'Dancing' recap: Doing double duty
Ann Oldenburg is recovering from the royal wedding. She'll be back for next week's recap.
OK, so this Passover reference is a couple of weeks late, but since the Seder fixin's are still at the front of the grocery store, we're going with it anyway.
It's tradition during the Seder for the youngest to ask, "Why is this night different from all other nights?" And it was an apt theme for this particular Monday recap. It was different from the rest of this season's episodes.
It marked the first team dances and 16-time, undefeated world professional Latin dance champion Donnie Burns played the role of Elijah. (Actually, he was a guest judge -- and a pretty funny one at that.) And naturally, each team hoped the Angel of Death Elimination would pass them by.
How well did the groups mesh? And who might have taken on too much this week? Click read more to find out.
Group dances
The duos at the top of the leader board (Hines Ward and Kym Johnson and and Chelsea Kane and Mark Ballas) got to pick the teams. (You'll have to wait until Mark's blog post on Wednesday to see what he called this team.)
Team Kane (dressed in black): Chelsea and Mark; Ralph and Karina; Romeo and Chelsie
The sextet danced the cha cha to Lady Gaga's Born This Way. (And it's worth noting at for once, the DWTS singer actually sounded sort of like the original artist!) Romeo (who was warned by Chelsea that she'd kill him if he messed up) held up his end of the deal. Ralph did pretty well despite being a cha cha virgin and Chelsea and Mark brought it home in style. Bruno: "Gaga cha cha cha! I appreciate the fact that you really went full throttle but because of that, you lost sync so many times." Carrie Ann: "Ralph, this was the young, edgy group and you held your own." Score: 30
Team Hines (dressed in fuschia and bronze): Hines and Kym; Maks and Kirstie; Kendra and Louis.
Hines' squad did their cha cha to Ke$ha's We R Who We R. Kendra took Kirstie's advice to heart when she and Louis led off: "When in doubt, shake your (rear)." Kirstie and Maks did more of the same. And Hines looked looser than he did last week. Donnie: "I know I'm new here and I'm going to be like Osama bin Dancing but the spacing in the formations has to be equidistant and some of it just wasn't quite right." (Tom: "Donnie, I'm not sure if you saw the news but he ain't dancin' no more.") Len: "I know which team of girls won the booby prize." Score: 30.
Individual dances
Ralph Macchio and Karina Smirnoff: Guest instructor Luca Baricchi's advice could be summed up in one word: "feel." Ralph likened their dance, the punishing quick step, to a "torture chamber -- it's like, 'Ow ow ow ow, bend." Thankfully, his back and knees held out and he turned in a solid performance. "As a guy in my 50s," host Tom Bergeron said," I congratulate you." Donnie: "They say ballroom dancing is the vertical expression of a horizontal desire. And you started off vertical and finished off horizontal so it had to be good. The way you articulated your your feet in this quickstep was fabulous. I thought you two rocked." Len: "You need to be a little more stable in the upper body but overall, you did a great job with a hard dance." Score: 36. Accumulated score: 66
Hines Ward and Kym Johnson: The dance was different (a tango for these two) but Baricchi's advice was the same: "Feel it." Hines was grateful for a male perspective when it came to leading properly. And Baricchi wasn't the only visitor Hines got -- former Steelers teammate Jerome Bettis also popped in to see how he was progressing. Hines then credited both visitors for their help and promised, "The silent assassin is comin', baby." And he backed it up with a smooth performance. Bruno: "Big, strong, masterful, determined, but you retained the slinky, smooth action of a panther on the prowl going for the kill. That was a killer tango." Carrie Ann: "Despite your incredible musicality and connection with Kym (which was new), I felt you were a little off balance at points." Score: 36 (including Hines' first 10). Accumulated score 66
Chelsea Kane and Mark Ballas: Mama Ballas (Shirley, a Latin specialist), admonished the perky Disney actress not to smile during their paso doble, a serious dance. Chelsea later confessed, "When Shirley was in my face, I was really scared." Once on the floor, she and Mark looked like they raided the Black Eyed Peas' wardrobe trunk for their dramatic number. Len: "You did get the agression, but I think it was too much in my face." Bruno: "It was like a Quentin Tarantino paso doble. The artistry and creativity was outstanding."
Total score: 34. Accumulated score: 64
Kendra Wilkinson and Louis van Amstel: Guest instructor Luca Baricchi's main piece of advice for their tango was for Kendra to "find the body" -- i.e. loosen up and not worry about making mistakes. She wore her hair in a low bun and her dress was fuschia corset up top, red tulle down below. Bruno: "You've never looked more elegant and ladylike but still sexy. Just one thing: in the tango," he said, "you've got to get the frame right." Donnie: "The content of the choreography you tried was massively difficult -- top professionals would find it difficult, and I thought you did a bloody good job." Total score: 31. Accumulated score: 61
Kirstie Alley and Maksim Chmerkovskiy: Kirstie was giddy about getting tips from Shirley, who trained her partner. Both she and Maks advised her to move her butt. The rehearsal tape showed them both looking and sounding frustrated with each other. Apparently, they got over it because they did another kiss during their jive to La Bamba. Carrie Ann: "It wasn't quite enough of a jive. When you were side by side, you were totally out of sync." She did, however, praise Kirstie's physical transformation. Len: "As a jive, it was most uneventful. Your kicks were leaden, you went wrong and I could find very little to commend it." Score: 30. Accumulated score: 60
Romeo and Chelsie Hightower: Romeo was hoping to get the top of the leaderboard all to himself after this week, and Shirley Ballas was there to help him do it. "He was extremely responsive to my advice -- maybe a little too responsive," she said after he grabbed her hips with too much gusto. An ebullient Romeo later proclaimed, "I'm throwing a samba party ... in my pants ... in my shoes. Everyone's invited." Donnie: " Well, baby, you've got a party in your pants, but you've got an earthquake in your shoes when you hit the floor. Measures about six on the Richter Scale." Carrie Ann: "There was a lot of bouncing going on but I'm not sure it was a Samba message. It was kind of sending another message. You have incredible potential but if you want to go all the way, you need to work on your technique." Score: 30. Accumulated score: 60
See photos of: Dancing with the Stars
Amber Arbucci Julie Berry Gisele Bündchen Robin Tunney Stacy Keibler
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