“My most memorable year is 1999. That’s the year when I moved away from Buenos Aires, from my family, from everything I knew,” said Juan Pablo Di Pace about what inspired his performance on “Dancing with the Stars.” On Most Memorable Year Night the celebs performed routines inspired by the formative experiences in their lives, and Di Pace wanted to honor the time in his life when he “decided to chase this impossible dream of being an entertainer.”
The judges certainly thought he was entertaining — and that’s an understatement. His samba with pro partner Cheryl Burke was not only the highest scoring performance of the night, it got the season’s first perfect score: 10s across the board from Carrie Ann Inaba, Len Goodman and Bruno Tonioli for a total of 30 out of 30. It’s not uncommon for one or two 10 paddles to come out around this time of the season, but it’s remarkable to score perfect marks across the board in week three. It could be a double-edged sword, though, since he’ll now have to try to measure up to this perfect performance for the rest of the season, but he could be up to that challenge.
Di Pace has been steadily improving throughout the season so far: 22 for his premiere night salsa, 26 for his New York City Night quickstep, another 26 for his Las Vegas Night foxtrot and now 30 for his Most Memorable samba. And it’s no mean feat to deliver a perfect samba, one of the show’s most challenging dances. Tonioli thought it was “one of the best sambas” he’d seen performed on the show. Inaba said it was “off the charts.” And Goodman didn’t say anything, just gave a rare standing ovation and let that speak for itself.
The standout celeb has now been at the top of the leaderboard three times in a row, so he might start putting pressure on Tinashe, who was still the Mirror Ball front-runner going into Monday night’s show. Methinks that could change by week four. But did he really deserve that perfect score? Vote in our poll below to let us know who you think gave the best performance of the night.
Be sure to make your predictions so that the contestants can see how they’re faring in our racetrack odds. You can keep changing your predictions until just before the next episode airs every Monday on ABC. You’ll compete to win a spot on our leaderboard and eternal bragging rights. See our contest rules and sound off with other fans in our reality TV forum. Read more Gold Derby entertainment news.
