Recap of Daniel Durant’s DWTS competition: Week 2

Renca Dunn, Daily Moth Reporter: This is the Week 2 recap of the “Dancing with the Stars” show with the Deaf actor, Daniel Durant, who is known for his role in the movie “CODA. He is one of the contestants for DWTS. If you want to know what happened during Week 1, you can check out the recap from last week’s story on DWTS’ kick-off. Here is the Week 2 recap.

Last night’s theme was “Elvis Night.” Daniel and his pro partner *Brittany Stewart were assigned to do a jive dance, and they danced to “King Creole” by Elvis. Daniel mentioned that it would be challenging for him, but he knows he can do it. During his rehearsal time, Daniel’s two moms showed up to surprise him.

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Some photos of Daniel’s life were shown and Daniel explained that he was adopted by his two moms when he was 18 months old. He also pointed out that 80% of parents do not learn sign language for their deaf children, but his two moms learned sign language for him and gave him his first language.

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For Daniel and Brittany’s dance performance, both of them wore dark maroon outfits. Daniel had a wig that looked like Elvis’ hair. The both of them immediately jumped into the jive dancing and could see that these two grooved well together. There was one part where Daniel signed “HOT” as he danced around Britt. At the end of their dance, Daniel took Brittany’s hand and swung her away as Britt’s body was on the floor. She slid across and spun around with her body still on the floor while Daniel slid on his knees towards the camera. I personally thought that was a cool move.

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In the audience, two Oscar-winning Deaf actors, Marlee Matlin and Troy Kotsur, were seen cheering and supporting Daniel. These two also starred in the movie “CODA” with Daniel.

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After Daniel and Brittany finished their dance routine, the audience applauded them. The judges said they were floored by how well Daniel did the jive dance. All of them told Daniel that he did a good job and did not really have feedback – except for one of the judges, who mentioned that Daniel needs to watch his hands when he dances to make sure it stays “connected” as he moves. The judges gave Daniel and Britt a total score of 29.

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At the end of the show, based on the judges’ votes and viewers' votes altogether, a dance couple had to be eliminated. It was Teresa Giudice and her pro partner Pasha Pashkov. Daniel and Britt are still in the running and will advance into next week’s challenge. We will keep you posted with recaps of Daniel’s progress. If you want to watch the show yourself, you can tune in Disney+ on Monday nights at 8pm EST.