Slavik Kryklyvyy will be dancing with Ekaterina Lapaeva

Slavik Kryklyvyy will be dancing with Ekaterina Lapaeva! How exciting! I had written about this being a potentially good match more than a year ago here.

I do not think they are involved in a romantic relationship, so I hope that they will have the chemistry to make this partnership work. His partnership with Hanna Karttunen definitely needed this!

Thanks to a very astute reader for sending me a link with an interview with Slavik to alert me of this new partnership! Thanks to another reader for his comment to my post that alerted me to this!

Slavik definitely has a good chance with Ekaterina. She is a seasoned pro and  I hope they will make this partnership work. He definitely needs to dance with her for more than a year to establish this partnership first then see if they can progress further in the ranks. I am predicting that they should make the finals at least.

This girl is fabulous I think! Just look the passion and charisma she brings in this WSSDF Latin video with Anton Karpov! She definitely has a style all her own for sure.




This is definitely Slavik's last chance to rise to the top I think. His age is catching up, but he is still a brilliant dancer. I think Ekaterina is definitely a better woman to reach for the top with than Franco's choice to dance with Olga Muller. I have high hopes for this partnership! (Please make it work Slavik, if you reading this!) What do you guys think? Will he finally find someone he can rise to the top with?

Exciting news: Franco Formica will be dancing with Olga Müller-Omeltchenko!

Such good news!

Credit: Dancesportinfo.net

So Franco Formica will be competing again with Olga Müller-Omeltchenko! Their first competition with be Blackpool 2012. Here is their new Dancesportinfo profile.

Special thanks to a kind reader who alerted me to this news!

This will certainly be an interesting partnership. Olga has not competed since 2000. She was a former Blackpool finalist with her husband, Ralf Muller. She is definitely a dancer from the golden era of ballroom and I am interested to see how she will fare against some of the younger ladies in the finals. Most professionals retire in their mid 30s; so certainly Franco and Olga will be quite a bit older than the rest. According to Wikipedia. Olga is currently 39 or 40 and I believe that Franco is in his mid 30s (correct me if I am wrong).

Here is a video of Olga dancing with Ralf in 2011. The video was shot pretty far away from the couple, but her dancing still looks pretty good!



Here is Olga in competition with Ralf:




I would definitely appreciate seeing some more traditional approaches to Latin dancing. I like the innovative shapes and styling that dancers such as  Michal and Joanna bring, but sometimes, I wonder if Latin dancesport is going into the "right" direction.

I miss the classical approach to Latin dancing Bryan and Carmen bought to the dance floor, so perhaps Franco and Olga will bring some of this back!

Btw, I l enjoy how Franco choses whoever he would like to dance with regardless of who is the "top" lady. He chose Oxana Lebedew when she was a unknown young talent and now is he going to be with a previously retired dancer.

I do hope that he doesn't make the mistake that Slavik Kryklyvyy did when Slavik picked Hanna Karttunen to dance with him. It was very clear that Hanna and Slavik didn't have much of a connection. In addition, it was also pretty obvious to me that her Latin technique was no longer what it used to be when she was with Paul Killick. I hope Olga still has the technique to compete with ladies such as Joanna and Yulia!

With their first Blackpool competition, I am predicting they will end up in the finals. If not the finals, then at least top 10.

I have always thought that Franco is a very special dancer. I have a feeling that Franco, like Slavik wouldn't be satisfied with any result other than being #1 (hence he split with Oxana, as the pair seemed stuck in a limbo). With dance politics, it will be very difficult for him to get to first place, but I definitely think that Franco's talent makes that a real possibility!

Denys Drozdyuk returns to competition!

 Denys and his partner Antonina in Blackpool 2010

Photo credit:Volgyi Attila

The winner of So you think you can dance Canada, Denys Drozdyuk returned to ballroom competitions with his partner Antonina Skobina almost immediately after the show.

Denys has been compared to the great ballet dancer Rudolf Nureyev. I do see the resemblance.

                                       

Denys in a photo shoot                                                      The late Rudolf Nureyev
Photo credit: CTV                                              Photo credit: Rudolf Nureyev Foundation

I love this dancer because he is different from previous ballroom contestants on SYTYCD. Most of them quit competition and end up doing shows or dancing with celebrities on Dancing with the Stars or Strictly Come Dancing. Some good examples of ex-contestants that have gone to reality TV or just shows are Pasha Kovalev and Anya Garnis, Artem Chigvintsev, Chelsie Hightower and Lacey Schwimmer.

In this interview with Hanna Kattunen with Dancesportinfo, she explain her opinion on this.

"Some people, some dancers choose to go there and choose not to develop their own dancing anymore. So, from our point of view, it is a loss of some great dancers but it is also an opportunity for some of them, who, for instance, might not have been able to make the Blackpool final, to make their dancing successful for them, in a different form."

Denys seems to be all about the dancing. Unlike other dancers, he's not following the quick and easy money, but he is continuing to develop his dancing. His first result back was lower than what I expected considering he was Top 59 at Blackpool this year, but this makes sense because he did spend months away from ballroom training.

Here's a montage of his brilliance on the show



I hope Denys continues competing and staying true to dancing.