Welcome to Pure So You Think You Can Dance

So yesterday was a typical Monday night and I just finished watching the Bachelor special. Nothing else was on that was worth watching, so I settled on watching Celebrity Fit Club on Vh1. About half way through the show, the Harvey(the trainer) had set up something fun for the celebs to do after their challenge. However it turned out to be a dance contest with a very special judge. That judge was the one and only Joshua Allen, winner of SYTYCD season 4, not that I needed to be told that. Of course Joshua showed off his dance moves and it reminded me why he won. So the celebs face off against each other, the final two were Kevin Federine(who is a dancer) and Kaycee Stroh(High School Musical 1-3). In the end Joshua named Kaycee the winner. Vh1 is always repeating their shows so if you missed it, don’t worry you can see it again and understand why Kaycee won. It was reall nice to see Joshua dance again, which makes me even more excited for Step Up 3 to hit theatres.

Speaking of movies I was watching a few this weekend and learn a few new things that I didn’t know. She’s All That has a really great dance number in the prom scene. This particular dance number was choreographed by Adam Shankman and Brian Friedman was one of the dancers in the movie. The other movie, Lil C was featured in Center Stage: Turn It Up. I didn’t realize he was in the movie till I saw his name in the credits. So of course I had to go back to the club scenes to find him and see him krump. Just wanted to share with everyone and to start blogging again so I’m not so rusty when the new season airs this summer. Until then don’t forget to look out for more SYTYCD alum on new episodes of Glee.

Via SYTYCDISM, I saw this piece about Mia returning to the judge’s panel for Season 7’s New York auditions. No word yet whether she’ll judge anymore of the audition cities or any of Season 7 OR choreograph, but I personally take this as a great sign! What do you think? Do you want Mia back as badly as I do??

Shhhhh! Don’t tell John I’m sneaking onto the site to post this. Some friends of mine were in a spectacular dancing flash mob choreographed to OutKast’s “Hey Ya” . I can’t stop compulsively watching this video, so I thought y’all might like it.

The guy dancing on his own at the beginning is the choreographer of the mob’s routine, Leonard Augustus.

If you post a lot of comments saying how glad you are I posted this, John can’t be mad at me. It *is* dancing, after all, John, so it’s related!

Let me start by say I hope everyone had a great Christmas. On Christmas eve I had the opportunity to see Kathryn McCormick perform at her church. Unfortunately, I didn’t get the chance to talk to her because I had to make it to another Christmas eve service. I did however manage to record her performance…which turned out somewhat out of focus. She posted the link to her video on facebook, so I thought I would share it with you guys. So enjoy her performance to Silent Night.

This was hard! There were a lot of routines that were equally good in my mind, so I had to work hard to limit myself to a Top 10. I gave myself 5 extra routines for group numbers that rocked – we had a lot of amazing group work this season, especially when you factor in the Meet the Top 20 episode. I did not consider “fairness” or equal distribution here. So I think you’ll see a lot of the same dancers, which didn’t surprise me, personally.

Paired Routines

1. “Machine Gun” Ellenore/Legacy Travis Wall

2. “Tore My Heart” Ellenore/Jakob Sonya Tayeh

3. “At This Moment” Kathryn/Jakob Desmond Richardson and Dwight Rhoden

4. “Little Green Bag” Pauline/Peter Wade & Amanda Robson

5. “Your Ex-Lover Is Dead” Ellenore/Ryan Travis Wall

6. “2 Steps Away” Kathryn/Legacy Stacey Tookey

7. “Frog Dance” Noelle/Russell Sean Cheesman

8. “Put Your Hands on Me” Kathryn/Ryan Jason Gilkison

9. “Violentango” Ellenore/Ryan Miriam and Leonardo

10. “Put Your Hands On me” Kathryn/Ryan Jason Gilkison

Honorable Mentions (alllllmooooosssst): Kathryn/Legacy’s paso doble, Noelle/Russell’s “A Case of You” contemporary, Noelle/Ryan “Give It To Me Right” hip hop, Mollee/Jakob’s “Ordinary Day” waltz, Ellenore/Jakob “Gotcha” Broadway, Ashleigh/Jakob “Whatcha Say” hip hop, Ariana/Peter’s “Black and Gold” hip hop, Bianca/Victor’s “Wasted Time” contemporary, Ellenore/Russell paso doble, Kathryn/Russell hip hop (both finale).

Group Routines

1. Top 20 “Comanche” Wade & Amanda Robson

2. Top 12 “What’s a Girl to Do” Nappytabs

3. Top 14 “Aha!” Wade & Amanda Robson

4. Top 16 “Warrior” Dave Scott

5. Ariana, Channing, Jakob and Nathan “Cryin’” contemporary Tyce Diorio

These were my standouts, the routines I’d expect on a tour (with the exception of those who didn’t make the Top 10). What were yours?

Here’s Season 6 in review. Y’all brought up a lot of this stuff in recent comments (Mrs. D’s comment in particular), which gave me the idea to do a review of the season, what we liked and didn’t like. If you disagree with me (or agree), feel free to put your two cents in, as it’s all subjective and I’d love to know what you think!

Jeer:

This season felt more rushed that any other that I can think of. Between baseball, the Presidential address, so many audition episodes and an early end to the season because of Christmas coming up, I feel like this year’s Top 20 got shafted on actual dancing time. But not just the dancers – the choreographers got fewer chances to wow us. And the audience lost out, as well.

Cheer:

I loved that I didn’t have to wait till the summer for a new season. While America’s Favorite Dancer gets a shorter reign if they continue on the two seasons a year model, we had a shorter wait, which was really nice. After Season 5, I just don’t know how I would have contained my SYTYCD longing. Are the producers hoping to follow a Survivor/Dancing with the Stars model with the two seasons a year thing? If so, they should be just as smart about scheduling and not hesitate to move the finale to a separate night (like Survivor’s Sunday finale yesterday).

Jeer:

The new stage, or at least the screen behind it. It seems like we’ve transitioned from utter hatred toward the new stage, which always threatens to swallow up the dancers, to an acceptance that we’ll probably never get our intimate little stage back. Many readers have begun to say that the screen and imprudent use of it, is actually the bigger issue.

Cheer:

The group numbers were able to utilize this enormous space in really pleasing ways. It’s nice to think that SYTYCD can now command (and fill) a larger audience space. Maybe it’ll end up being a wonderful challenge to the choreographers (as well as the production crew, especially camera folk) to recapture that intimate feeling.

Jeer:

It was awful having three static judges (Nigel, Mary and Adam). No new blood! Adam seemed to be the only one who had something to say, most reliably at least. And when the three additional judges (Debbie, Lil C and Tyce) came in for the finale, it felt like an eternity since I’d seen them and that they were given favorites to pick rather than choosing from their hearts. Maybe that’s not true, and I’m sure they still kept up with the season, but their involvement didn’t have the same feeling because they never rotated in and out during the season.

Cheer:

Adam Shankman is a wonderful addition to the judging panel. I didn’t mind him being a constant, I only minded that there was no new blood. You almost always knew what Nigel and Mary were going to say, so he was a breath of fresh air (especially at the beginning of the season). Adam is funny and honest (he called out choreographers for bad routines!) and you get the impression that he’ll actually hire the dancers he likes (i.e. when Noelle got cut, I was okay because I felt Adam wanted to work with her), so he’s a valuable part of the panel.

Jeer:

Shane Sparks and Alex DaSilva’s arrests (both for sexual crimes related to their dance students) are not only damaging to the choreographer’s careers, but also haunt the dance community at large and threaten to harm SYTYCD’s image.

Cheer:

The Dizzy Feet Foundation and gala do wonderful things for the dance community, SYTYCD and for us, as it unites our favorite shows, dancers, choreographers, crews in a really positive mission. It raises awareness and gives our favorites work! We can help, too!

Jeer:

How many injuries did we have this season? Mia Michaels was rushed to the hospital at the beginning of the season. Then, Billy Bell had to drop out due to illness. Noelle was injured in the first competition show while Ellenore and Ashleigh were both hurt during the Top 8 week and Russell was injured in the finale. Did I forget anyone??

Cheer:

Despite the overly-produced and rushed feel of the season, despite all the injuries, we had a wonderful Top 20 this season. As John pointed out, they had a great mix of styles and backgrounds. We saw some consistent excellence (Jakob and Ellenore, namely) and some great growth arcs (arguably, everybody, but notably Kathryn and Russell, in my opinion). We had some “characters” to get behind this season, in Legacy and the DiLellos in particular.

Jeer:

America’s SYTYCD lost Mia Michaels this season and her absence was certainly felt. Our loss was apparently SYTYCD Canada’s gain, so while it’s good that she’s working within the SYTYCD family, there’s a great big gaping hole where she was in our shows.

Cheer:

Mia’s absence gave way to a ton of “new” choreographers this season. New to us, at least. Like Sean Cheesman, Jason Gilkison, Spencer Liff and a routine from Desmond Richardson and Dwight Rhoden. We had more Wade Robson, more Stacey Tookey, more Mandy Moore and more Travis Wall routines, which seriously rocked. More Sonya routines, many of which blew our minds, like the “Tore My Heart” routine with Ellenore and Jakob.  Hopefully, we’ll get to see special Mia routines, maybe one or two a season, in the future. I don’t want SYTYCD America to be completely devoid of Mia Michaels, but I’m glad we had so many standout choreographers, new and recurring, this season.

Jeer:

This season had some really awful costumes…

Cheer:

And some really amazing music. But these two things are pretty typical of all seasons, I suppose.

Jeer:

No mention of a Season 6 tour! Not even on the finale show! What are they thinking? There had better be a tour, or I will seriously cry foul. I’m keeping my feelers out, y’all, and using my contacts, to see if/when the tour will be.

Cheer:

I’m glad they mentioned auditions for Season 7 because it sounds like it’ll be another summer season. So that means that we’ll either have two seasons a year, or we’ll go back to our beloved summer format (probably the former). SYTYCD keeps motoring on, which is good news. And again, we don’t have to wait several months till fall, sounds like.

Jeer:

Hell no to the Top 6! I hope Fox and SYTYCD realize they can never do this to us again. This was the worst idea ever and I suspect the results might have been significantly different, if we’d had a normal Top 4 finale. Not cool.

Cheer:

The Meet the Top 20 episode was the biggest stroke of genius and the best of all the new ideas and concepts we dealt with this season. I hope they *always* do this from now on. It was sublime to see all of the Top 20 dancing within their styles without fear of elimination. Some of the best dancing of the entire season happened in this very first episode, as evidenced by how many of the judges’ favorites in the finale show were from this very episode.

I think that’s all I’ve got. I’ve run out of steam. But I’m sure I’ve forgotten something you hated or loved, so let me know what you think.

The Tweetverse seems to be *almost* as excited as I am for tonight’s show.

adammshankman
Goin in early to finale today to watch rehearsals for finale! Lambert, Leona, Mary j, and j lo!!! Saw jans #. frea (cont) http://tl.gd/198s7 about 6 hours ago

Jglove988
Jennifer lopez and marc Anthony are so freaking nice!!! OMG!! Amazing people. about 5 hours ago

NAPPYTABS
Tab is taping @JLo this morning & cleaning routines for the SYTYCD finale. Wish they would have picked our Alice in Wonderland for finale.. about 4 hours ago

KaylaRadomski4
Thank you @Jlo for the amazing opportunity to perform with you! I had an wonderful time! Don’t forget to watch SYTYCD Finale tonight! about 4 hours ago

travISova
Watch the finale Tonight! Ellenore and legacy are repeforming my ” mr. And mrs. Smith” piece! Yayyyyyyyyyyyyy about 2 hours ago

Amanda_516 (our very own Amanda)
almost quiting time then SYTYCD later…GO KATHRYN!!! about 2 hours ago

nathantrasoras
Watch Sytycd tonight I’m performing a lot of routines for it. Hope u enjoy! 39 minutes ago

lyndseyparker
Getting ready to go to the ‘So You Think You Can Dance’ finale! Woot! 15 minutes ago

channingcooke
RT @JLo: The rumors are true!!… I’ll be on “So You Think You Can Dance” tonight! These dancers are just breathtaking! So inspirational! 2 minutes ago

DANCEonFOX
http://twitpic.com/tsxov – Jennifer Lopez preparing for her performance at tonight’s season finale of #SYTYCD, 8/7c! 2 minutes ago

Here’s the picture they Tweeted:

All of this elicited this response from me:

emofalltrades
the anticipation is killing me! less than 5 seconds ago

I made my predictions last night and called them the “easy” solution to a hard choice. But in the meantime, I remembered how much Ashleigh’s grown on me and how many phenomenal routines Ryan’s had this season. And then, I wondered how Ryan’s plea for Ashleigh would impact whether they’d continue to the Top 6. And your comments scared me on behalf of Ellenore. I wonder what’s gonna happen tonight.

My thoughts, as the show unfolded…

Read more…

here’s the exit interview from Nathan and Noelle, thanks to the folks at Zap2it.com. Both of them seem super upbeat and grateful for the opportunities they got on the show.

additionally, Entertainment Weekly has begun doing exit interviews with the cast, here are the links:

Noelle Marsh

Nathan Trasoras

interesting note, the interviewer ask Noelle about the tour, and she’s really excited and hoping to perform her Afro-Jazz piece (I’d guess it’s a sure thing for the tour) but she (Kate Ward from EW) doesn’t ask Nathan about the tour, and Nathan comes off during the whole interview ask just sounding exhausted, and I can’t say I blame him after the beating that he took from the judges this season. What do you guys think?

Well…no Season 5 Top 10. Sorry for that one, y’all. My bad. Must be next week. I’m a bit bummed after tonight’s show. Not just the results, but also finding out there are only two more weeks of Season 6. The finale is going to be between 6 dancers, which seems a bit…much… The results are going to be very strange, I think, because we won’t have gotten to see them dance as many routines over an extended amount of time like in previous seasons. And how long is this finale going to be? Cause if it’s only 2 hours with 6 final dancers… that seems really unfair and like a total gip, really.

As for the rest of my thoughts…

Read more…