DWTS 15 All-Stars: The Great “Previous Dance Experience” Debate – Kirstie Alley Edition
We’re finally here! Premiere day at last 🙂 If you haven’t yet, go ahead and check out Heidi’s “Who’s Dancing What…And When?” post to get the low-down on the performance order tonight, the voting phone numbers, and possibly a few spoilers on the music some of the couples are dancing to 😉
Today, I take on the final (and most recent) celeb on my series examining the highs & lows of the all-stars’ original seasons – Kirstie Alley. And if you want to get all fancy and read all the previous editions before the premiere (overachiever ;-)), you can check them out here.
For Kirstie’s best dance, I picked her cha-cha:
And for her worst dance, I picked her jive:
I know some of you are thinking “But Kirstie’s cha-cha wasn’t even her highest-scoring dance!!!” But I have always thought of it as Kirstie & Maks’ magnum opus of season 12 – a dance that showcased not only Kirstie’s dance skills but also her incredible ability to entertain. She may not have been the best technician (but she certainly wasn’t the worst that season, either), but what she lacked in technique she more than made up for in performance – even in her worst dance, she still managed to stay entertaining & fun to watch. And very theatrical 🙂 One thing that always astonished me about Kirstie in season 12 was that, despite acknowledging that she was overweight and out-of-shape, she always seemed so light on her feet and still moved with a ton of precision – it kinda reminded me of Warren Sapp, who was a BIIIIIIG man but who was often more graceful than some of the men half his size. Just because you may not have the perfect body, does not mean your movement quality has to suffer 🙂
However, there was one drawback to Kirstie’s physical condition that did seem to hinder her, and that I worry might still be a problem this season: endurance. I think we all were dreading the week in season 12 that Kirstie got jive, because we had seen how winded she got doing much slower dances, such as the samba. And unfortunately, I don’t think those fears were unfounded – Kirstie did seem to struggle with keeping up with the speed of the jive, and never seemed to really get the bounce in her step that makes jive so fun to watch. The choreo probably wasn’t the best, either, but that’s one dance where I can’t really blame Maks for taking so long to get into the dance – if your partner has bad endurance and probably won’t make it through a full-lenth 1:30 routine, try to put as little jive into it as possible, and as many rests into it as will fit. I know Kirstie’s in much better shape this time around, but is she going to be able to contend with seasoned athletes like Apolo, Emmitt, and Shawn? Or younger, more resilient contestants like Kelly & Melissa? I’m not so sure. Thankfully, she will get jive out of the way early this time – so if she does struggle with it, she may still be safe.
So what has Kirstie been up to in the year & a half since her original season? She did sponsor a “100 Days of Dance” campaign for her organic food line, Organic Liasion, last summer. Here’s a video of her dancing a Viennese waltz with “Johnny Boy”…I’m a bit partial to it for obvious reasons ;-):
Court’s verdict: Kirstie’s off-the-wall antics and showmanship could keep her in the competition for awhile – but she will need to work on endurance and her overall physical fitness in order to give some of the athletes a run for their money.
Thoughts on Kirstie?
As I remember, the judges made positive mention of her footwork and precision on more than one occasion. I’m looking forward to seeing Kirstie dance tonight. 🙂
Me too! She and Maks looked really good in that GMA footage today. I’m excited.
Thanks for your analysis, Courtney. My thoughts are that I love Kirstie Alley. Love, love LOVE her. But I do believe this season won’t be the year of Kirstie. I am very curious as to how much better shape she is in and will her dancing improve because of it? I too loved that darn Cha Cha. In fact, it is my #10 Favorite Dance of all time and Courtney hit upon everything. I will admit however, that my eyes are now on Kelly. I hope that girl can stand out positively. Thanks again Courtney. My mocha I am sipping on now has a dash of DWTS. Lol.
Another great installment in an award-winning series. Amazing that you manage to do this stuff along with a job and a regular life – much appreciated!
Great analysis Courtney.
Kirstie’s Cha Cha Cha would be in my top 5 favourite dances of all time on DWTS. What made it so awesome was not only was it a great performance but that it was a complete shock to everyone that she was able to dance really well.
Courtney, I appreciate your dance debate (and really all other) takes as well as the considerable amount of time that must have went into this particular season’s. I’m waaaaayyyy behind, but still hoping to work my way back and hit them all before the premier. Here goes…
Disclaimer: I admire Kirstie for doing as well as she does all things considered and giving it another go against this talented bunch. She may need a time machine or miracle to pull out a win here, but I’d put my money on her against any of her challengers at their respective ages and still think it feasible she could make it well into the season here.
Pros: Besides what Courtney said, Kirstie’s got natural quality of movement and rhythm with great ability to connect, emote and reasonate. She may also benefit from lower expectations and greater improvement than most others. Plus she’s one that has the most pure love of dance and that’s a joy to watch.
Cons: While in better shape this go, she is not nearly as young or fit as her competitors, so likely to be comparatively limited in some ways. She’s needs to be quicker and sharper with her movement at times. Also, in addition to lack of stamina, she’s shown problems with breathing, injury, maintaining energy, focusing, remembering routines, performance anxiety and just plain bad luck.
Well, that’s 1 debate down, 12 more to go in the next hour.