When Detlef Soost tried to groom music and dance talents for success in the casting show “Popstars”, a certain reputation preceded him. He was considered Mister “Pam, Pam, Pam!” – Motivator, supporter of discipline and often tough judge. On Friday (February 23rd, 8:15 p.m., RTL) the roles will be swapped.
Then Soost, a trained dancer and choreographer, has to audition himself – and reckon with a jury that won’t wrap him in cotton wool. The 53-year-old is one of the new candidates for the RTL show “Let’s Dance”, which starts then.
The 17th season of the show sends a total of 14 celebrities to the reopened dance floor. As is often the case in the show, the lineup is quite broad, from very young to slightly older, from classic actors to influencers with many followers. There is a pleasantly small number of staff, who have already been funneled through countless other formats.
Jury tried and tested
In addition to Soost, food blogger and Giovanni Zarrella’s brother Stefano Zarrella as well as fitness influencer Sophia Thiel are there, as well as “Bergdoktor” actor Mark Keller. “It’s promising,” says juror Motsi Mabuse, who will again judge the dances alongside Jorge González and Joachim Llambi, to the German Press Agency about this year’s “Let’s Dance” year. She believes it will be quite competitive. “They want to inspire everyone with their performance. They all prepare. They understand that this is a competition.”
Soost is certainly one of the more interesting personalities before the start, simply because of his height. It’s a bit as if Dieter Bohlen suddenly had to audition for “Deutschland sucht den Superstar” himself. Jorge González has already thought about this. “Of course he has a lot of experience. But he is used to completely different dance styles,” he says about Soost. For example, “Let’s Dance” involves dancing Slowfox or Rumba. That’s not what was asked for in “Popstars”. “And I think that he’s also a perfectionist who actually wants to control everything,” says González. “And that’s even more difficult. He’ll have to let go. Let’s see if he can.”
Studio with new visual “fresh-up”
As always, the celebrities form pairs with professional dancers. Who is allowed to walk across the floor with whom will only be revealed in the first broadcast. Then it will be clearer to see who can have real hopes of winning at the end of the season, which, by the way, is being produced in a studio with a new visual “fresh-up”, as RTL calls it. As a professional, you can sometimes get into trouble. “When you dance as a professional, you never know which celebrity you’ll get. It’s a bit like roulette,” admits Motsi Mabuse, who once danced along herself.
Although Llambi doesn’t really want to accept that. He cites the example of sports presenter Ulli Potofski, who in one of the previous seasons didn’t exactly reveal himself as a natural dance talent. “Everyone who knows anything about dancing thought: He’ll only make it to the second show at most. His dance partner Kathrin Menzinger certainly also thought back then: Well, I’ll get off work early,” reports Llambi. “But far from it. The audience called for the two of them – and they made it to the fifth show. Sometimes that’s not predictable.”
But what Llambi also reveals: The jury has an early feeling for who could go far. “We on the jury can of course see in the first show who has certain abilities and who doesn’t,” he says. “When you dance, we actually know after ten seconds: This could be something. Or not at all.”
Detlef Soost will also get these ten seconds. And then? Let’s see.
