Strictly Come Dancing Week 7: Whose Latin technique got them in trouble?
It was a hard week for the female celebrities tackling Latin dances, with all but Michelle Visage’s paso doble landing at the bottom of the leaderboard. Emma Weymouth, the latest eliminated contestant, was felled by samba – notorious for its tricky rhythm changes and “double bounce action”, which requires working into the floor and bending and straightening your legs.
You should bend your legs forward, rather than down: the idea is to create the rhythm and absorb the motion through the knees and controlled midsection in order to move quickly. Our resident viscountess instead bounced her loose shoulders around and threw her weight back and forth, creating a messy dance that lost the distinctive samba timing.
However, we had another potentially controversial dance-off decision here, since Weymouth did at least attempt the basics and technique of a difficult Latin dance. Mike Bushell was saved by the judges once again, this time for a jolly but stompy Charleston. Speciality dances like Charleston and in particular the Couple’s Choice feel increasingly like a free pass, since they’re much less clearly defined by the show.
Bushell did do some swivel, albeit with sickled feet (pointing towards one another). But his lifts were untidy, daredevil partner Katya Jones doing a lot of the work herself to complete them, and the routine had clear errors.
It’s also hard to judge something like Chris Ramsey’s street dance against the celebrities tackling ballroom and Latin numbers, since it’s more about having fun with pop culture nostalgia. He certainly had energy and commitment, though was arguably overmarked.
Saffron Barker remains the most fearless celebrity in the competition, rivalling Jones for adventurous lifts in her salsa, though this was another routine too jam-packed for her to finish moves cleanly. She needed to be earthier and take smaller steps on the basics in order to get hip action, and it also lacked a sensual connection with her partner, since they were more focussed on completing the next trick.
Another Latin casualty was Emma Barton, whose rumba with Anton du Beke was (rightly) castigated by the judges. Again, the fault lay more with the routine – in this case, it contained lots of static poses with no fluid movement joining them. Barton was too upright throughout, so not settling into her hips and easily thrown off-balance. Moves like the lovely développé (slow leg extension in front of her body) show she does have potential, but her partner isn’t harnessing it.
Thankfully, Visage bucked the trend with her paso doble: crisp, precise footwork, and cleverly captured both the elegant cape motions and the matador’s pride and strength. She also did a good job with the shaping, but could have rotated and tilted her upper body more to get different angles – evoking (literally) all the twists and turns of the bullfight.
It was smoother sailing over in the ballroom dances. Alex Scott, once again dancing with substitute partner Kevin Clifton while Neil Jones recovers from injury, continues to grow in confidence, and did particularly well capturing the jazzy accents in her American smooth. However, she needs to work on controlling her frame: her shoulders rise, and her right arm is too flat and goes behind her body, meaning she loses the ballroom shape and also contact with her partner.
Kelvin Fletcher impressed with his emotive Viennese waltz, though needed to get around his partner faster in the rotations and stay soft in the knees to avoid it looking skippy. However, a strong frame and improved footwork show he’s growing in ballroom. But star of the night was Karim Zeroual, who finally had a number free of theming nonsense. His quickstep transitioned well between musical flourishes and clean, connected movement in hold – his natural buoyant energy beautifully channelled, via good technique, into great ballroom performance.