melaniestinson.com

Tags: Dancing with the Stars, entertainment, insight

Definitely an exciting evening on Dancing with the Stars. Because I particularly love supporting dancers and choreographers, I felt like doing a little something different on my blog. I’m going to talk about what I saw. My view is as a dancer who happens to be an energy practitioner. So I’m looking differently than a typical audience member and not exactly like a ballroom dance judge either. Ballroom dance is also not my forte of expertise.

Gille and Cheryl. First dance. Light, airy. Not especially unique or convincing. Second dance. He tried really hard. But everything that happened from the scores to what he did came from Cheryl as choreographer/ teacher. The judges talked as though he was responsible for the way he came off. He was sexy. He was sensual exactly as Cheryl asked him to be. What I wanted was his heart. It’s kind of like turning on a stove. The pilot light in the pelvis (tanden) was lit. It even burned upward. But it wasn’t enough to ignite the top of the stove–the heart. If it had, we would have been swooning, we would have been wooed. What happens often in these ballroom dance competitions that are a show is that the young dancer/ choreographers feel they’ve got to show us the sharpness and the sex of it instead of going for something deeper, something unique and unexpected that is both committed and honest. Give us vulnerability AND passion, soft AND sharp. Len is the one who often brings that out about what the pair needs and he also gets booed, but Carrie Ann does mention it as well.

The way I see it is: a dance can be a roasting hot squash soup. It’s golden and you savor it. You’re going along with it; it’s carrying you when suddenly there is this taste… with the heat there is this cool dab of cream. It’s that light. You see what you didn’t before because the contrast–the authenticity of it touches you in a way that is so unusual that you learn, you feel something unexpected, something you need at a soul level. It makes you sing inside. It uplifts and transforms.

Melissa and Tony. She bugs the hell out of me. So with that out of the way, because I hate coming to something with prejudice, I’ll say that she probably has something really special inside her; however, to me, she is one of the dancers with facility who is a dime a dozen. She is also brave. I keep seeing her facade, which means there is something under that which she has allowed to be submerged. I’d really like to see it, Melissa. I’d like to see you. Not what you “think” you need to be but what you are–you. You are enough.

When I look at a dancer and a performance, I want something and someone so seamless that I forget I’m supposed to analyze or be in any way outside the dancing. The last dance that received 10s, I feel received those from the last 1/4 of the dance. Ballroom dance judges aren’t going to get what I’m about to say, for the most part. Melissa was not “in her body” energetically until 3/4 of the way through the last dance. Then she went in. She carried most of us until that point because she’s graceful, moves with ease, and has flawless technique. In the last 3/4, she was honest, passionate and authentic and she stopped being afraid. To me, this last quarter of the dance was where the 10s came from.

Shawn and Mark. She is such a little delight. Mark knows how to work with her to bring her out. I am thoroughly enjoying how she’s growing and how he is. I feel we can see more of Mark than we have before due to his being Shawn’s partner. There is more excitement to him and through him to her. His choreography has been stunning and stimulating. The second dance held a power that I had forgotten Shawn had as a gymnast. However, it had all the same quality to it. Beautiful quality. Dancers are usually pretty demanding and relentless in what they demand: I want that feeling, that taste of cream. Yet, I feel for Shawn’s age, her being able to deliver that would be something she might grow into if she continued to perform. It would be quite unusual to see it in someone her age. Lovely, lovely work.

Lil Kim and Derek. First dance. Trying to please others, trying to conform to the definitions others have placed on what will be hard for you… these will always work against you. I would have gone with Kim’s vulnerability and worked from there. She’s got that inside and she is very very feminine. I feel certain that she knows what that is for her. Second dance. When I saw the tricks in rehearsal, I went “Oh no.” When I saw them in performance, I said, “Thank you, Derek, for enlightening me as to what is possible.” The solo sang. The whole dance went something like this energetically: tatata Stop tatata Stop tatata Stop ahhhhh. I’m not sure that the breaking, the feeling that the dance came in pieces was all Kim, it could have been the choreography in part. And yet, despite the piecey feel to it, what Kim did was more honest than what Melissa did and more unique. I’d trust it and I’d bet my life on it if we were in a room together and I needed her. Doesn’t that deserve a ten? I would have given her at least one.

Ty and Chelsea. Great comment about the breath. What I saw was the woodenness of his chest. Something being held in. That might take a few visits to learn to move differently. He could do hips when that was all he did but hips and other steps, no. He deserves applause for his commitment. He’s got an engaging personality. That sells tickets.

This contest seemed predictable when it began. It seems to me that the winner will depend on which dances are given to which participants. Stephen King writes about how a writer seduces readers to some extent. So do dancers and choreography. Dance with me on the limbo… just you and I and God. Sing to me from where you are inside whether its a lullabye, a seduction, a lover calling to his soulmate. Make me forget who I am, where I am. Show me my limitlessness. Be vulnerable. Ignited. Share with me that dash of cream where there’s never been cream before. Even if you’re playing a role, there’s a place for you inside it. Inhabit that place and make me believe.

Many blessings.