America’s Ballroom Challenge is Back – Mary Murphy talks DWTS, Ballroom, and Derek and Julianne Hough
Mary Murphy’s not on So You Think You Can Dance anymore – she says there will be very little ballroom, which is a damn shame – but she’s talking America’s Ballroom Challenge. Honestly, one couple on SYTYCD attempted a Cha Cha the other night and butchered it badly – worse than some on DWTS – so maybe the change isn’t so bad. From Yahoo TV (thanks to Motisima):
“On So You Think You Can Dance, most of the time you’re seeing two people who have never ballroom danced, and it’s kind of all smoke and mirrors,” Murphy tells Yahoo TV. “Honestly, they can edit everything to get the best vantage of every step. And Dancing With the Stars is the same thing, too — you’re dancing with a celebrity, sometimes they have danced, sometimes no dance. For these people [on America’s Ballroom Challenge], dance is their life. They are professionals at the highest level. You will see the best of the best.”
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RIDER: Derek Hough
“Julianne and Derek are about as good as you’re going to get,” Murphy said. “Derek, especially, I’ve been watching that kid since he was 7 years old. For me, the pinnacle was that Argentine Tango the other night [on Dancing With the Stars]. I just was so impressed with him. There was just such maturity about him. I feel like I’m seeing him as a young man now, as opposed to looking at him always as a kid.”
Yeah that cha cha was pretty cringe worthy…. It was a BBoy who can barely do hip hop choreography, and a jazz dancer at her lowest performance i’ve seen of her all season.
Im excited for this! I miss Mary Murphy so much!
Caught a little bit of this on PBS a couple months ago – spotted the bf in the audience 🙂
I always loved watching America’s Ballroom Challenge. Mary Murphy for all her sometimes shrieking on SYTYCD always gave thoughtful, constructive critiques as a judge, especially about the Ballroom routines.
Yeah, that “clubbing Cha Cha” or what they called it, was horrible. Almost like if Key and Peele did a parody of a Cha Cha.
Hehe…check out this Facebook post from the official SYTYCD page last night. They tried to act like this cha cha was good and the fans in the comment section shut them the f*ck down:
I agree. That chacha was horrible. I was shocked they chose him over the other bboy. Not to mention, that guy seems to have such a shit-ty approach to learning choreography too
Okay, that was awesome, all the people shutting them down. A non-dancing celeb could do better on DWTS.
Honestly, SYTYCD has gone massively downhill. The choreography is uninspired and boring. I used to love that show but man. Pharside and Phoenix had one of only two good routines the other night. I think the problem is the format. The vast majority of Street dancers can’t dance outside their style – I would say there are three that can and two of them are women who likely have some other kind of training – and they are insisting on pairing street and stage together. What you get from that is a whole bunch of dumbed down choreography and crap dances. I can get that from DWTS and it’s more entertaining.
I really want Mary Murphy to be the judge on DWST. She is really sassy and fun.
@Heidi – You know you’ve really alienated your fanbase when every comment is something like “Are you high/kidding/out of your mind???!!!” I just want to know who choreographed that turd – my money’s on Tony & Melanie, as they’ve been trying to pass off that “club” style Latin as the real deal for years – because the choreographer should go into hiding for awhile. The execution was bad – but the choreography was inexcusable.
I will be genuinely shocked if SYTYCD survives past this season – the ratings have been the worst they’ve ever had. I think the last truly good season they had was season 5 – that was the last one that didn’t feel manipulated or forced, like they were trying to get a certain desired outcome. They just picked the best dancers, let them do their thing, and let the chips fall where they may. Season 6 was the season that Nigel thought he could compete with regular-season primetime shows – massive fail. Season 7 was the season that all the good dancers got injured and withdrew. Season 8 felt like the first season where they had a “chosen one” that they seemed to prop up at every turn (Melanie); season 9 was decent, but the anti-ballroom rhetoric was really becoming visible; seasons 10 they were pushing Fikshun & Amy all season, and last season I tuned out after all of the ballroom dancers were gone (which wasn’t far into the season). I think those were the 2 things that really pushed me away – the anti-ballroom feel it took on, and the ramming of certain couples down everyone’s throats from day 1.
The reaction on Facebook made my day. More of that please 🙂
Exactly, the anti-balroom feel has become really obvious. You can see that it’s really bad when a guy with balroom training who was chosen to be in the top 20 decides to back out of the competition because he’s expecting that there will be no space for the style he’s best in.
To be honest, none of the dancers this season make me go “wowza”. There was one dancer in week one but even that one got boring. I kinda have a feeling that the show really wants either Jim or Jaja to win…..ironically I find him to be boring as hell but at least Jaja has a little Umph so if she wins I’m not against it.
I still can’t believe that back when SYTYCD begun in 2005 it was the number 1 rated summer show in America with over 10 million viewers. Then the next year America’s got Talent came along and it all went slowly downhill from there.
I remember when Nigel brought SYTYCD to the UK back in 2010. Ratings for the 1st series were solid, then the next year, the BBC completely killed the show by moving it from January to April and bringing the start time forward a few hours. It went up against Britain’s Got Talent and the ratings plummeted. I think the live shows were only getting about 2.5 million viewers a week and the show wasn’t renewed. It’s a shame because it was good to watch and Nigel worked hard to make it work, he just got absolutely screwed by the BBC.
Jaja has IT, whatever it is. I can’t take my eyes off her and she’s doing well outside her genre. The other good street dancer is the female with the dark hair. I also like the ballet dancer (is that Jim?) and the little, very smiley/happy black guy – he’s got charisma for MILES. I think Jaja or he could win, actually.
I’m not even watching this season, but I was thrilled to see that Jaja FINALLY made it to the top 20 – I think this was her 3rd or 4th year trying out. She might have made it to green mile last year – I just remember her as the “little Czech engine that could” that suited up and actually did really well in the ballroom round. I loved her back when she was in Philip Chbeeb’s crew on ABDC. If one good thing comes from this last season – it would be Jaja winning.
Absolutely LOVE Jaja, Court, and not just because she’s an Anna Trebunskaya doppleganger. 🙂 I literally stare at the TV with my mouth hanging open when she does her thing. And this past week I didn’t even recognize her, but she did an amazing dance. She should win.
I can tell you the exact moment I fell in love with Jaja: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2RXyCPNhzk4 3:51 mark. She does this crazy isolation section and its amazing and somehow also poignant.
Holy crap….she’s just so…dynamic! She’s amazing. Lots of familiar faces on that show, btw. 🙂 Emilio, phillip….don’t get how it took so long for Jaja to make SYTYCD top 20 – probably a reflection of Nigel’s manipulation and his blind spot for blond contemporary girls.
I’m shocked we had it here before the UK got it. It’s usually the other way around.
The choreographer of that chacha was Jean Marc Genereaux (spelling?).
Wait so are you saying other shows manipulate the ending to pick the winner they want? What? I thiught it was just DWTS
Nigel has been fixated for years with the idea of non trained dancers just coming up naturally and rising to the level of stage dancers….. As if that just happens magically from being on sytycd. And so that brings down the level of dances when you combine the two. It only looks ok if the choreographer figures out how to make their crap look good. It’s hit or miss every time.
That cha cha was terrible and I know little about dance. I am with you on the JaJa stuff. She has great energy and is great with the audience as well.
Does anyone else watch dwts Australia this season? Matthew and masha are pretty amazing and same for Damien and his partner. can we get Camille on our version of dwts? She seems like she would gel well with our pros.
I think the thing that makes me really like Jaja is her connection with the audience. It’s like she zeroes in on them and wanting to please them and that’s it and I love it. A lot of the dancers this season seem like they are just out to impress the judges.