WEEK 3 AND WE WERE GOING TO RIO!!

Last week on Dancing with the Stars it was time for some “RIO” South American flare on the dance floor. Being 100 days out until the RIO Olympics starts the show was celebrating and beginning the count down to the opening of the games. Samba / Salsa / Tango / Rumba to name a few really bought the night alive and gave it a carnival like atmosphere only there was a few more sparkles!!!

Kelley and I were given a Salsa for our genre on the night and I was really excited, as all I have been hearing about during rehearsals is how good of “booty shaker” Kelley used to be back in the day. The track was Shakira’s “Hips Don’t Lie” and they didn’t. It was a great chance to speed things up a bit and showcase a different side to her and our partnership as our first few dances have been of a slower tempo and pretty emotional routines. I really asked a lot of Kelley this week not only were we speeding things up and testing what we could pull off with the leg and keep it natural looking but I also wanted her to explore her fun sexy side on the dance floor as well which to say the least is defiantly out her comfort zone. It’s a tough balance to find the confidence in the leg and steps then to add all the extras on top and I thought with the salsa last week we did take a huge step in the right direction and hopefully showed a lot of people out there how amazing this young lady is. The judge’s comments were all good and Bruno’s comment of calling Kelley SUPER WOMAN was pretty spot on. 20 weeks pregnant and a Full leg amputee out there busting out the salsa nice work Kel. We need to keep building on the confidence and performance levels as this was some really good constructive criticism we got from all of the judges, so they will be looking for an improvement in that area for this week’s QUICKSTEP.

Judges scores 8, 7, 8, 8,

 
All in all in it was a great evening of dancing and it really to me back to being in RIO earlier this year for Carnival, a place where dance and music is so infectious through the Brazilian way of life.

Thanks Matt and Marsha for an awesome foxtrot to The Girl From Ipanema, I couldn’t help but reminisce sitting at Garota De Ipanema having lunch and being in owe as to this is where they actually composed and wrote the lyrics for THAT song, About THAT girl, from THAT place!

 http://www.bargarotadeipanema.com/#!who_we_are/c1alk

See the dance HERE

Until next Sunday, Happy Dancing…

Professional Dancer

Damian Whitewood