How did everyone feel about Allison Holker being a pro on the past two seasons on Dancing with the Stars?
While I love her as a contemporary dancer and I think she's great at that, I think her ballroom dancing just isn't that great!
Understandably, ABC hired her to be on the show because of her huge fan base from So you think you can dance, but I am a huge proponent of having actual REAL ballroom dancing on TV.
Her technique just isn't anywhere near the rest of the pros on the show and I find it a bit dissapointing to have her on there.
While my sentiments may be unpopular, it's just a shame they fired actually good dancers such as Chelsea Hightower or Lacey Schwimmer! Her dancing is also such a contrast from a world class dancer, such as Valentin Chmerkovskiy or Karina Smirnoff, who both have amazing technique!
The deficiencies in her technique are the most apparent in the pure Latin ballroom dances, such as the cha cha, rumba and samba. DWTS kind of doesn't do a good job with showing International style ballroom anyway because they mostly hire Latin dancers, so that doesn't matter as much. Also a dance like salsa, technique isn't as important.
I don't know if viewers can tell, but there were a few blog posts and message boards with the same sentiments and I am just not sure someone who is a very amateur ballroom dancer can do a good job at teaching on the show. Her dancing is "good enough" for the showcases on the show, but I think to be a good teacher you should have a certain level of mastery of the dancing! I also feel like if there's one show that shows what ballroom dancing is to a mainstream audience, it should be showing off "real ballroom dancing".
Here are some videos that prove my point:
A very trick heavy cha cha routine. The judges ripped her on this afterwards for the lack of "cha cha" content. I must agree with their sentiments.
A very amateur looking samba.
A trick-heavy rumba with very little basic.
However, she's certainly improved from when she was on SYTYCD
