Watch Party!

This was probably the most energy we’ve had in the ballroom thus far, and it wasn’t even dancing - just watching! But that sounds about right when considering we were there to watch our very own energizer bunny, Vanda. Given that most of the folks (until the Slovakian contingent arrived) had no idea what the show was saying we followed along with rapt attention and gave our focus to the details of the dances and dancers. I always find it impressive that the stars can put together a routine in a few short weeks of dancing and that the pro dancers can sell it so well. We watched through all of the other performances before it came down to Vanda and Jan so we had a standard to judge them by. Would they be better than this couple or that one? How would the judges mark them? One of the judges consistently gave much lower marks for each couple throughout the night, but the other judges had varied marks as their tastes led them. It was a marked difference from the US or UK versions even without being able to understand the dialogue. So we were understandably on the edge of our seats by the time it came for Vanda to dance.

As with many of the performances they started with a set piece to establish a storyline before the dancing. Once the opening notes of Begging started to play the crowd both in the studio in NY and the crowd in Slovakia started to go nuts. Vanda has a certain type of ebullient energy that is infectious and clearly Jan’s star quality translates to more than just acting. They were on with their timing and had a great chemistry. Even before the marks came in we were all a little sad because we could see that they would be going deep into the competition (and we wouldn’t get our Vanda back for a long time). But our joy for their performance was greater than our sadness for missing Vanda. They crushed it from the judge’s perspective earning a score of 32 with the next highest competitors receiving a 23.