If Dancing With the Stars is any indication. Last season the first contestant knocked off the show was Eighties supermodel Paulina Porizkova; this season the first two to go have been the two models — the first, Josie Maran, a Sports Illustrated Swimsuit one no less… America used to worship supermodels; what happened!
I was actually disappointed and a bit surprised last week when Maran was booted — I thought she could possibly be this season’s Kelly Monaco-esque underdog; she’d definitely have worked very hard and she seemed sweet. I was a little disappointed this week as well. When I first saw Albert Reed, I thought what an immature goof. But then his silly playfully little-boyish charm started to grow on me. And I felt he was far from the worst, though that has nothing to do with anything on this show, as we all know.
Personally, I like that Sabrina brings something different to ballroom — I rather liked watching her hip hoppy take on Cha Cha the first night — but I don’t really think it’s fair that she’s in the competition since she obviously has a great deal of dance training that the others don’t have. I do want to see her make it far along in the comp though since she’s dancing with a member of this country’s royal family of ballroom, Hon. Mark Ballas 🙂 And it shows: he’s quite the nimble, quick-footed dancer. And my crush grows on the cute Brazilian, Helio! (Am dying to know if Marcelo talks like that!)
I hope people watched the results shows both weeks — last week to see tap legend Savion Glover and this week to see several of my ballroom favorites! Isn’t Nick Kosovich a dream! And Victor Fung and Anna Mikhed — aren’t they just oozing with charm!
And, most importantly: J.T. J.T. J.T.! I’m so happy she was on dancing the tango tonight. As they said on the show, and as I’ve blogged about before, she and her partner Tomasz Mielnicki just won the American Smooth championships this year. Of course that goofus Drew Lachey got her name wrong — it’s J.T. DAMALAS not J.T. Thomas (her partner’s first name). J.T. used to teach at my former studio. I remember one time I was having a really difficult time doing a lift with Pasha and J.T. was in the studio practicing. Pasha called her over and she nicely took time out of her practice session to help me. And she worked magic! She not only demonstrated by doing but gave me tricks on how to push my shoulder and arm down over his back onto his opposite shoulder in order to help me lift myself. (I hadn’t wanted to push down on his shoulder, thinking I’d be hurting him, but she explained I was hurting him a lot more by not having any way of holding myself up and making him do all the work). A lot of teachers just show you by demonstrating themselves and then they think you can pick it up through imitation, but they don’t realize a lot of us need more: we need actual instructions. Anyway, I remember that moment well. I never ever EVER would have thought I was so lucky to be standing between two such people — one of whom would go on to dance on an extremely popular television show and be known by millions, the other who would become the national champion and be seen on another popular show. So completely surreal!
Damn it. I was studying all evening tonight, then when I came downstairs to relax with some light entertainment… My DVR missed tonights show! I was really looking forward to the tango, too. I guess I’ll have to hit YouTube tomorrow.
i totally thought that the billionaire was next…looks like billionaires are more popular than male models 😉
Love your blog just one correction about J.T. though, her maiden name is Thomas. I work with her Dad. Although she goes by Damalas most of the time, she decided to use her maiden name last night for the show.
I don’t know if you know, but the other guy was Nick K. I remember hearing somewhere during the season that Anya borrowed a dress for the Waltz(?) from his wife. Was that his wife that he was dancing with?
Really, Christie! Wow, that’s interesting — she’s made such a name for herself as Damalas! Well, thanks for telling me.
Hi Laurel — yes, I forgot Nick’s wife’s name but it begins with an L because they own a costume-making shop called LeNique (named after both of them). It used to be located in NY, but they moved it to Hollywood so they could design ballgowns for DWTS. It makes perfect sense that Anya used a dress of hers since they were such a mainstay in NY for a long time, and were located near the studio where Pasha and Anya used to teach.
Natalia — yes, do watch the YouTubes if you can — worth seeing for J.T. and the two-couple tango, and for Victor and Anna. I hope they continue to have good people on the results shows.