Stars is bound to be a giant career boost for her – just look what it did to former Dancing With The Stars winners like… um… oh, actually, never mind."
Stuart Heritage, HecklerSpray.com



Photo credits: (AP Photo/ABC/Adam Larkey)

"DANCING WITH THE STARS"

50 Best Quotes of Week One

compiled by Colin M Jarman of DANCING WITH THE QUOTES

“It's that time of year again, when washed-up Baywatch stars and astronauts take to the dance floor to mambo with professional tanning bed testers in body glitter (who also happen to be very good at step-ball-achangin'). It's time for Dancing With the Stars!”

Cristina Kinon on NYDailyNews.com

“It's amazing what people will go through for a poorly made discoball trophy.”

Peter Gicas on EOnline.com

“It's tough to win on Dancing With The Stars; first of all, just to get on the show you have to be at least a minor celebrity. And even if we harbor D-List hopes, not too many of us are serious about dancing: the odds an adult will take a dance class other than ballet in a year are 1 in 142.9.”

Jon Sobel on BookOfOdds.com

On the Week One pre-show nerves - “There was so much anxiety in the room tonight with everybody stretching, everybody trying to remember their routines. I know what it’s like and I wanted to just throw out the index cards and give everybody a big hug.”

Brooke Burke

“Between Jake's awkwardness, Kate Gosselin; whose facial expressions look like she may have soiled her pantyhose, and versions of songs that are worse than some Karaoke versions, Dancing With The Stars has a new avid viewer!”

Rayanne Mulier on Examiner.com

CELEBRITIES

AIDEN TURNER

Edyta in training - “I feel like your mum teaching you how to walk.”

Aiden: “Well, I don’t think of you as my mum, at all.”

on Dancing With The Stars

To his fellow Englishman after a fairly sedate but sexy Cha-Cha-Cha - “You standing there just shaking your wobbly bits while Edyta’s dances about.”

Len Goodman on Dancing With The Stars

BUZZ ALDRIN

“You did a cha-cha-cha but it looked like you still had your moon boots on.”

Bruno Tonioli on Dancing With The Stars

“He is robotic at first, but gets his groove going eventually, if glacially. He is 80, after all. He does some kicks here and there, but spends most of the dance with at least one arm on his hip. Does that count as hip action?”

Joyce Eng on TVGuide.com

“Buzz Aldrin was so goofily endearing that no one seemed to mind his 14/30 score - or the fact that most of his routine consisted of him just standing while his partner, Ashly Costa, orbited him.”

Megan Angelo in The Wall Street Journal

“Buzz Aldrin was simultaneously great and terrible - great as an 80-year-old American hero and terrible as a competing dancer. If the producers want to cast older celebrities, then they should take a page from the PGA's playbook and start a Seniors Tour.”

Tom Maurstad in The Dallas Morning News

CHAD OCHOCINCO

On his Cha-Cha-Cha - “You came out like a tiger … but you are a rough diamond at the moment, you need some polish.”

Len Goodman on Dancing With The Stars

Early Sunday morning tweets to his pro partner -

“Cheryl wake up and lets go rehearse, i had like 8 red bulls n cranberry juices and i want to fox trot right now damit!!”

“Can you hear, i want to dance right now lady get up, think mirror ball trophy.”

Chad Ochocinco on Twitter

ERIN ANDREWS

“Her cha-cha-cha has a fun party vibe to it and her footwork is pretty good, but why, oh why did she borrow something from Big Bird?”

Sammi-T on TVGrapevine.com

On her Cha-Cha-Cha - “She's working the hip action to Ke$ha's Tik Tok. She's definitely got the ‘I smell something funky but I'm sexy’ look down. You know the one.”

Cristina Kinon on NYDailyNews.com

EVAN LYSACEK

On his Viennese Waltz - “You’ve got the wingspan of a 747 but you move with the grace of a swan.”

Bruno Tonioli on Dancing With The Stars

On his designer-labeled dance costumes - “We are working so hard on the technique, the dancing should speak for itself. Packaging is important, of course, but we definitely don’t want to subtract attention from the dance.”

Evan in The Los Angeles Times

JAKE PAVELKA

On being too rough in the normally demure Viennese Waltz - “What you going to do in the rumba … Eat her?”

Bruno Tonioli on Dancing With The Stars

“Keep your legs together. You look like you're on a horse.”

Bruno Tonioli on Dancing With The Stars

On his pre-training routine - “Chelsie has been stretching the snot out of me to prevent injuries. It hurts bad. We do 45 minutes every single morning. She just walks over and turns me into a pretzel until I cry.”

Jake Pavelka on TVGuide.com

KATE GOSSELIN

On her Viennese Waltz - “It looked like Tony was pushing a shopping cart around the floor … You have to exude something!”

Bruno Tonioli on Dancing With The Stars

“Judge Len Goodman quickly shows that he is still as grouchy, crotchety, and cantankerous as ever. He hammered Shannon Doherty so hard with his remarks that he reduced TV's 'Bad Girl' to tears. He told astronaut Buzz Aldrin that he has a pet schnauzer that can dance better than him, and he told Kate Gosselin that if she could dance half as good as she can pop out kids she could be the next Ginger Rogers.”

Abel Rodriguez on The Spoof.com

NICOLE SCHERZINGER

On the difference between burlesque and ballroom dance - “It's a whole ‘nother world … it’s a far cry from chest pumps and booty dips.”

Nicole Scherzinger on Dancing With The Stars

On her Viennese Waltz - “Scherzinger - who’s better known for perfecting the sort of moves that get banned at middle school dances - was the picture of grace (or, as judge Bruno put it, ‘startling finesse!’)”

Megan Angelo in The Wall Street Journal

NIECY NASH

On her Cha-Cha-Cha - “This is like watching two personalities ... at times the saucy woman and at times the born-again virgin.”

Bruno Tonioli on Dancing With The Stars

On her Cha-Cha-Cha - “Jiggly parts and all, Niecy and Louis' performance was 100 Percent Pure Cheese and damn, we needed some campy fun after the stilted rose-petaled uggggghhhh of Bachelor Jake.”

Annie Barrett on EW.com

On the other ‘DWTS 10’ celebrities - “They're all family. The crazy thing is Chad's competition, Nicole's competition, everybody is competition, but I want to see them do well. ... Niecy Nash impressed me the most. She was great! I'm a huge fan! Her family is kind of like the Osmonds.”

Jake Pavelka on TVGuide.com

“Celebrate ur jiggly parts!!!!” … “Rock your Thickness today!!”

Niecy Nash on Twitter

PAMELA ANDERSON

“Honestly, with her larger-than-life persona, her literal height, her hair all ratted up like that, her makeup, and the way she carried herself and did her thing to the utmost, she seemed a bit like a drag queen, no? And I don't mean that in a bad way! She was a really hot drag queen!”

Tonya Plank on HuffingtonPost.com

OMG! Pamela Anderson on DWTS last night! She was better than I thought and fun, but pretty much a sexcapade

Nancy O’Dell on Twitter

“She's rockin' the "just rolled out of bed look," if you roll out of bed in a hot pink, fringed mini. Her tousled hair has a life of its own. Seriously, it's moving better than she is!”

Joyce Eng on TVGuide.com

“It's a lot of fun. I've never danced in my life! I thought I might as well learn to dance sooner or later. I've done a few pole dances. There are not a lot of steps in pole-dancing, it's a lot of swinging around.”

Pamela Anderson on The Tonight Show

On having trouble adjusting to the much more demure Foxtrot - “Of all the things I’ve done in my life, I’m not going down in the Foxtrot.”

Pamela Anderson on The Tonight Show

“We want to do something different every time. It’s not always going to be sex, drugs, rock and roll and ripping off clothes.”

Pamela Anderson

SHANNEN DOHERTY

On her Viennese Waltz - “It didn't flow … you were swinging your arms around like a primate.”

Bruno Tonioli on Dancing With The Stars

PRO DANCERS

ASHLY COSTA

On meeting his 27-y-o pro partner for the first time - “When I first met Ashly, I thought this is a really cute babe.”

Buzz Aldrin [80-y-o] on Dancing With The Stars

EDYTA SLWINSKA

On her heavily-fringed, almost-see-through, almost-there Cha-Cha ‘dress’ - “We are one gust of wind away from an F.C.C. fine.”

Tom Bergeron on Dancing With The Stars

MAKSIM CHMERKOVSKIY

Maksim on meeting for the first time - “They all ask for me”

Erin: “I didn’t ask for you … I asked for Tony.”

on Dancing With The Stars

On Erin’s frequent interruptions in training - "It's my only pleasure in life - to bitch at people, and you're taking it away from me,"

Maksim Chmerkovskiy on Dancing With The Stars

MARK BALLAS

“I need to get my fill of (ultimate ballroom show-off) Mark Ballas!”

Tonya Plank on HuffingtonPost.com

JUDGES

BRUNO TONIOLI

After Bruno’s ‘shopping cart’ remark to Kate and telling her ‘You have to exude something!’ - “Like you should exude tact.”

Tom Bergeron on Dancing With The Stars

CARRIE ANN INABA

“Sadly, people still don't take judge Bruno seriously. So the man reacts to well-built, handsome athlete Chad Ochocinco's sensuous dance routine by repeating the word ‘huge’ and gesturing with his hands as if he was measuring something - a large sausage, say - to describe his talent. Completely innocent. Yet the next thing you know, Carrie Ann Inaba is leading the audience in a giggle fest worthy of a gaggle of schoolgirls. Why is anybody's guess. And we are as stunned as Bruno.”

Peter Gilstrap on EOnline.com

LEN GOODMAN

After the English judge had criticized Buzz’s Cha-Cha-Cha - “How's that British space program?”

Tom Bergeron on Dancing With The Stars

“Looney Len seriously needs to give up his judges seat and give it to someone who would certainly be nicer in comparison such as Ann Coulter, Howard Stern, or any member of the Ku Klux Klan.”

Abel Rodriguez on The Spoof.com

MOST TENUOUS D.W.T.S. LINK OF THE WEEK

“The new celebrities on Dancing With The Stars are prime targets for alien abductions. E.T. researcher Dr. Bruce Goldberg, author of Time Travelers From Our Future, says most alien abductions occur when people are vulnerable, tired, and stressed. That’s exactly how amateur dancers like Pamela Anderson will feel once the intense TV competition starts.

Goldberg says aliens may prey on the stars, who’ll be too worn-out to put up a fight. They’ll get them on the operating table through “mental manipulation.”

E.T.s will go for ‘distracted’ targets like The Bachelor’s Jake Pavelka who’s too in love to be aware. Shannen Doherty may be safe because aliens hate conflict and humans with strong personalities, and Buzz Aldrin is too old to be a desirable research specimen. Goldberg says fans can tell if a celebrity has been abducted by the presence of ‘strange scars’ on their calves from alien implants.”

FlashNews.com

For more Dancing With The Stars quotes, quizzes, reviews and comments, go to:

DANCING WITH THE QUOTES

BLOG ON THE DANCE FLOOR

BLUE EYED QUOTES

“Dancing On Astaire:

The Quotable Fred Astaire”

Published by Blue Eyed Books

the first volume of quotations solely dedicated to

the legend of the world’s greatest dancer.

ISBN: 1-907338-08-3

Official Book Website: www.blueeyedbooks.co.uk/p/fredastaire.html

“Dancing On Astaire” contains over 2000 quotations that focus on Fred Astaire’s stage, film & TV career as seen through the eyes of his Broadway & Hollywood contemporaries, his critics, his fans, his friends, and his dance partners. 

The 216-page book is laced throughout with insightful comments from Fred that complement the third party contributions. Despite being heavy with quotable references, this all-embracing anthology is as light and charming as the man himself.

“Dancing On Astaire: The Quotable Fred Astaire” is the first volume of quotations solely dedicated to the legend and lifetime of the world’s greatest dancer.

Ask George Balanchine. Ask Mikhail Baryshnikov. Ask James Cagney. Ask Bob Fosse. Ask Ginger Rogers. Ask Michael Jackson. Ask Gene Kelly. Ask Rudolf Nureyev. Ask Donald O'Connor. Ask any man or woman in the street. Most, if not all, would agree that Fred Astaire (born 1899 in Omaha. Nebraska) was the greatest dancer the world has ever seen.

"He is a male butterfly without the wings - the same kind of grace of a very young horse, so angular. "

Mikhail Baryshnikov

Name another dancer, from any era, whose dance career - on stage, film and TV - could sustain such a book as this. The astonishing fact is not that there are 2000 specially chosen quotations by and about Fred, but that so many of these ‘quotributes’ come from his peers and those performers that were inspired by him. That is the true test of the epithet “Greatest”.

"Fred Astaire is the Carioca, the Continental, the very Piccolino of romance."

Frederick L. Collins

in Liberty magazine (1936)

As well as tributes from the dance world as a whole, Fred has received glowing references from U.S. presidents, British Prime Ministers, Knights of the Realm, Nobel prize winners, Pulitzer prize winners, Oscar winners, Tony winners, Grammy winners ... even Heisman trophy winners. Such is the breadth and depth of the highest regard that Fred Astaire is forever held.

"Fred was, in every sense of the word, a superstar. He was the ultimate dancer - the dancer who made it all look so easy."

Ronald Reagan (1987)

As the “Dancing On Astaire” title suggests, the emphasis of the 2000 quotations is on Fred's dancing and performing career rather than his private life (which is how Fred would have preferred it).

"You see, as far as the man's personality goes, there's no one who can touch Fred Astaire. He's unique."

Donald O'Connor

“Dancing On Astaire” in biographical vein follows Fred's early stage career - as a teenager - with sister Adele; runs through all his movie musicals with partners such as Ginger Rogers, Cyd Charisse and Ann Miller; and finishes with his award-winning performances on TV (in his late 60s).

A further sample of quotations from “Dancing On Astaire”:

"I don't remember anybody ever pointing me out as a dancing prodigy, but I played a not bad second base."

Fred Astaire (c 1936)

"Youth is believing that someday you'll dance like Fred Astaire."

Jacqueline Friedrich

"Astaire bursts into a dance which in its speed and unselfconsciousness seems equally to break the laws of nature."

Graham Greene

in The Spectator (1936)

"He was the Duke of Windsor of music: glorious, subtle, aloof, elegant."

Joel Grey

"Fred Astaire is the saint of 1930s sophistication, the butterfly in motion."

David Thomson

Biographical Dictionary of Film (2002)

"The thirties musicals of Astaire worked as spontaneous eruptions of energy, as Astaire's body almost seemed to liquefy as walk became dance and speech became the lilting cadence of song."

Saige Walton

in Contemporary Comic Book Superhero (2009)

“THE PASSING SHOW OF 1918” [1918]
"Fred Astaire is an agile youth, and apparently boneless, like that nice brand of sardines."

Alan Dent

in The New York Journal (1918)

“SWING TIME “(1936)
"The duet 'Pick Yourself Up' may be Astaire and Roger's finest moment. Proof positive that dancing can be better than sex."

Ty Burr

in Entertainment Weekly (1993)

“THE BAND WAGON” (1953)
"It is with Cyd Charisse during the 'Dancing in the Dark' sequence that Astaire attained romantic apotheosis."

Richard Schickel

in Time magazine (1987)

DANCING ON ASTAIRE ... Book Details

Cover: Paperback                     Pages: 216
Size: 7" x 10"                             Quotes: 2000
ISBN: 1-907338-08-3                List Price: $14.99

For further details on “Dancing On Astaire”, go to the dedicated web page at:

www.blueeyedbooks.co.uk/p/fredastaire.html

“Dancing On Astaire” isavailable from all major Amazon sites [USA, UK, etc.] as well as from other online and traditional booksellers.

About the Editor:
Colin M Jarman has published over 25 books in the USA and UK from James Bond to Judge Dredd, from the Ryder Cup to “Dancing With The Stars”.

He has been a fan of Fred Astaire ever since he first saw the ‘Dancing on the Ceiling’ routine in “Royal Wedding” in the late ‘60s.

Colin’s favorite Astaire …

Film is 'Top Hat' …

Dance partner is Cyd Charisse

Solo dance routine is “A Shine on Your Shoes” from “The Band Wagon”

Duo dance routine is ‘Let’s Face the Music and Dance’ with Ginger Rogers from “Follow the Fleet”

Quote by Fred Astaire is “People think I was born in top hat and tails.”

Quote about Fred Astaire is “"Give Mr. Astaire a hunk of rhythm, a straw boater and a girl, and he's your man." Bosley Crowtherin “The New York Times” (1950)

Other Blue Eyed Books dance publications include: “The Quotable Dancer”, “Dancing With The Quotes” & “Strictly Quote Dancing”. For more details, see the publisher’s website at: www.BlueEyedBooks.co.uk  and the dedicated dance blog; www.BlogOnTheDanceFloor.com

"Dancing On Astaire: The Quotable Fred Astaire” is not associated in any way with the estate of Mr. Fred Astaire. No commercial connection or creative endorsement on its behalf should be inferred from the title or content of this book and any of its associated media projects.

“DANCING WITH THE STARS” - WEEK ONE LAUNCH PARTY

With the Dancing With The Stars season-opener only a few hours old, it is time to look back and critique the eleven celebrities’ opening routines.

In honor of the new ‘red room’ - a glass-paneled ‘celeb-aquarium’ as dubbed by Tom Bergeron - this Week One run down has a distinct aquatic flow to it.

“Dancing With The Stars is based on a fish out of water concept. And that at least one of the ‘stars’ each season has all the moves of a whale. A Tom DeLay, Steve Wozniak or Jerry Springer.”
D.L. Stewart in The Dayton Daily News (2009)

BUZZ ALDRIN [Cha-Cha-Cha] with Ashly Costa
At 80, Buzz was many people’s pre-show favorite to be this season’s whale. Being honest, he didn’t disappoint. This superannuated-hero moved as though earth’s gravity was his arch-enemy and the music was aural Kryptonite. But I dare any man half his age to look half as refined or dignified on the dance floor. And boy, didn’t he look like that cha-cha with Ashly was the most fun he’d had since he partnered Neil Armstrong on the moon. In fact, he had a whale of a time. Next week in the ballroom let’s see if can morph into a dancing dolphin.

NICOLE SCHERZINGER [Viennese Waltz] with Derek Hough
If a mermaid could swim up the River Danube and waltz to the strains of the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra in the summer moonlight, then it would have come close to looking like Ms. Scherzinger. Nicole, you really did ‘Take My Breath Away!’ Looking as beautiful as a Pussycat Dresden Doll, she could have danced to Berlin’s pomp classic and still not have missed a step. Her performance was so transfixing, you almost forgot she had a partner. Did someone finally put Derek in the corner!?

JAKE PAVELKA [Viennese Waltz] with Chelsie Hightower
Surprisingly, The Bachelor - who had been my pick to be this season’s whale - proved to be a pilot fish … and a Jedi pilot fish at that. He stealthily used the force to guide his partner round the dance floor (away from the dark side - aka Darth Goodman). The one thing that almost grounded Jake’s low-level flying display was Chelsie’s flowing locks … which are in dire need of Hair Traffic Control.

NIECY NASH [Cha-Cha-Cha] with Louis Van Amstel
Not so much Finding Nemo as finding her mojo, Niecy came out and shook it like a clown fish on laughing gas. It was a riot of shimmies and shakes and killer moves that were three parts Shakira and one part Shamu. Though (‘Whoopi-alert’) what was with channeling a tranced-up Oda Mae Brown in front of the judges’ table? Wrong actor from Ghost, Niecy. Next week go for the Swayze vibe not Goldberg. And, do not, repeat, do not mimic Demi Moore in her Striptease dance mode.

EVAN LYSACEK [Viennese Waltz] with Anna Trebunskaya
Easiest celebrity to plaice … this Olympian was a glittering goldfish on the dance floor - a treasure to watch during a 24-carat performance of ease and élan. Such was his presence that he put the poise into porpoise as he sashayed round the floor like an elegant electric eel in Fred Astaire tails.

KATE GOSSELIN [Viennese Waltz] with Tony Dovolani
Q. What lies on the ocean floor and shakes? A. a nervous wreck.
Unfortunately, the same has to be said about Octomum who turned into an Octopus - all arms and legs, squirms and wriggles. On the dance floor Kate’s nerves were of the Titanic variety. She sank without a trace. Despite the expert guidance from Tony, as cool as the proverbial iceberg, Kate’s lack of performance skills sadly let her down. Next week this domestic goddess and mother figure needs to find a killer instinct - perhaps a Nurse Shark - or she will be chum in the DWTS waters.

CHAD OCHOCINCO [Cha-Cha-Cha] with Cheryl Burke
The NFL’s outspoken #85 is used to going deep and he went so deep into his cha-cha that I half-expected him to emerge as a Coelacanth. Usually Chad’s lips do lie, but here his hips did not. The moves he usually uses to shake off cornerbacks crossed over onto the dance floor. He revealed more rhythm and style than Deion Sanders on his trademark touchdown trot. How Chad fares in training for the strict discipline of next week’s ballroom will be a highlight reel in itself.

ERIN ANDREWS [Cha-Cha-Cha] with Maksim Chermiskovsky
Famed for swanning up and down the sports sidelines, Erin showed herself to be more than capable of performing center stage. She bust out moves that reminded me of her native Florida baseball team. She danced like a magnificent Marlin tail-walking on the glistening waves. She is the true sport fish of DWTS. This girl is definitely not a sports anchor on the dance floor.

AIDEN TURNER [Cha-Cha-Cha] with Edyta Sliwinska
Dancing to Hungry Like A Wolf, Aiden played it extra-safe … not so much Duran Duran more Durex Durex. His cautious cha-cha resembled the cast of The Sea Wolves - that 1980s geriatric war movie with stiff upper lipped English types David Niven and Roger Moore. Aiden was stiff upper everythinged … he needs to be less flat footed and more Footloose next week.

SHANNEN DOHERTY [Viennese Waltz] with Mark Ballas
This was a dark, dark waltz … ‘twenty thousand leagues under the sea’ dark. Mark’s challenging choreography was more fitting for a DWTS final than week one. But Shannen stepped up to the challenge and was simply sensational in her shimmering mother of pearl dress. And most of all, this mother of all Viennese waltzes made her father - watching in the audience - proud.

PAMELA ANDERSON [Cha-Cha-Cha] with Damian Whitewood
Pamela burst out as pumped as a Puffer fish, as showy-offy as an over-stimulated dolphin in Sea World, and as horny as a horned terrapin overdosed on horny goat weed. She ‘stacked’ her routine with more grinds and gear-changes than Barbara Kopetski on a hopped-up Harley hairpinning Lombard Street in San Fran. This was a cha-cha that put the ‘cha’ into unchaste and ripped the ‘cha’ out of saccharine.

WOW! What a Week One Wonder! How are all twenty-two dancers going to top that incredible launch party?

Colin M Jarman
Blue Eyed Books

REAL DANCING vs. REALITY DANCING?

XMAS comes but once a year. Luckily for television dance fans, DWTS comes twice a year. On 22 March, Dancing With The Stars returns to our screens for its tenth season.

Yes! There are already nine seasons of D.W.T.S. in the bag and nine celebrity champions have hoisted that much-maligned mirrorball trophy. But how many of those triumphant toe-tapping, tush-twirling, amateur terps can you name?

To help you out, the roll of honor is: Monaco, Lachey, Smith, Ohno, Castroneves, Yamaguchi, Burke, Johnson and Osmond. Each a star in their own sphere, but can they really be regarded as true stars of the dance world? Can they really be held in the same regard as Baryshnikov, Bolle or Glover?

Does Emmitt Smith deserve to be mentioned in the same breath as Bill T. Jones? Does Shawn Johnson belong in the same stratosphere as Ted Shawn? Does Donny Osmond measure up to Donald O’Connor? Kelly Monaco or Gene Kelly? … okay, you get my drift.

How highly should we regard champions - or, for that matter, any of the dancers - that have appeared on television dance shows? Whether it be Dancing With The Stars or So You Think You Can Dance or America’s Best Dance Crew the popularity of these shows and their dancers is beyond question. You only have to look at the top four most read blogs on Dance.com. After a piece on ‘make up’ look who is next in line of popularity … D.W.T.S., S.Y.T.Y.C.D. and A.B.D.C.

Like the proverbial dancing dog, it is surprising that ‘Dance on TV’ is not only the prevalent trend on Dance.com, but that TV dance trends at all. If this well-regarded, professional dance site generates such an incontrovertible interest in the unreality of reality TV dance shows, how has the rest of the professional dance world reacted to this form of the ‘amateur’ dance hour?

In assessing how the professional dance world views shows such as D.W.T.S. and S.Y.T.Y.C.D. where better to start than in referencing Time magazine’s ‘Dancer of the 20th Century.’ Even though Martha Graham died in 1991, some fourteen years before Dancing With The Stars burst onto our screens, her memory is often revisited to explain the delights or deficiencies of the show.

“Martha Graham was telling the truth in her remark about the simplicity of body language: ‘Movement never lies,’ ” Gia Kourlas writes in the New York Times. “The success of Dancing With The Stars and So You Think You Can Dance proves a great deal about the potency of dance.”

Evoking a similar spirit from Martha’s Danceyard, Holly Cara Price offers a different slant on D.W.T.S. for The Huffington Post with another Graham cracker. “Martha Graham said, ‘Dance is the hidden language of the soul.’ Graham would probably not have been a viewer of this show, nor would she have believed any of these contestants to be speaking any kind of hidden language of the soul.”

Although D.W.T.S. pro Louis Van Amstel is a student of the Martha Graham Technique, one supposes that most of the show’s fans are more familiar with former N.B.A. star and D.W.T.S. alumnus Clyde Drexler than Graham’s Clytemnestra.

One real dance critic clearly not enamored with reality TV dancing, is Keith Watson of the London Metro. “I love dance. I do not, however, love So You Think You Can Dance, which forces good dancers to look average because they’re doing stuff they’re no great shakes at.” Watson adds, “Would you ask Carlos Acosta, the greatest ballet dancer of his generation, to have a go at tap dancing or the waltz? He’d probably make a pretty good job of it, but what’s the point?”

Ironically, the point is very simple. Acosta could so easily score a maximum three tens on Dancing With The Stars for a waltz that channels Vernon Castle, Fred Astaire and Arthur Murray. Then Acosta’s name would instantly become known to the general public who quite probably have never heard of him. THAT is the point of dance on TV.

One dance legend who knows Costa only too well is former partner Darcey Bussell. Not only did the longtime prima ballerina of the Royal Ballet dance an unforgettable balletic jive on the U.K.’s Strictly Come Dancing but appeared for a few weeks on the judging panel. Given her background, Bussell is well placed to comment on both sides of the debate.

“People think, when you've been a professional dancer all your life, that you're going to have tried every sort of style, and I kind of felt embarrassed that I'd never ever tried ballroom dancing,” she told the Independent on Sunday last year. “I muck around in nightclubs maybe after a performance, with Carlos Acosta, and I love watching tango, but generally I've never had time to dabble in other styles.”

Bussell’s willingness to stretch her toes and her reputation onto the ballroom dance floor is not matched by fellow Royal Ballet principal, Michael Nunn. The Ballet Boyz co-founder has been extremely vocal about the way reality TV dancing clouds the public’s perception of real dance. Nunn tells The Stage, “Most people, if they see dance, will probably see it once a year. And what are they going to go and see? Richard Alston or [Strictly’s] Lilia Kopylova?”

Nunn’s misgivings over reality dancing are echoed by the New Yorker’s dance reviewer Brian Seibert. Writing on Slate.com, in 2005, he warns, “For a dance critic like me to offer a professional opinion about what happens on Dancing With The Stars could be considered cruel … Dancing With The Stars is not Baryshnikov on P.B.S.”

Seibert’s professional stance is tempered by two-time D.W.T.S. champion Julianne Hough, who also uses Misha as a misshapen means to an end. She says, “Doing Dancing With The Stars is pretty much the most famous you can get as a dancer … unless you’re Baryshnikov or something.” The ‘or something’ being the worst put-down Mikhail has suffered until this week, when The Mail on Sunday denigrated his dance career by referring to him as “Sex & The City star Mikhail Baryshnikov.”

Whatever real dance experts think as they seemingly look down their noses at reality dance on television, the amateur art form does boast at least one useful benefit. “Whenever [S.Y.T.Y.C.D. head judge] Nigel Lythgoe, muses about the influence of Michael Kidd and Bob Fosse in a beautifully choreographed piece, he’s giving a quick lesson in dance history,” writes Alynda Wheat in Entertainment Weekly. “It’s like Bugs Bunny dropping opera, or mom slipping vegetables into the spaghetti sauce. It’s so sneaky, it works.”

Reality dancing on TV has undoubtedly opened the public’s eyes to the history of dance, introducing them to the almost unforgotten names of dancing greats and legendary choreographers. Although this hub of influence may have taken one clumsy step too many. Nowadays, it is has become all too easy for dance reviewers to compare a real dance project, with real professional dancers, in terms of a reality TV dance show.

Despite being awarded an M.B.E. by The Queen for his services to dance in the U.K, Akram Khan suffered the ultimate affront. His contemporary dance theater piece In-i - a duet with Oscar-winning actress Juliette Binoche - was dismissed by The Scotsman’s Andrea Mullaney, as “Basically a posh Strictly Come Dancing.” Ouch!

And if that was not galling enough for real dance aficionados, Sarah Frater, in The London Evening Standard, had the temerity to write off the American Ballet Theatre’s Le Corsaire as, “two‑and‑a-half hours of fancy dress and flashy moves - the Strictly Come Dancing of ballet with a comedy plot and a mongrel score.”

Is there a solution to this thorny question of real versus reality dancing that has become as pointed as a ballerina’s toes and as heated as ‘Lil Kim’s showcase salsa?

Tonya Plank on The Huffington Post sensibly suggests a crossover between real and reality. “Works by choreographers like Twyla Tharp and Jerome Robbins who created ballroom-y ballets - would appeal to the D.W.T.S. crowd.” She goes on to list a wide variety of dance companies and projects that would fit the primetime TV bill, “I'm sure audiences would savor seeing some of the current greats (for example, Marcelo Gomes and Misty Copeland - the ballerina of the future) perform Tharp's Sinatra Suite or portions of Deuce Coupe or Robbins's Other Dances or Alvin Ailey's jazzy Pas de Duke. Or Mimulus, a sweet Brazilian troupe who combine social Latin with modern. Or Keigwin and Company with their uniquely witty humor.”

Tonya neatly sums up the need for TV dance shows to use their precious air time to focus more on dance and less on non-performance filler, “There are a ridiculous number of excellent companies and dancers and choreographers this audience would be into; the list is endless. Dancing With The Stars is a show celebrating dance, after all, not idle chatter.”

Idle chatter or not, whatever your views on the boom in dancing on television, as long as the public are talking about dance rather than any of the other performing arts that can only be good for dance as a whole. As Bruce Forsyth, the 82-year-old host of Strictly…, likes to remind the viewers at the end of every show, “Keep Dancing!”

Colin M Jarman
Blue Eyed Books