WEEK 4 AND WE ARE HOP SKIPPING AND JUMPING, “QUICKSTEP”

The week leading up to episode 4 on Dancing with the Stars was defiantly one of the toughest as we had be given QUICKSTEP for our genre, a dance known for its quick foot speed with lots of graceful movement around the floor and sprinkled with lots of syncopations. For most celebrities previously on the show the quickstep has been the dance of death!

Being a choreographer on the show defiantly has its challenges as each celebrity comes to the show with a different type of skill set to work with and working with Kelly has really been testing and has pushed me to be much more creative and I must say it is something I am so grateful I get to do every week with her! The robotic leg has a setting in it to help stabilize the leg so that it just doesn’t go collapsing underneath Kelly when moving but then on the other hand if you move to fast on it, it tends to lock up causing a stilted look. So some of the characteristic figures which would be my go to in the quickstep like chasses and lock steps were defiantly not going to work.

We found ways around how we could move together to help prevent the lock up in the leg and then we also added our own version of hop steps! Keeping the hops to left side and swinging the robotic leg to counter balance. It’s a lot harder then you think throughout a 1:30 routine but it just goes to show there really is no stopping this young lady!! I also added a little solo piece in the routine to break the ballroom quickstep up and decided to use some props in canes just to add a little more pressure to Kelly as if there wasn’t enough already. With facing a double elimination in the shows format we were going to go out with a bang if it was going to be us leaving the competition and thankfully it wasn’t.
The song choice and creative concept was something that I had wanted to use on the show and once we commenced training I knew it would be a great fit for Kelly also. “Bad Romance” was the track by Scott Bradlees Postmodern Jukebox from the new album “Swipe Right for Vintage” These guys are touring Australia early September for a few shows and I would defiantly recommend going to see them!

The dance went as planned and Kelly continues to shine is this competition each week rising to every challenge I ask of her, we got some really great feed back from the judges again which is always good, received our first 9 of the series!! And we were more then happy to continue dancing for another week!!

Judges score 7, 7, and 9

Until next Sunday, Happy Dancing…

Professional Dancer

Damian Whitewood