One of the highlights of the “Oscar night” on “Dancing with the Stars” came at the very end of the episode, when the Olympic rugby medalist Ilona Maher performed a salsa with her professional partner Alan Bersten. The duo danced to the award-winning song “(I’ve Had) The Time of My Life” from the classic film Dirty Dancing, giving Maher another opportunity to expand her meaning of femininity. Watch their routine above.

I was a little worried about Maher after the first episode of season 33. She performed a cha-cha that was a little tense and restrained, and I wondered if her muscles were limiting her range of motion. But when she got straight sixes from the judges, she was delighted; she seemed to think the judges were being too nice to her, and her humility and enthusiasm were infectious. I was rooting for her immediately.

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So it was a pleasure to see her loosen up during her salsa performances in the second week. She even showed off a few impressive lifts – namely she lifted Bersten up in addition to him. They even recreated the iconic overhead lift from the film, to which they paid tribute. “That was not only a moment that people will be talking about for years to come,” enthused the jury Carrie Ann Inaba“They’re having this discussion about what femininity is.”

She improved her score week by week. This time she only got sevens from Inaba, Derek HoughAnd Bruno Tonioli. When her scores from the first two weeks of the competition were added up, she came in a respectable seventh on the judges’ leaderboard. And when the audience votes were added in, she was unsurprisingly safe from elimination, which means she’ll get at least one more chance to throw Bersten around the ballroom, and I’m in.

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