Mark Ballas | Pure Dancing with the Stars

DWTS Season 25, Week 7 – Who’s Dancing What…and When?

Happy Halloween!! I’m carving pumpkins at work on Monday, but hopefully home in time for the show. 🙂 Here’s a bit from the press release that might interest you:

In addition, the celebrities and their pros will be grouped into two teams – Team Monster Mash (team captain is Terrell Owens) and Team Phantom of the Opera (team captain Drew Scott) – with each performing a dance to celebrate All Hallow’s Eve. The two team captains were chosen because they had the lowest cumulative scores across the season, and they were given the chance to pick their teams in order to help boost their rankings with both the judges and viewers. The team dance scores will be combined with the celebrity’s individual dance scores for a final tally.

Er, seriously?? You have THREE Pasos yet everyone else has a different style? Why? And do these songs seem Halloween-y to you all?? Not really to me, but I guess it depends on the staging, etc.

Winners: The Paso people might be the winners, especially Lindsey since she gets to pimp her own song. 🙂 Frankie should be alright with Contemporary. I would guess that Cheryl can do a killer (pun intended) Tango but, man, can’t deal with that song.

Losers: A Jive to “I put a spell on you”??? Huh. I guess I’ll have to listen to it, but this doesn’t sound like a good plan. A Halloween Charleston? Again, huh. We’ll see.

ETA: And George is starting to get the dance order…Victoria is dancing first tonight. Just a reminder that in week 7, the dance order no longer means nearly as much. Although, since we still have 8 couples it’s NOT irrelevant.

Victoria Arlen and Val – Viennese Waltz (Song: “The Night We Met” by Lord Huron)
Dancing 1st
1-800-868-3413

Jordan Fisher and Lindsay – Paso Doblé (Song: “Animals” by Martin Garrix)
1-800-868-3406

Nikki Bella and Artem – Jive (Song: “I Put a Spell on You” by Bette Midler (“Hocus Pocus” version))
1-800-868-3409

Vanessa Lachey and Maks – Paso Doblé (Song: “Game of Survival” by Ruelle)
1-800-868-3412

Terrell Owens and Cheryl – Tango (Song: “Super Freak” by Rick James)
1-800-868-3411

Lindsey Stirling and Mark – Paso Doblé (Song: “Roundtable Rival” by Lindsey Stirling)
1-800-868-3407

Frankie Muniz and Whitney – Contemporary (Song: “Every Breath You Take” by Chase Holfelder)
1-800-868-3405

Drew Scott and Emma – Charleston (Song: “Remains of the Day” by Danny Elfman)
1-800-868-3404

Team Monster Mash

Team Phantom of the Opera

Team Drew and Team Terrell – already discussed quite a bit in Courtney’s post.

PureDWTS Season 25, Week 7 – SPOILERS The Team Dances!!!

Bear with me, friends, as I’m getting incomplete info and trying to type this out on my iPhone without my glasses, which I left at the office…wuh wuh wuhhhh.

Apparently they went a completely different route picking the captains this time – Drew is one of the captains, and Terrell is the other, which leads me to think they went with lowest cumulative score instead of highest this time around. No, I don’t know which order they picked in, so do not assume the order the couples are listed is somehow indicative of picking order. All I know is that the dances are freestyles again…will update if/when I know more.

First impressions? I think Terrell’s team has a ginormous edge – and I think if the Chmerkovskiys are wise, they’ll let Emma and Witney have input.

UPDATE: Added songs, and grabbed Drew’s team name from a Snapchat someone tweeted me. About 90% sure Drew got to pick first and chose to pick music, which would have given Terrell first pick of team members.

UPDATE #2: There’s some pix of the teams at People – although I will point out that Maks was actually referring to his team as “Phantom of the Ballroom” and not “Phantom of the Opera” on Instagram/Snapchat.

Team Phantom of the Ballroom (song: “Theme from Phantom of the Opera”)

Drew & Emma (captain)

Frankie & Witney

Vanessa & Maks

Victoria & Val

Team Monster Mash (Song: “Monster Mash”)

Terrell & Cheryl (captain)

Lindsey & Mark

Jordan & Lindsay

Nikki & Artem

Note: These are two different polls. The team you think has the edge isn’t necessarily the one that will win. 🙂

PureDWTS Season 25, Week 6 – Power Rankings

I’m not exactly sure who at DWTS this should be directed towards (Mandy? The producers? Val/Maks/the male pros as a whole?), but here goes:

Exactly how high and out-of-touch with reality were you when you decided on the concept for the opening pro dance for movie week???

Honestly, I don’t know that I’ve witnessed such a gauche, tactless move on this show since…well, ever. And this show has had its fair share of snafus over the years. In the past two weeks, Hollywood has basically had roof blown off of it with 20+ years of Harvey Weinstein’s misogynism and sexual misconduct coming to light, and 30+ women have come forward with stories of his unwelcome advances in exchange for “furthering their career”; it has really brought the issue of men basically ruling Hollywood to the forefront, and illustrated just how so many women in the industry live constantly under the boot of the patriarchy and have to really fight for representation. So what does DWTS do? Choreographs an opening dance that paints Val as a bright, new, MALE screenwriter, auditioning for a room full of MALE directors, producers, and studio heads, before being given the job and commanding a bevy of doe-eyed ingenues that swoon over his every move. The dance was 3/4 the male pros showing off how awesome it was to be men in Hollywood, and 1/4 the female pros looking pretty swaying in the background and stroking the mens’ egos – and it was yet another insult to the talent of our female pros, just like most of the hair-flipping, sex kitten routines Mandy Moore subjects them to on the regular. And it basically glorified the very culture that women in Hollywood are trying so hard to fight right now – with spectacularly poor timing. I don’t want to hear justifications from anyone that this “was just how old Hollywood was, and that’s what was being depicted” – as far as I’m concerned, the time for reliving and romanticizing those days is LONG past, and for the love of all things good and pure, WAS IT ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY TO DO THAT PARTICULAR ROUTINE THIS SEASON, OF ALL SEASONS?! So help me god, I hope people drag the hell out of Mandy for this one – there were so many other routes she could have gone, and she went with this festering turd instead. *rings bell like Septa Unella* SHAME… *ring*… SHAME… *ring* …SHAME…

And another item to file under “really bad ideas for DWTS” – who the hell thought it would be smart to bring Shania Twain in as a guest judge??? Aside from her being neither an authority on dance nor particularly relevant to the movie theme, she functioned mainly as a random word and number generator, that spat out incoherent critiques and puzzling scores, and didn’t even sing live when she performed the song she did for a recent movie. I got shades of Idol-era Paula Abdul, trying to make sense of some of what she was saying – it was not a good look. Just brings me back to “Why do we even need guest judges, anyway?” All the extra scores do is just make the margins smaller for next week’s elimination…which may explain why they felt the need to include a guest judge at all this week: anyone want to place bets that the double elim may come next week? And they’re basically trying to distill it down to who is getting the votes…and who isn’t? Then again, the decision to bring her in may be as simple (and dumb) as somebody high-up at DWTS losing a hand in poker and having to agree to have Shania on to pay their debt 😛

So Nick finally hit the road, and not a moment too soon – that samba was pretty cringe-y, and Nick’s “feign disappointment about getting a low score and being in jeopardy” face was getting progressively less believable with each passing week. Dude was practically halfway to the parking lot before Tom finished saying “And the couple leaving us tonight is…Nick and Peta!” I think Peta was also lightweight relieved to be done, as she seemed to be trying to keep a low profile with all of the Chmerlachey drama – and I think she’s just tired and probably very much in need of the 11-month break she’s going to get before she has to be a pro again. A baby and a marriage in the same year are big life-changers, and we saw how much a year-long break benefited Mark… Read more..

PureDWTS Season 25 Week 6 Interviews, Recaps, Scores, And More After The Dances

Quick! Would you like to score free tickets to see Dancing With The Stars? If so, see THIS LINK. If you win, you get free roundtrip airfare, hotel and ground transportation. You can’t beat that. 😉

Also, I’d like to start this post off thanking Miss Heidi and Courtney. They’ve been covering me all season with me having to be away so much taking care of my Mom after getting Sepsis (if you ever catch an infection, don’t put it off and PLEASE DO SOMETHING right away or it could be lethal! Getting over it can take months.

With that said, what a night at the movies on Dancing With The Stars with Mark & Lindsey and Jordan & Lindsay being my favorites. So creative and beautiful. They also get my favorite costumes of the night! 🙂 So, let’s review the scores….

Lindsey & Mark 40 (10, 10, 10, 10)
Jordan & Lindsay 39 (10, 9, 10, 10)
Terrell & Cheryl 37 (9, 9, 10, 9)
Vanessa & Maks 36 (9, 9, 9, 9)
Nikki & Artem 36 (9, 9, 9, 9)
Victoria & Val 31 (8, 8, 7, 8)
Frankie & Witney 31 (7, 8, 8, 8)
Drew & Emma 30 (7, 7, 9, 7)
Nick & Peta 26 (7, 6, 7, 6)

If you missed seeing the show, see Idolxfactor.com (these videos work internationally) and the official Your Tube page. Don’t miss some behind the scenes videos at the official Facebook page.

To start off with interviews and recaps, see ABC7. Also according to ABC7 next week the eight stars will all dance twice; once with their partner, and again in the team dance. Also see People and Glamour for their recaps and interviews.

FOX411 has a recap and some fun interviews HERE on the night as well. Below is a take from this link. Don’t give up, Frankie. You can still do this….

Meanwhile, former football player Terrell Owens and his partner Cheryl Burke also impressed judges, grabbing 37 points.

Owens told reporters of their James Bond-themed spy dance, “I’m still in the hunt. I think we’re steadily improving. With this process, it’s not how you start but how you finish. Cheryl is pushing me to the limit.”

Nikki Bella and partner Artem Chigvintsev were the picture of “foreign film,” as they turned in an Argentine tango, tying Vanessa and Maks with 36 points.

Former “Malcolm in the Middle” star Frankie Muniz and partner Witney Carson did a psychedelic jazz number that was marred by bobbles and garnered 31.

The routine that was supposed to represent the movie animation genre left the judges disappointed, with Inaba sighing that there were “a lot of mishaps.”

Tonioli told Muniz, who previously excelled on the show, “You lost timing.”

But guest judge Twain said, “You were just so liberated…I thought it was right on.”

Muniz later said, “It was my worst performance.”

“I messed up on so much,” the former child star admitted to Fox News. “That was bad for me.”

Paralympian Victoria Arlen and partner Val Chmerkovskiy also received 31 points, for a creative movie sports-themed hockey Paso Doble and she said backstage, “It was a crazy routine…it was just a lot of fun. I’m fighting every week on this show.”

Val said he was “tougher on her than usual” this week as the competition is close.

More here.

And now these recaps and interviews. Enjoy! Read more..

Dancing with the Stars Season 25, Week SIX – LIVE BLOG

Saw a few comments about the running order – you all need to realize that it’s much more than getting Pimped or getting screwed. Jordan and Lindsey are the two best dancers this season without question…so they are likely to close the show more often.

ALSO, when we studied running order, 3rd and 4th were the worst spots to get…NOT FIRST. Early in the season they were underscoring the first dancer, so that sucked, but the last two weeks that has changed.

Gee, so surprised to see Val featured in the first many seconds of the show. :::rolls eyes::: He’s still not an actor. I guess all that sucking up to Mandy worked.

Shania looking good!! Except for the featuring of Val that was a good opener.

Oy vey gotta convey the theme in your dance. Sounds like an excuse to low ball. Read more..

Sneak Peeks at DWTS Season 25 Week 6 (Photos)

I’ve been seeing a lot of photos of little peeks at Monday’s show so I figured I’d put them all in a post. Love Nikki and Artem’s costumes, and Witney’s belongs in Courtney’s “Who Wore it Better” series. 🙂

Are you ready for @artemchigvintse & @BellaTwins Argentine Tango for their Film Theme “ Foreign Movie’ ? We are ???????? #dwts #TeamSmackdown pic.twitter.com/GHeEq9j4H5

— OFFICIAL Artem Fans (@ArtemChig_Fans) October 22, 2017

DWTS Season 25, Week 5 – Dancing by the Numbers!

DWTS is on the verge of boring the shit out of me once again.

Why, you ask? Well, they just seem so OBVIOUS to me. Perhaps they’re obvious to everyone which is why they’ve fallen below 10 million viewers for the first time EVER this season. But really, how many times do we have to see this scenario play out: they cast the show, sometimes with an obvious gimmick they are invested in (the Chmerlacheys) and sometimes just someone who is ABC family who they need to pimp. THEY, the producers, are invested in it for one reason or another and therefore they feel the need to pimp the crap out of it to try to get everyone else buying it as well. It DOESN’T WORK OUT, so they are scrambling. They can’t just let the show evolve organically, so they think (tragically) that they must have a Chmerkovskiy in the finale – so they go to plan B: pimp the crap out of Val’s partner. Yes, Val was actually Plan B for a change. LOL. Does it occur to NO ONE on that show that if Val was that great he wouldn’t need all that help? Read more..

DWTS Season 25, Week 6 – Who’s Dancing What…and When?

Couldn’t find the press release this week, so I got these from DWTSGossip. I also didn’t have time to look and see if these songs are actually associated with movies, or if they were given a song/dance style and then the movie genre to work within. I’m thinking this MIGHT be better than giving them an actual movie. We’ve had some crap ass Movie nights when too many of the movies just didn’t work. Anyway…

Winners: Lindsey has done a bit of AT with the master, Derek, so she might have a bit of leg up, depending on how much AT he actually taught her in their 3 hours of rehearsal. Frankie doing Jazz should be a good thing – no rules and all that.

Losers: Oy veh – Nick and rumba?? Should be a disaster. Nikki gets “foreign” as a genre? Hosed. First she gets the Disney song no one knows and now this? Sheesh.

Everyone else is probably fine. I wonder if they’ll all get 24. 🙂 Read more..

PureDWTS Season 25, Week 5 – Power Rankings

I’ve said it before, but here it goes again: I actually usually hate Disney night, and it’s not because I “hate Disney” or “had an upsetting childhood” (Twitter sure is full of recreational psychologists these days) – it’s because, like many a theme week, it tends to force the pros to shoehorn their choreo to fit songs that aren’t all appropriate for the dance they’ve been assigned, and the end result is usually…painful to behold, and a detriment to the celeb partner’s scores. However, I will say this: maybe my personal bar was set pretty low, but I actually found myself enjoying last night’s show, on the whole. Most of the pros (with the exception of maybe three) seemed to bring their A-game and actually churn out some respectable and entertaining dances, that still managed to stay true to the Disney movie they were assigned; granted, there were still some eyebrow-raising scoring issues and the general ick of Chmerlachey in its death throes, trying wayyyy too hard to stay on our radar, but all in all, I found the show enjoyable…even with having to watch it on a dodgy live stream on my iPad due to Monday Night Football. For the first time in PureDWTS history, Heidi’s Titans were playing my Colts on MNF – so we both were on the live stream struggle bus, but thankfully, our server issues here at Pure seem to have been fixed by our latest update, so we hope more of you will stick around to chat with us now 🙂 Read more..

PureDWTS Season 25 Week 5 Interviews, Recaps, Scores, And More After The Dances

Well, Disney Night was another winner for me on Dancing With The Stars. The contestants and producers always outdo themselves. My fave dance of the night was Frankie and Witney! I never thought he could pull off a role like that, but, he did and so powerfully and sexy. *shock* I loved Mark & Lindsey and Jordan & Lindsay too. I also have to give props to Gleb and Sasha. They went out on a high note. That was their best dance of the season in my opinion. I loved her message all season and she looked beautiful.

Let’s review the scores….

Jordan & Lindsay 30 (10, 10, 10)
Frankie & Witney 29 (10, 9, 10)
Lindsey & Mark 28 (9, 10, 9)
Nikki & Artem 27 (9, 9, 9)
Victoria & Val 27 (9, 9, 9)
Drew & Emma 25 (9, 8, 8)
Terrell & Cheryl 25 (9, 8, 8)
Vanessa & Maks 24 (8, 8, 8)
Sasha & Gleb 24 (8, 8, 8) Eliminated
Nick & Peta 22 (7, 8, 7)

If you missed seeing the show, see Idolxfactor.com (these videos work internationally) and the official Your Tube page. Don’t miss some behind the scenes videos at the official Facebook page.

To start off with interviews and recaps, see ABC7. Also according to ABC7 next week’s theme is “A Night at the Movies”. Sitting in as guest judge will be Shania Twain. Also see People and Glamour for their recaps.

FOX411 has a recap and some fun interviews HERE and HERE on the night. In this take Drew talks on the weight he’s lost. Note how he flew to New York right after the show last night. Shew….

However, she’s not the only one who has downsized thanks to dancing; backstage, “Property Brothers” star Drew Scott told Fox News he’s lost 30 pounds.

“It’s a lot. I’m seeing my abs like I’ve never seen them before, yeah,” Scott exulted.

“But I’m eating a lot more now just because I need to keep that weight on. This is like back in my high school and college days. I could eat like a horse and never put on weight,” tall and gangly Scott told reporters.

“I want to keep [the weight] off where I am now. I just love this, but instead of going to the gym to do weight training, I’m getting all the cardio and everything I need here.

“I haven’t done cardio like this since I was a teenager,” Scott said, with dance partner Emma Slater by his side.

Because of work commitments, Scott doesn’t have time to go to the gym: “Literally, I fly out in an hour, I have to head to New York,” he said on Monday night after the “DWTS” Los Angeles taping.

More below…

On The Red Carpet:

E Online: Read more..

DWTS Season 25, Week 7 – Who’s Dancing What…and When?

PureDWTS Season 25, Week 7 – SPOILERS The Team Dances!!!

PureDWTS Season 25, Week 6 – Power Rankings

PureDWTS Season 25 Week 6 Interviews, Recaps, Scores, And More After The Dances

Dancing with the Stars Season 25, Week SIX – LIVE BLOG

Sneak Peeks at DWTS Season 25 Week 6 (Photos)

DWTS Season 25, Week 5 – Dancing by the Numbers!

DWTS Season 25, Week 6 – Who’s Dancing What…and When?

PureDWTS Season 25, Week 5 – Power Rankings

PureDWTS Season 25 Week 5 Interviews, Recaps, Scores, And More After The Dances

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