Recap of Daniel Durant’s DWTS Competition: Week 4
Renca Dunn, Daily Moth Reporter: The “Dancing with the Stars” show has a Deaf actor, Daniel Durant, from the Oscar-winning movie CODA, as one of the contestants this season. This is week 4 and here is the recap of Daniel’s performance last night.
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Last night’s theme was Disney. Daniel and his partner Britt Stewart had to do the quickstep. The song name is “Finally Free” from High School Musical: The Musical: The Series. During rehearsal time, Daniel mentioned that the quickstep is the hardest that he has done so far. It is really challenging.
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Daniel mentioned he will work hard to do it and the dance would be dedicated to a Deaf boy named Asher who Daniel mentors and to all of the Deaf children in the world. Daniel said that he was bullied when he was in a mainstream school because of his signing and facial expressions. When he went to a Deaf camp, he finally felt right at home when he met other Deaf children just like him. He said that now Asher is going through the same experience as him and Daniel wants to pass down his knowledge to Asher by mentoring him. There was a moment when Daniel, Britt, and Asher had a conversation through video.
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For the performance, the setup was like the High School Musical. There were several desks, and there were extra dancers on the floor; everyone was wearing red and white outfits. Britt wore a red dress while Daniel had a letterman jacket. At the beginning of the performance, one of the extra dancers signed to Daniel saying “what’s up?” Then Daniel responded, “I am doing good, just chilling...” then that same extra dancer stopped Daniel and signed, “whoa hot!” when Britt danced towards Daniel.
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After that short skit, Daniel and Britt began dancing. Daniel did sign close to the camera saying “blue moon” then took Britt’s hand and took the floor by storm.
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The pace seemed really fast and Daniel had to be quick on his feet. They continued to dance until the very end; the both of them sat on the stairs and rested their heads together. The audience stood up and applauded. When the judges gave feedback, all of them told Daniel that his frame was good, but there were a lot of mistakes with his footwork during the quickstep. They told him that was something that he would need to work on. Daniel nodded his head in agreement.
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While waiting for the judges’ scores, there was a short interview with Daniel and he had the opportunity to share about his heart for mentoring Deaf children. It seemed to be a heartfelt moment for Daniel to share that.
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The total score from the judges was 29, and it seemed that Daniel and Britt were shocked. Considering the feedback from the judges, it is possible that they thought the judges would give them a lower score, but the judges did give them a higher score than expected. You can see the other dancing couples congratulating Daniel and hugging him as it seemed like Daniel was getting emotional.
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At the end of the show, a dancing couple had to be eliminated based on the total of judges’ votes and viewers'/audience’s votes. Daniel and Britt were the last three couples standing for possible elimination. Usually, when the last two dancing couples are left, the judges have to decide which dancing couple to save. Daniel and Britt were the last three, very close to being the last two couples, but they made it through the round. The couple eliminated were Sam Champion and Cheryl Burke. This was a close call for Britt and Daniel. They will be advancing to the next round next week. If you want to watch the show, you can see it on Disney+ on Monday nights at 8pm EST.
https://ew.com/tv/dancing-with-the-stars-season-31-disney-plus-night-songs-dances/