danceronice
10-27-2010, 05:21 PM
Leading and choreography have little to do with each other. Being a good leader is something all male dancers work on. (And I have no idea what any of the pro men are like beyond "probably better than average", as some may be great leaders, some may be entirely reliant on dancing a routine.) Choreography, especially for a pro/am student, is another animal--it involves figuring out what your student can do well and how to string that together in the momst-flattering way. There's not a huge amount of lead and follow, less even than in real comps because there you have floor traffic to negotiate.
Where it's tougher for the guys is women get the flash moves, especially in a dance like tango or waltz--it's the old saw about the woman is the picture, the man is the frame, etc. So if they stick with how the dance usually goes, the guy doesn't always get as much to do. The woman's in a killer dress and spinning around and doing flex/extension moves (very much not something guys emphasize) that can LOOK super-fancy without always being difficult or in fact very technical.
My guess is Derek heard the backlash last time about Nicole being the annointed one (and he probably REALLY didn't appreciate Carrie Anne's "You were the chosen one!" this time as he has to know there are fans who are really sick of that.) And he'll take some slips rather than letting it look like a cakewalk again. (No, I don't think it was orchestrated.)
Wyliefan--Assassination Tango is AWESOME, but it is rather bleak and art-housey. As far as the dance goes, though, I first heard of it because it's mentioned in "Tango: The Art History of Love" (good book) and apparently Duval (brilliant actor, love him) absolutely fell in love with AT and took the whole thing very, very seriously. It's hard to take some dance movies seriously because the script so often doesn't. Funnily, if you listen to Baz Luhreman on "Strictly Ballroom"'s commentary, he obviously loves the subject and is in fact quite respectful, but because he did a very OTT pastiche people missed it. And there's a little film called "Dance With Me" that, while the plot is trite, is remarkably kind and accurate as far as pro-am and low-level am goes. The US "Shall We Dance" kind of...fails at that. The Japanese "Shall We Dance?" is an okay dance movie but a better Japanese social observation movie.
I suppose I should just be happy it's not as prone to bad movie-itis as ice skating!
Where it's tougher for the guys is women get the flash moves, especially in a dance like tango or waltz--it's the old saw about the woman is the picture, the man is the frame, etc. So if they stick with how the dance usually goes, the guy doesn't always get as much to do. The woman's in a killer dress and spinning around and doing flex/extension moves (very much not something guys emphasize) that can LOOK super-fancy without always being difficult or in fact very technical.
My guess is Derek heard the backlash last time about Nicole being the annointed one (and he probably REALLY didn't appreciate Carrie Anne's "You were the chosen one!" this time as he has to know there are fans who are really sick of that.) And he'll take some slips rather than letting it look like a cakewalk again. (No, I don't think it was orchestrated.)
Wyliefan--Assassination Tango is AWESOME, but it is rather bleak and art-housey. As far as the dance goes, though, I first heard of it because it's mentioned in "Tango: The Art History of Love" (good book) and apparently Duval (brilliant actor, love him) absolutely fell in love with AT and took the whole thing very, very seriously. It's hard to take some dance movies seriously because the script so often doesn't. Funnily, if you listen to Baz Luhreman on "Strictly Ballroom"'s commentary, he obviously loves the subject and is in fact quite respectful, but because he did a very OTT pastiche people missed it. And there's a little film called "Dance With Me" that, while the plot is trite, is remarkably kind and accurate as far as pro-am and low-level am goes. The US "Shall We Dance" kind of...fails at that. The Japanese "Shall We Dance?" is an okay dance movie but a better Japanese social observation movie.
I suppose I should just be happy it's not as prone to bad movie-itis as ice skating!