Get ready for a rant before you continue. Last night on So You Think You Can Dance, we were treated to the new salsa dance choreographer on the show, Gustavo Vargas (a.k.a Alex Da Silva’s replacement). The performance was a train wreck (see video below). While I think Mollee and Nathan are amazing dancers, I was extremely disappointed with their performance last night. However, I do not think it is all their fault, and some of it lies in the choreography…
While I thank Vargas for adding traditional salsa steps and moves compared to the last choreographer, the song chosen was too fast for salsa dance beginners. Knowing that even highly skilled dancers new to salsa dancing will require ~2 weeks to feel comfortable at doing the basic steps and finding the salsa dance beat consistently, a slower song should have been chosen for Mollee and Nathan’s performance since they usually only have hours to learn and rehearse a brand new routine. In addition, taking a page from the Tabitha and Napoleon book of choreography, Vargas should have made sure that his salsa choreography was doing its best effort of showcasing the strength of his dancers while attempting to hide some of their weaknesses. This could have been done by removing a few of the body movement sections and replacing them with simpler footwork or cleaner partner work. Both the dancers and the choreographers need to work together to make sure the performance looks amazing every time.
I don’t claim to be an expert choreographer, but you must assume that if the best version of the performance was what we saw on the So You Think You Can Dance stage last night, the version at the dance studio must have been worse. At that point in time in the studio, one as a choreographer should have been flexible enough to accommodate alternative moves to the problematic dance segments for the greater good of the national ’salsa dance’ brand perception and Mary Murphy’s Hot Tamale Train.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7i4LIyeg1pk
As a point of comparison, here is another couple from the Canadian version of So You Think You Can Dance, performing salsa.
Bloch is carried here as well,...
Yikes. That first video is almost painful to watch. I hope Vargas improves his choreography for future shows.
Yeah, this was Gustavo’s fault. He has just come off the Canadian show where he was working with much more experienced dancers, and especially TJ and Vincent (who finished one and two in the overall competition; Vincent is a ballroom specialist, too). I think Gustavo could have created a choreography that had more pattern work and less side-by-side body work, without the complicated leg and arm spaghetti. Still, being on the beat and coordinating between partners is required in many styles, so it does show Mollee and Nathan’s limitations – after all, it *is* a competition.
Besides, Canadian dancers are better…. [ducks]
Gosh… it’s hopeless, when they have no chance to show their real skill bacause of not enough time – when we were prepairing for our routine we have months not hours… ;/
btw. I think, salsa looks best in a club when couples dance 4 fun, not to impress…
Lucky for Mollee and Nathan – they didn’t get voted off tonight.
Their routine reminded me of Cameron Diaz and Jim Carrey dancing together in the movie The Mask =P
Wow, looks like a perfect storm of bad circumstances. Hopefully the salsa dance genre isn’t penalized with fewer performances due to the lack of execution.