Even when he’s a virtual abstraction, Tristan MacManus is adorable!
Stick-figure optical-marker-representation Tristan breaks it down. The charm: it has been captured.
Motion capture. Kym Johnson and Tristan MacManus.
So, there’s an online game Dancing with the Stars Keep Dancing, which employed Kym and Tristan as choreographers and models, and Yahoo has some very cool footage of their work.
Can you pick Tristan in the game? I don’t see him listed as a pro dancer option on the site. They did include the divine Pasha Kovalev though. Nice one, game.
DWTS Season 14, Week 10 Results Show. Gladys Knight returns for the season finale. Gladys and Tristan MacManus reprise their cha cha cha.
DWTS Season 14, Week 10 Finale. Kelly Clarkson performs “Dark Side” and “Stronger.” Dancing are Tristan MacManus, Anna Trebunskaya, Kym Johnson, and Tony Dovolani.
![Long view of DWTS season 14 Pro Dance to Carrie Underwood’s “Good Girl” with Emma, Henry, Sharna, and Tristan.
Sharna Burgess kills it. every time. She is my favorite choreographer on this show. Why? …
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She shapes and moves the energy on the floor and between the dancers in a way that I rarely see on DWTS. She has a gift for pacing a dance and making it flow so that it’s compelling as a total work. Not easy to do.
Sometimes, with other choreographers, a dance will have some amazing components. But because they’re sandwiched between long periods of almost lifeless filler, the impact of all the good stuff gets muted. By lifeless, I don’t mean slow and still, something can be cluttered and busy and still have no power whatsoever.
Even when the dancers occupy one spot on the floor, she revs up the energy to an appropriate level, so that it feels significant and dynamic. It’s full of intentions and consequences, actions and reactions, and modulating speed. She had to do a lot of that here in this Carrie Underwood dance, and it’s difficult to pull off. With some other choreographers, an extended period on one spot of the floor sometimes kills the momentum of the dance.
Sharna choreographed my favorite dance that I’ve seen Tristan in so far: the Cobra Starship number from season 13. One of the things I love about that dance is this:
They’re dancing on a table, and Sharna has actually choreographed moves for her and the fabulous Kym Johnson. This gif is just a snippet of it. It’s dramatic, fun, and because there’s push-pull in those moves, she is creating energy through that tension.
It seems so simple, but it’s glorious, because most of the time (not always) on DWTS, when someone’s dancing on a table, they only repetitively gyrate or do something too basic for too long a time.
And here, just before Tristan and Sonny Pedersen return to the dance, Kym and Sharna literally throw the energy that they’ve built up on the table towards the guys, beckoning/challenging them over. That’s one of the many ways I’ve seen Sharna move energy around the floor.
Again, it’s a simple thing. But it’s an elegant choreo solution that you don’t always see on DWTS. I’m not looking for a literal story in dances. It’s just that, sometimes, people’s position on the floor seems unenergized by anything beyond: this is the time when we cover the floor, and this is the time when we pivot on one spot, and now we are moving towards each other because, in about 3 seconds, we hafta do a lift. It feels rote with empty transitions.
Because Sharna’s choreography seems to organically avoid that, it takes her dances to another level. You don’t have to analyze it like this. You just feel the parts come together in a very dynamic, satisfying whole.
BTW, Tristan’s a damn fine choreographer too. :) The arrangement of his cha cha cha and samba with Gladys Knight kind of blew me away. With a professional dancer stepping in for Gladys, I think either of those dances could have served as a DWTS “pro dance” and the effect woulda been thrilling.](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m4dyi1BUCs1r7lreno1_500.gif)
Long view of DWTS season 14 Pro Dance to Carrie Underwood’s “Good Girl” with Emma, Henry, Sharna, and Tristan.
Sharna Burgess kills it. every time. She is my favorite choreographer on this show. Why? …
