We said goodbye to Motown Week, as well as to a Motown legend on Tuesday night, as Gladys Knight was sent home behind the sixth week of the “Dancing With the Stars” Season 14 competition.
Parting with the Empress of Soul was such sweet sadness. Professional dancer Tristan MacManus offered sweet words for his fallen star. “I’ll probably miss Gladys as much as I miss Ireland while I’m here,” the lucky attraction said in the video compilation. “And I really miss Ireland.” Aw! How grand.
OK, so Gladys may not have been the best dancer in this season’s program. She was such a immense, effortlessly cool, life-affirming attendance on the show. Yes, Gladys wear sequins and rhinestones, as is befitting this ballroom universe, but her smile and inner glitter shone just as bright. In the words of host Tom Bergeron, Gladys showed us during these six weeks that she really “out-Pipped them all.” And how fit that her departing song was her own “Midnight Train to Georgia.” Here’s hoping she’ll come back and sing it herself before the season is through. Snap, clap, move and groove!
Gladys and Tristan were beat out by member bottom-two dwellers Roshon Fegan and Chelsie Hightower after a dance contest jive for their lives. But the verdict was not agreed: Carrie Ann chose to save Gladys, while Len and Bruno opted to keep Roshon.
The concluding hour of Motown Week started with an cheerful Motor City medley courtesy of the Harold Wheeler band that featured the dance talents of Val Chmerkovskiy, Peta Murgatroyd, the “DWTS” cast and choreographed by Louis Van Amstel.
There was a segment that interviewed the stars on the mental and physical toll that being in this opposition exerts. Injury-plagued Maria Menounos feels like an old lady, William Levy’s determined he's not going to let ankle pain take him out of the contest. Gladys wakes up in the wee hours of the morning to run the routines in her head. Katherine Jenkins can’t let her nerves get to her, or else she can’t do well. Melissa Gilbert knows that she’s going to have to tap into great that she’s never had to before.
The AT&T Spotlight Performance focused on the glorious story of Michaela DePrince, a 17-year-old who was adopted as a child by a supportive American family from an orphanage in war-torn Sierra Leone, originate dance, and has since started studying at the American Ballet Theater School to become one of the most promising ballerinas in the country. And her dance performance, to Natasha Bedingfield’s pared down rendition of “Wild Horses” and accompanied by Adé Chiké Torbert of “So You Think You Can Dance” celebrity, was made all the more meaningful by the story that inspired it.
“SYTYCD” was also represented in force during this week’s Macy’s Stars of Dance presentation a celestial contemporary piece by the Shaping Sound Company choreographed by Travis Wall, Nick Lazzarini and Teddy Forance. The whole thing was similar to a classical painting come to life, flowing and lovely and lighter than air. The string rendition of David Guetta and Usher’s “Without You” by ensemble Aston also helped to usher in next week’s Classical Week.
Motownphilly’s back again -- Boyz II Men returned to the ballroom stage to execute their new single “One More Dance,” accompanied on the dance floor by castaways Dmitry Chaplin, in all his bare-chested glory, and ginger Anna Trebunskaya, her skirt in tatters, dancing similar to they were the last couple on Earth.
What did you think ballroom fans? Were you as sad as I was to see Gladys go? Should the judges be unanimous in their Dance Duel decisions? Is raunchy the same thing as too sexy?
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