Why You Should Be Excited for Nastia's Floor Routine

With the Nastia Liukin Cup coming up tomorrow, I figured we should take a little time to talk about 2008 Olympic All Around Champion Nastia.

Nastia announced her comeback during the 2011 World Championships, and shortly after, we saw a few tweets from Nastia to a certain @travISova. Travis Wall was on Season 2 of So You Think You Can Dance. He was one of the top 2 male dancers of that season but did not garner enough votes to win the title. Here is Travis’ audition for the show: here. He does a few back handsprings here too!

From that clip but you can clearly see the technique and passion that goes with his dancing. Another clip of him dancing on the show, my sister’s favorite, can be found here. That dance was choreographed by Mia Michaels and won an Emmy for Outstanding Choreography.

That was during Travis’ season back in 2006. Now, Wall does an amazing job choreographing dances that can relate to people from all walks of life. He finds a way to take a familiar story and turns it into something beautiful. He also has a way of showing off the dancer's lines and her ability. I can only imagine what he’s made for Nastia.

All 3 of the videos linked to were nominated for Best Choreography at the 2011 Emmy Awards. While watching these, keep in mind that these pieces were made for duos but you can still take a few segments that could go nicely in a floor routine between the required leaps and tumbles.

[Embedding was disabled so please click on the link to go to youtube, opens in a new window]
1. How It Ends – Neil and Kent

2. Collide – Kent and Lauren

3. This one is my favorite. Starts at 0:52. Fix You – Robert and Allison.

Travis Wall's choreography is pure gold and I can't wait to see what he's put together for Nastia. Maybe a few of those sequences can go in a beam routine too!








sources: @NastiaLiukin