A few weeks ago I wrote an entry about my guilty TV pleasure, ‘Dancing With the Stars’, and how I noticed that one of the professional dancers – Derek Hough – had created a dance for his celebrity partner that was awfully reminiscent of a dance created by one of my favorite professional dance couples, Max Kozhevnikov & Yulia Zagoruychenko. I had promised you a video with the two dances edited together, spliced so as to show off the specific unique moves and overall dance timing that were remarkably similar between the two dances. Unfortunately, shortly after I wrote that post, I got a bad case of the flu, time slipped ever onward, and I never finished the video. Ultimately I decided, hey, it’s just not that important, right?
Well, apparently, it was kind of important. Why? Because the con lives on! Tonight was yet another performance night on Dancing With the Stars, and Derek Hough & his celebrity partner, Brooke Burke, performed yet again earlier this evening. Sure, they weren’t performing the same dance as Max & Yulia, but there were still striking similarities. Where? In the costumes.
I’m sure you’re saying, hey, aren’t all those costumes basically the same? It seems like they have two or three styles of costume for each different style of dance, they just change the fabrics around, right? Yeah, that’s normally the case, but not tonight. Tonight they created a complete carbon copy of Yulia’s costume from precisely the same dance they stole the steps from a few weeks ago! It seems like Derek Hough simply can’t come up with his own ideas, whether it’s the dance moves or the costumes, because this is getting really irritating.
The reason I’m so miffed about the costume is because I know for a fact it was a unique idea created by Yulia herself. The very first time I saw Max & Yulia perform this number, the commentator made special note of how “unique” Max & Yulia’s costumes always are. The commentator – a ballroom champion in his own right – went on to detail that Yulia designs their costumes all on her own. The costume she was wearing that night was one that had garnered her a lot of attention, as it did a beautiful job of accenting every precise move she would make along her beautifully elongated frame.
What was that costume? A bright yellow fringed pant suit. This bright yellow fringed pant suit:
And what was Brooke Burke wearing tonight? The exact same fringed pant suit, in the exact same color. Coincidence? I think not. (It’s too early to find photographs of Brooke in her costume, but as soon as I find them, I’ll post them for you all to see.)
This really bugs me. Here are two specific instances that I’ve caught where Dancing With the Stars – and Derek Hough in particular – outright plagiarized the creative works of others! First dance steps, now costume design. That’s pretty much the entire essence of what makes a unique work of art in the ballroom dance world. And the really stupid part is, I’m not even a ballroom expert! I can only really name two ballroom dance couples from memory, Max & Yulia and Toni & Elena. Other than that, I’m clueless when it comes to professional ballroom dancers. But if I can recognize two different incidents on two different nights where the same professional dancer has stolen the creative work of another ballroom dancer in only one season of Dancing With the Stars, how plagiarism is going on here that I’m not seeing? Or is Derek Hough the only dancer on the show lazy enough to steal from other dancers without giving them credit?
Since I never finished editing together the videos of the different dances, I’ll just show you the raw footage here. For those of you unfamiliar with the differences between basic ballroom dance steps and the specifically unique moves developed by Max & Yulia, this might not make a whole lot of sense to you. So for those of you in that category, just pay attention to the overall feel, flavor, and tempo of the dance. That should at least clue you in to the type of plagiarism I’m talking about. Note I’m not talking about Derek producing an exact carbon copy of the dance, I’m not saying that at all. But he stole enough of the unique moves, and enough of the basic moves in the same order, for it to qualify as plagiarism – at least, in my opinion anyway.
Now, to show you Max & Yulia’s, I’ll have to show you two clips. There were two versions of the dance – one short, one long. They’re both the same dance, except obviously, the long one is longer and thus has more steps. I’m showing you both because the short one shows some of the specific moves in question at a better angle, but the long one shows steps not included in the short version that were used by Derek Hough. That said, here we go:
– Max & Yulia, Short, from America’s Ballroom Challenge
– Max & Yulia, Long, from Blackpool 2006
– Brook & Derek, Week 4 Samba, Dancing With the Stars
First the steps, then the costume. That’s pretty much stealing the whole thing. Sorry, Derek, but I think you pulled one of the dirtiest tricks in the book, taking another professional’s work and claiming it as your own. Shame on you!
So what now? Either Derek Hough needs to come clean, give Max & Yulia the credit they deserve, and then somehow face the some consequences here, or Dancing With the Stars needs to come clean and finally admit that their professional dancers aren’t really coming up with their own choreography all on their own each and every week. The show presents it specifically as if the dancers come up with original dances entirely of their own design each week specifically for their celebrity partner. If that’s not really the case and they have other professionals helping them out, they need to come out and say it. But as the show is presented right now, Derek was supposed to come up with his own dance, not steal moves and costumes from others. Based on how the show is presented and what I’ve seen thus far, both tonight and a few weeks back, I’m crying foul – Derek Hough has clearly plagiarized the work of Max & Yulia. First with dance steps and now with costumes. Personally, I’ve had enough.
Update – Friday, Nov 21: After a rapid succession of rather intense comments, I’ve posted a little explanatory comment of my own to try to clear up some misunderstandings. So please go to the comments section and check that out! Thanks to everyone who’s commented and apologies for any misunderstandings! Of course we can disagree, but I don’t like to offend anyone and I certainly didn’t mean to.
Is it sad I’m not surprised by this revelation? I admire your effort at digging up the facts though. Usually my comments are not that researched.
First of all I do not see any similar dance moves between both dances. Second, Derek does not design the customes, the show does. Get your facts straight before you accused him of anything.
If you are going to pick on Derek, then you also need to pick on Kym and Warren’s Matrix-inspired Paso Doble, which was also done before by Max Kozhevnikov & Yulia Zagoruychenko.
Derek’s done a wonderful job on all 3 seasons that he has been on DWTS and I’m sorry that you don’t appreciate his choreography, creativity and dance ability.
Heather, you are making a mountain out of a molehill, and making some mistaken assumptions in the process.
First of all, other than steps such as samba rolls which are intrinsic to the Samba, I did not notice any particular similarity between the two dances. Besides, most if not all of Yulia’s moves are well-known dance moves, some are hip-hop, some date from the 1920s or earlier, but none are original. Derek taught hip-hop at Italia Conti academy of performing arts, Britain’s oldest performing arts school, so he is an expert at hip-hop, far more, I would venture, than Yulia is. He doesn’t need her moves, he has hundreds of his own.
Secondly, the fringed outfit is not “bright yellow” but “pale gold.” And Yulia did not come up with the idea, she “borrowed” it from the Frankie and Annette beach blanket movies of the 1960s in which an actress named Candy Johnson wears the exact same fringed outfit. Check google images of Candy Johnson and you’ll see it. For that matter, Brooke’s is not an exact copy but is unique in several respects. The back is different, Brooke’s design incorporates two different lengths of fringe, unlike Yulia’s, and it is cut lower at the waist.
Third, you are charging Derek for adapting the design without knowing who suggested it. It is not right to “assume” when you don’t really know. Brooke said she has been studying pro dances on YouTube. She might have seen it and liked it. The costume designer or someone else might have suggested it. You simply don’t know. But there is no such thing as a patent or copyright on costume design, and if there had been, Yulia would have been guilty of copyright infringement.
You are wrong to make the same charge of Derek. I really think you owe him an apology for such a meanspirited post.
I’m sorry, but I watched those videos and then re-watched the Samba choreographed by Derek Hough and the only similarities I see are the music and then classic Samba moves that any trained professional should know and use in their choreography.
As far as the outfit goes… who cares if that is copied, the whole purpose of people designing certain styles or outfits is so that people will enjoy them and wear them. Yulia doesn’t have any kind of monopoly on that outfit.
I think your (rather serious) accusations are completely unfounded. I also think that you owe him an apology or a “re-print”.
Wow did I get some comments out of the blue… I wonder where all this traffic’s coming from.
Anyway, I’m sorry you all disagree, but I hope you guys would go back and read my original post. I did NOT say that I disliked Derek Hough, or that I thought he was a horrible dancer, inexperienced, or any of those things. In fact, I’m a huge fan of his. I think he’s incredibly talented, a really fantastic dancer, and very, very uniquely gifted. Which was why I was kind of disappointed that he didn’t do something entirely original.
And as per all the people involved who are responsible for things like costumes, music selection, etc – I know, I acknowledged that. My problem here isn’t necessarily just with Derek, and I tried my best to point that out in my blog. If I didn’t communicate that properly, I apologize. What I’m trying to say is, in practically every season there have been several very valid questions raised regarding who does all the choreography. Some people I know in Hollywood who have contact with the show have even said that the pros don’t even do all the work themselves, but rather they have extra choreographers helping out in the background. And that’s fine, that would make sense – I mean, holy crap, those pros have so much pressure on them and their time! I wouldn’t blame them if they had some assistance, cause it just makes sense. My problem is that, if this is the case, those people aren’t getting the credit for it. My problem isn’t just with Derek, it’s with the way the show is presented. And from everything I’ve heard, there’s some dishonesty there about how the show is really put together.
To those of you who were complaining about me saying I was angry over things like samba rolls, if you go back to my original entry, I very specifically said I was *not* talking about basic samba moves. I just wanted to clarify that point to.
Also, about Warren & Kym’s Matrix-inspired routine – YES! I noticed that too! I think I mentioned something about that in the original post too… If I didn’t, I meant to. I definitely noticed that, although the overall flavor of the dance wasn’t the same, the music was different, and it was a different style of dance. So that, to me, wasn’t as blatant. But yes, I did notice and I believe I mentioned it in passing in the original post.
Bottom line is, though, as serious as this post may have come across, I honestly didn’t mean it that way. I was trying my best to make it sound like a rather ridiculous mother waggling their finger at a kid, in a silly light-hearted way. But of course, I did write the post really late at night, so maybe I didn’t do a very good job of conveying that. So if the post did come across too angry, stern, or rude, I really do apologize, both to the readers, and to Brooke & Derek. I was honestly just trying to point it out for some people who aren’t familiar with professional ballroom dancing, try to add to the discussion that there needs to be some more honesty about what goes on behind the scenes, and maybe have a little fun with it. I’m sorry if that didn’t come across the way I intended and I hope you’ll excuse me.
That said, I still love the show (even though I’m disappointed that Cody Linley got kicked off! That boy sure got a raw deal!) I’ll still be watching the finale next week and I hope you will too! I still haven’t decided whether to vote for Lance or Brooke, because I think both of them have tried very hard and have shown a great deal of improvement. And although I’m not much of a fan of Lacey’s style, I really think Lance has put in a lot of effort and has really improved. His dances this week were just plain wow! How he was able to keep going when his shoe came off, without it interrupting the routine, that was seriously impressive!
Anyway, thanks for all the comments! I’m sorry some of you didn’t like it, but hey, that’s what discussion and the exchange of ideas is for, right? Refining understanding, figuring things out, and maybe seeing things from a new perspective. 🙂