Welcome to Pure So You Think You Can Dance

Here’s a Tweet from Janette earlier tonight (and the pic she linked to):

JManrara
About to go film our dance! Having goods times w/ the other dancers! Here’s a pic of all the girls! http://yfrog.com/3gwugvj about 2 hours ago

Which girls can you identify? Lauren Gottlieb for sure. Anybody else? Sound off in the comments.

We’re back once again with the latest videos from SYTYCD UK. As always, this is divided up into a bunch of clips (13 to be exact). SYTYCD UK does the audition show and the results show pretty much right after each other. So, this is both the performance and results show for SYTYCD UK week 2. Emilie has already posted the SYTYCD UK week 2 music in case you’re interested in downloading one of the songs on the show. Enjoy!

I know that many of you are looking for the video of So You Think You Can Dance UK. Someone was kind enough to upload it to YouTube for all to be able to enjoy week 1 of SYTYCD UK. It’s divided into 15 clips below and it should just stream one video after the other. I still need to watch and make sure I got the order correct for the results show, but I think I’m pretty close. I’ll update the post once I’ve watched and know the order of SYTYCD UK week 1 videos are correct. The special guest is off, but I like it better that way. Then, you see the solos right before the judges comments.

You should also check out the full list of SYTYCD UK week 1 music.

Feel free to start a discussion about the first SYTYCD UK performance episode in the comments as well. Plenty to talk about I’m sure.

So You Think You Can Dance Australia 2010 is just around the corner and the promos for the show are already starting to hit the airwaves. We’re already working to cover SYTYCD UK on Pure SYTYCD, but I don’t see why we shouldn’t show some love to SYTYCD Australia 2010 as well. I’ve seen a bunch of the previous SYTYCD Australia and they have some fantastic dancers and I adore the judges in Australia.

Check out the first SYTYCD 2010 Australian Promo video:
WARNING: May contain SYTYCD 2010 Australia top 100 spoilers since Channel 10 has done things like this in the past.

Big THANKS to the lovely McPhee for sending us the video!

It’s the offseason of SYTYCD and so I decided that I’d start making some lists related to the various dancers from the past 6 SYTYCD. Plus I’m at McDonald’s with my son and so what else should I be doing while he has the time of his life on the playplace? Exactly.

I figured I’d start this out with a bang and make a list of the most disliked dancers ever on SYTYCD. Granted this is a bit difficult to evaluate, but I think most people on the list are pretty obvious.

It is also worth mentioning that many of these dancers had a LOT of fans that adored them as well (including myself for a few). However, in most cases for every one that loved them there were also plenty of haters. I also should add that this doesn’t mean that the dancers on this list aren’t amazing dancers. In fact, all of them are outstanding. However, outstanding dancers doesn’t mean people like you.

Now to the list…

1. Danny Tidwell – Danny is a great example of someone who had a ton of fans, but also a ton of haters. The knock on him was that he was seen as arrogant and “entitled.” I personally think he was arrogant. He was a great dancer and knew it. Compare him to Jakob Karr who was great technically as well, but was always super humble. Had Danny been so humble he probably would have won his season.
2. Blake McGrath – I didn’t even see this season of the show, but the internet archives I’ve read show that people really didn’t like Blake on the first season. He was arrogant and wore it on his sleeve. In fact, he still does. At least you know who he is, but Blake definitely had plenty of haters.
3. Lacey Schwimmer – Lacey is a really interesting case. She had to be in her brother’s shadow a bit even though she was very different. She was also partnered with no 1 on this list. Not to mention her rawness and unique qualities along with how proud she was of her uniqueness all combined to have many people not like Lacey.
4. Will Wingfield – See Danny’s desription and it was the same storyine, but not quite as strong. Brandon Bryant almost fell into this group also, but was able to avoid it with a killer solo and a little more humility. Brandon can likely thank Mia for that.
5. Ivan Kourmaev – Most people loved Ivan until he started staying on the show “longer” than people thought that he should. As people who were more “talented” than him went home people started to really dislike Ivan and want him off. Not his fault for defying odds.
6. Legacy – This is similar to Ivan, but Legacy did grow a little more than Ivan did on the show and so the dislike wasn’t quite as strong.
7. Kayla Radomski – Perfect technically and lack of personality was the gripe by many. White lightning still had a huge fan base, but many people wanted her off despite her technical prowess. I also think many women were jealous of her incredible legs. I don’t blame them. If I were female I’d be jealous too. Since I’m not she was one of my favorites.
8. Paris Torres/Tony Bellissimo – Paris was on for such a short time that people couldn’t make a real judgment, but for some reason people seemed to hate her first impression. People just never thought that Tony even deserved to be on the show.

I’m sure I missed someone since I wrote this on my phone. So, let’s hear who you think should be on this list that isn’t? Would you rank them differently.

P.S. I’ll plan on doing more uplifting lists in the future.

Everyone knows that Channing was my favorite on SYTYCD (partially due to my love of Blondes I think). So, of course, I totally LOVED these videos of Channing doing Hip Hop (Thanks to SYTYCDism).

This one is just beautiful of Channing:

Here is one of her and Ivan Kourmaev from SYTYCD season 2.

It’s amazing that Channing was kind of “branded” a contemporary dancer when she does Hip Hop this well. I wonder what kind of dancer Channing would consider herself. Yep, I just became even more of a Channing fan! We’re going to have to work harder next season to find these little nuggets of information before the top 20.

There has been a ton of talk about their being no tour for the dancers on SYTYCD season 6. I haven’t seen anything definitive, but it looks like they’re likely going to do a season 6 and 7 combined tour. I don’t know what you guys think of the idea, but I’m not a huge fan of the idea.

I don’t mind the idea of 2 seasons combining to go on tour. My problem is that I don’t want to wait for almost a year to see season 6 on tour. That will just be a bit odd. Plus, who even knows if all the dancers from season 6 will be available a year from now. I know Legacy’s already tried out for things and I’m sure many other people are as well. Will they be tied up in contracts next year when they finally go on tour?

Plus, think about if SYTYCD does like Survivor and Dancing with the Stars and Amazing Race and starts doing 2 seasons a year (Summer and Fall). That would mean next Fall would be right after the summer season and during the tour for the previous 2 seasons. Talk about A LOT of SYTYCD. I think I could handle it, but I think that many would get burnt out.

Of coursr the good thing is that then the tour could benefit from promotion during the Fall season. An important and beneficial thing for the tour to be a success.

If they’re going to do 2 seasons on one tour, then they should do a summer and fall season touring in the spring. I still think it would be highly successful as long as they included an SYTYCD tour email notification list that people can sign up for during the season. Too bad the SYTYCD website is so poor. I think that probably means they’re unlikely to do something so simple as an email list.

Either way, I’ll be upset if SYTYCD season 6 doesn’t tour. I was really looking forward to meeting some of them in person again.

Here’s a poll where you can share your feelings about whether they should do a tour for SYTYCD 6 or not:

I’m sure that people won’t like me talking about this, but when has this ever stopped me before? First, I should make it clear that when I write posts like this I’m mostly disappointed with the producers of SYTYCD and not Russell. However, one of the problems with writing a blog and being so involved in a show like SYTYCD is that you find out all the background story that the producers have chosen not to tell you. A part of me LOVES to know “the rest of the story” and the other part of me feels betrayed by the producers of the show. Either way, it is what it is and I still LOVE watching the dancers on SYTYCD. I think this is likely to never change.

With that preface, I was disappointed to read about all the formal dance training that Russell Ferguson had before going on SYTYCD. Here’s a short section of an interview Russell did with People.com where he talks about the dance training he had before the show:

You’ve often been referred to as a “street dance” diamond in the ruff but you’ve had some dance education, right?
I’ve been doing hip-hop all my life. So, I figured if I was going to take on any big dance projects later in life, I would have to learn other things to be well-rounded in the dance field. I did four years at Boston Arts and I did a good year at The University of the Arts, so I got a good amount of training in.

The judges portrayal of you as this unpolished stone. Was that accurate?
They know I had some form of training. But the thing is, a lot of people that do train, like that is what they do, that is their dance style, that’s their lifestyle. And me, I really did just come from the streets.

5 years of formal training? That’s a little more than just coming from the street. As I think back on some of the comments the judges made about Russell, you can tell that they knew about this information and were trying to maintain the persona that Russell was a “street dancer” without outright lieing. For example, I remember Nigel saying something like, “You’re basically an untrained dancer.” Then, he went on to compare him to Legacy when Nigel said, “You’re like Legacy, but you point your toes.” The interesting part is that I think Legacy actually is an untrained dancer. Russell is not.

Of course, when Russell won I think we all realized where he’d come from was the street. I absolutely adore that he won the show. I also loved how raw and real his reaction was when he won. I know some people didn’t like it too much, but to me it was beautiful. I’m not sure why he took his shirt off, but he was living in a moment that he probably thought he’d never experience. I don’t know all his background, but I bet Russell really does have a story to tell about where he came from and how he made it to an arts college and now as winner of SYTYCD. You could see the story in his face and in the face of his family.

This won’t be the first or the last time the producers don’t tell the whole story about dancers. I remember the outrage about this short post I did about Twitch dancing in Hairspray. No one had an issue that Twitch was in Hairspray. It was that the show acted like he hadn’t done anything like it before. To be honest, I’m amazed that the producers told us that Mollee was the principal dancer on all 3 High School Musicals. I guess they probably figured most people would find that one out anyway.

I don’t think any of this diminishes the quality of the dancing and the entertainment value that their dancing brings to me when I watch the show. All of that is amazing and it’s great that Russell can go out and do a Krump routine and follow it up with some ballroom. Is it just too much for me to wish that the producers didn’t produce the show so much. Probably.

I’ve been looking all over for any details about a So You Think You Can Dance season 6 tour. I can’t find anything and nothing’s been announced on the show. Does anyone know any details about the So You Think You Can Dance season 6 tour?

I feel like they have to have it since didn’t they talk about the top 10 being able to go on the tour and that being a critical week for the dancers? I don’t think they would mention that and then not do one. Plus, the season 5 SYTYCD tour was a big hit. At least according to the marketing director for the venue in my city. The tour seems like an extension of Nigel’s goal of giving these dancers jobs and exposure. Not to mention it lines his pockets with cash too.

The challenge is that if they don’t announce the SYTYCD 2010 tour during the season, then how will they appropriately market the SYTYCD 2010 tour so people know there is one? The same marketing director mentioned above said that she thought the reason the 2009 SYTYCD tour was so successful was partially because of the essentially free marketing they got during the Fall season of SYTYCD.

So, what’s up? We need some details about the tour. Don’t try to tell me that I’m not going to get a chance to see Kathryn up close and personal. Not to mention my little Mollee. Plus, I’m ready to do an interview with my 2 BYU graduates and lovebirds, Ryan and Ashleigh.

Has anyone heard anything about a SYTYCD 2010 tour?

Once again I’m going to piggyback the poll created by SYTYCDism since it seems wrong to duplicate efforts. It will be much more informative if we all vote on the same poll. So, it’s time to vote for who will be the winner of So You Think You Can Dance Season 6.