DWTS en Espanol?

[new-ish]

I was channel surfing the other night and noticed an ad for a show that looked alot like a Spanish language version of DWTS called "Bailando por un Sueño" scheduled for Sunday Jan 15 @ 7 p.m. on Univision.

Google search with translation comes out pretty funny.

[redhead]

huh, I was practicing at the time the show was on air, so my DH programmed the VCR to record it for me. Well it recorded in Spanish without any effort on his part, which I don't really understand...

[Phil Owl]

I tried to watch this but got incredibly frustrated, it seemed like it was a LOT of yapping and extraneous stuiff but very little actual dancing, and the dancing, to me, was mediocre at best. The Brit and American versions blow it away!

[Laura]

The title translates "Dancing for a Dream." The contestants are dancing to win money -- not to spend on stuff like cars or vacations, but for some pretty tear-jerking stuff. One wants to be able to buy an artificial leg for a sibling. Another wants to fulfill her mother's last wish and bury her ashes in Spain. Another was a former drug addict who wants to win money to give to a drug rehab program. There's a thread about this over on "Television Without Pity" (look under "Competitive Reality" where someone gave the run-down on all the contestants and their stars.

The contestants are just normal people (with a heart-rending dream), and their Stars are celebrities but aren't necessarily dancers. I have last night's episode on my TiVo but haven't watched yet.

[new-ish]

I recorded it and fast forwarded through the tear jerker stuff that I didn't understand anyway. In general, I was disappointed with the dancing. I thought that the Salsa that Adrian Uribe (I think) and his partner did was the only decent dance in three hours of T.V. When I go to a Salsa Club in my area, the Hispanics are sooo good, I expected a lot better dancing on this show. The disco was.....sad.

I think this illustrates how good the original "Strictly Come Dancing" concept is. Mess with it and end up with something that is not nearly as good.

[saludas]

I recorded it and fast forwarded through the tear jerker stuff that I didn't understand anyway. In general, I was disappointed with the dancing. I thought that the Salsa that Adrian Uribe (I think) and his partner did was the only decent dance in three hours of T.V. When I go to a Salsa Club in my area, the Hispanics are sooo good, I expected a lot better dancing on this show. The disco was.....sad.

I think this illustrates how good the original "Strictly Come Dancing" concept is. Mess with it and end up with something that is not nearly as good.

I disagree 100%... These people are REAL people (and the stars are not 'ballroom stars') and they are dancing for a real-life purpose. This show has a LOT of soul and heart. "Strictly Come Dancing" does not include any 'real life' elements in it - unless you want to include Master P's apparent need to look mediocre at any cost.

And remember, ethnicicty does not make for 'natural' dancing - or natural anything. That's racist. being born close to a body of wate does not make you a more 'natural' swimmer, or give you the ability to hold your breath longer....

Remember, the people in your area that go to your club are there for very different reasons than the people on this show - and have very different backgrounds and possibly very different values. Have some empathy.....

[Laura]

Have some empathy.....

Exactly. It's really hard to be snarky about the dancers on this show when you find out that one of them has been trying having to have a child and so is dancing to earn money for fertility treatments, while another wants to raise money to install an elevator in his home because he does a lot of work to help disabled kids and kids with Down's Syndrome.

[new-ish]

And remember, ethnicicty does not make for 'natural' dancing - or natural anything. That's racist. being born close to a body of wate does not make you a more 'natural' swimmer, or give you the ability to hold your breath longer....


Apologies, but I wrote what I saw.

[Laura]

I'm finally getting around to it. It's cute, but it's WAAAY too long for my American attention span.

I'm not going to say anything nasty about the competitors' dreams or dancing -- they are all beginners, and they're not doing bad for social dancing. After all, these people aren't "stars" who have lots of performance experience.

The show is very overwrought and cheezy, in that Mexican soap opera way. The drama is thicker than the eyeliner. :-) And the hostess! She's like 30 feet tall. Or maybe the host is only 5 feet tall. She makes me think of Jerry Hall.

Anyway, it's all fun. I don't care who wins in the end...well, maybe I do...the guy who takes care of kids with Down's Syndrome ranks pretty high on the amazing and useful and selfless dream scale. I like that this show is about average people participating, rather than watching for celebrity train wrecks.

So far my favorite couple was the one all in black who did Salsa. I have no idea who they were, but they got the first 10's of the night. Next week, though, I intend to fast forward through all the talking since my Spanish is really bad and I don't get much of what is going on!

[Porfirio Landeros]

I don't get this show through my cable provider, but maybe I can get it on antenna, since I can practically see the border. I've been meaning to pick up an HD/UHF antenna anyway... Their website had descriptions for Samba and Quickstep... did they dance any of these yet?

[Laura]

It's on Univision, which you should get over the air down your way. So far they've only done Salsa and Disco (i.e., Hustle).

[Porfirio Landeros]

It's on Univision, which you should get over the air down your way. So far they've only done Salsa and Disco (i.e., Hustle).woOow! I saw it last night... there's so much drama! Blowing out candles when their dream is extinguished... how sad!

It's interesting to see the Latin-American interpretation of Mambo. I've seen it done that way on various other Hispanic programs, like when Tito Puente performed and they had Mambo dancers performing... it's a lot of bouncing and hopping, when we're told to keep things low and in the hips when training in ballroom Latin.

Anyway, I'm anxious to see what Mary Murphy is going to have to say, since I put this in her DVR, and she's getting ready to set up her routines for the next season of So You Think You Can Dance ;)

[salsera_alemana]

I watched it last night but was sooooo bored throughout the show. Yes, certainly it is for a good cause. However, I watched it for the dancing and I thought it is rather embarrassing than entertaining. The dancing was just so bad that you had to feel sorry for everyone involved who exposed themselves on public television. And the judges are a mere joke! Except for Emma ?? (is that the older lady's name) none of those so called judges has any clue about dancing, it seems.

I saw the two couples on last place from last week who had to do mambo to see which one was the worse and had to part. I was on the phone, but what I saw was a lot of cumbia like hopping around, the only mambo-like thing about this was the music. And one of the judges thought they had done authentic mambo steps. Maybe I don't know what authentic mambo steps are????? This is exactly the mambo type I saw in a big salsa discotheque in Acapulco years ago. Maybe it is the Mexican version of mambo? My girlfriend and I really wondered half of the night what people danced to that music. Also, this was supposed to be a salsa discotheque but for the first two hours they did not play any salsa. We started wondering if what they mean by salsa is really the music they also call "tropical".

And we don't want to talk about the rock yesterday. It was neither rock'n'roll nor was it jive. That would have been fine with me if they executed their steps in a decent manner. It was more pulling and pushing around in a rather uncoordinated way.

Who most bothered me was the host. Sometimes his remarks to people are so sexist and he thinks he is so cool and funny. It is really lowest soap opera level.

In my opinion this show is detrimental to Latin dance.

I hope I do not sound as if I look down on Mexicans. On the contrary, I love Mexiko (have been there 4 times and have left a piece of my heart there) and the Mexican people! My comments refer only to what I saw on this show.