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I’m really excited to be able to post about the Dizzy Feet Gala. Thanks to Dona whom I know from my work with Pure Derek Hough, I received the following blog post about Katie’s experience at the Dizzy Feet Gala. Sounds like she had a wonderful time. I’m regretting that I didn’t head to LA to be there myself. I guess there’s always next time. Thanks Dona (and it seems like Dona’s friend Dee as well) and Katie for the information about the event.

Dizzy Feet Gala Blog by Katie
What an amazing night tonight was!!!!!! It was filled with high energy, great music, dances and well deserved awards to some inspiring people to continue to give back to this world what it mostly needs; the gift of art and all its creativity through dance!

From memorable dances from the So You think You Can Dance seasons, to the all so entertaining routines from Dancing With The Stars, a collective group of people came together today to celebrate its first Dizzy Feet Foundation gala.

My friend and I were privileged enough to see the works of some brilliant choreographers tonight!! And the seats were amazing! I think you couldn’t go wrong with sitting anywhere really. The structure of the place is done so thoughtfully that wherever you were, you would have a great view!

Derek and Cheryl from DWTS danced a great Cha Cha Cha, getting the audience excited with a great opening number, and making the audience want more. Derek and Cheryl definitely seemed like they were enjoying their night; however later we found out that the dance was put together earlier this morning. I say fantastic job for a time crunch. You wouldn’t have even thought for a second otherwise.
Lacey Schwimmer and Lance Bass also graced the dance floor tonight. Being such huge fans of both Dancing With The Stars, as well as So You Think You Can Dance, we were thrilled to bits when a Travis Wall routine was picked for the night. Jason and Jeanine’s Necklace routine had the room applauding, it was an exact replica of the performance piece shown on the show only a billion times better watching it live.

However, I have to say the standing ovation and the only standing ovation of the night, was from MTV’s America’s Best Dance Crew: Quest Crew. I have had the opportunity to watch them perform live a couple of months ago at a benefit concert, and while the routine was the same as before, the atmosphere and the energy in the room was significantly different. In such a wide spread audience of all ages and walks of life, it was tremendous to see the older lady a few rows in front of us stand up and clap for these extremely talented individuals. From a little bit of Hip Hop to a little bit of Pop from Ms. Britney Spears, it seemed that they covered all aspects and types of genres in the musical field in their 3 plus minute routine. It was well deserved and exciting to watch the whole Kodak Theatre stand up and praise them with applause.

Some other highlights of the night included routines from Katee and Joshua doing their “No Air” routine, Mark Ballas and Kristi Yamaguchi doing their jive, and Cheryl and Gilles performing their Tango from Dancing With The Stars.

I have to say some of the routines that definitely stuck with both myself and my guest for the night were those that were Emmy winning performances from the So You Think You Can Dance performers:

Melissa and Ade’s Breast Cancer piece, done beautifully by Tyce Diorio, was also performed for us as well as Mia Michael’s Addiction piece that took our breaths away.

Along with phenomenally breath taking pieces performed by some of our favorite dancers. As Adam Shankman stated “this night was like the Stones for reality TV junkies”. There was talent from a young boy doing Michael Jackson’s Billy Jean routine and performing the Moon Walk, to witnessing what this important foundation is all about. Watching the recipients of the awards given out, I was truly blessed and also deeply saddened that children around the world who could become great simply do not have the resources to do so in their schools and community.

Being apart of something so wonderful was an absolute pleasure and left me wondering what I CAN DO to help. After all, is that what this whole event was all about? Finding a way to help and keep these programs ongoing so that our children and for more generations to come can also experience what I was able to this very night, because of the hard dedication and talent of such amazing individuals that did find an opportunity?

Here’s more information about the Dizzy Feet Foundation: http://www.dizzyfeetfoundation.org/
I’m sorry I wasn’t able to get any pictures. It was just really difficult to keep any lighting on (whether from my iPhone or camera) hidden as much as possible or away so as not to disturb the people around me. I didn’t want to be “ONE OF THOSE PEOPLE” LOL

I did however pull out my camera at the last minute and recorded the BH “move” finale where all the dancers came up on stage after what seemed like the first verse. I apologize for any shakiness or anything like that. Here’s my dizzy feet gala video on youtube:

We tried to stick around for a good hour after the show to see if we could catch Derek. We actually ran into Mark while walking around, however there were so many people around, and he was carrying around a suitcase, we figured he had to go or was just in for a short stop from a flight perhaps, and in no way did we want to keep him any longer. Plus, we were both on the hunt for Derek. Unfortunately, it seemed that either he had already left or found some other exit we were not at

This isn’t much, but I sort of just started writing once I got home and wanted to share a little bit with you guys. Awww I wish the night could come back. lol I miss it already! hahahaha

I hope I did it some sort of justice for those who couldn’t go : (Again, I had the most amazing time and I want to just thank Dona and Dee for the tickets.)

Rickey.org just posted some great pictures from the Dizzy Feet event in LA that happened Nov. 29th. It included the 5Alive kids as well as stars from DWTS (including S3’s Lacey) and ABDC (with S1’s Ryan and S3’s Hok and Dominic). Thanks Rickey for posting this, man I wish I could have been there!

DIZZY FEET CELEBRATION OF DANCE

here’s an interview with Qwest, with most of the questions aimed at D-Trix (Dominic) he’s awesome!

dances done included “No Air”, “If It Kills Me”, and “Addiction” as well as Ade and Melissa’s Breast Cancer routine, as well as performances from Cheryl and Derek from DWTS and Lacey’s samba with Lance Bass from S7 of DWTS. Qwest rocked it out, as did the three leading ladies from the Step Up films, as introduced by their male counterparts.

I was doing something entirely different (I promise!) and I found a great video of Wade Robson’s “Slow Dancing in a Burning Room” routine performed by different dancers he worked with on Cirque du Soleil/Criss Angel’s Believe, Ben Susak and Pam Chu. I guess he was working it out before he choreographed the routine on So You Think You Can Dance. Check it out and then, below, I included the video of Katee and Josh performing it for the Top 4 episode of Season 4.

Clearly, I love me some Wade Robson. So here’s a video from when he was on Dancing with the Stars, too. I kinda got addicted to the song while I was watching it (several times). If you’re curious, it’s “Hi”  by PSAAP.

I don’t know about y’all, but I’m going through SYTYCD withdrawal a little bit. I don’t like not having a second episode this week!

This past weekend, I rented this flick called “Love N’ Dancing” and was surprised to see bitty cameos by Season 2’s Benji and Heidi and that tided me over a bit till last night’s Season 6 episode. I remember that Seasons 3’s Neil had a cute and memorable role in “American Mall” that amused me when I saw it. Maybe you can still catch Kherington in “Fame” theaters somewhere in the country.

Still, we’ll have to wait till next year to see Season 4’s Joshua, Katee and Twitch in Adam Shankman’s “Step Up 3-D” (and Season 2’s Ivan, too). 2010 will also bring the movie that Paula van Oppen turned down a place in Season 6’s Top 20 for – “Burlesque.” It sounds a bit like “Coyote Ugly,” but with a burlesque club instead of bar. Season 4’s Chelsea Traille will play a character named Coco.

Our friends at SYTYCDism mention that Katee, Kherington and Season 4’s Comfort will be on upcoming episode(s) of “Glee,” as well.

Do you know of any SYTYCD alumni movie roles I might’ve missed? Planning on seeing any of these movies? Already seen them? Lemme know what you think.

You know what I’d love best at moments like this, when I’m craving some SYTYCD? DVDs of past seasons!

Finally – you get your part two! As I am traveling, my usual schedule is a bit off. So bringing you part two required a visit to the Sprint store where the guy who sold me my phone was cool about getting the photos off and helping me put them on my laptop. And heeeeeeeeerrrrrrree we go. TOUR SPOILERS AHEAD!!

So, my video is crap. Sorry about that. I was pretty close to the stage, but we weren’t allowed to use flashes and there was a drunk girl perpetually standing up at the cool moments and ruining the shot. And most of the pictures taken with my cell phone didn’t work out – too dark. But, I did manage to get a few shots of me with some of the dancers, so I’ll put those at the end of this post. That slice of cheek next to a few of them? Yeah, that’s me cropped out. It was a looooong day.

Where should I begin to tell you about the show? Maybe I should start by saying that I lost my voice from screaming so much. And my mom got blisters from clapping so much. We waited after the show for two hours in the cold to see the dancers (all but Janette) and it was totally worth it. Amanda’s already commented on some of her experiences in the comments of Part One.

First, they had recordings of Cat Deely introducing the dancers and some of the videos, and that was pretty cool. We kinda got to feel like she was with us a bit. Next, there was a new opening number to some sort of remix of the “Can Can” song from Moulin Rouge. Probably something like this one . That was really high-energy and got us all in the mood.

It was a bit campy in a good way. There were usually one or two dancers introducing each of the up-coming acts and they each wore different SYTYCD shirts. As Christine hinted at with her spoiler in the comments of my earlier post (which I totally didn’t get till last night, by the way), Kupono did a hysterical infomercial for the workout DVDs was was so incredibly silly and campy. Jeanine and Randi were really funny with him on stage for that. One of my favorite jokes of the night turned out to be a cool new routine. MAJOR SPOILER HERE.

Throughout the show, there was a running joke about Jeanine and Phillip’s Russian folk dance. Several times, they came out in their Russian costumes and started dancing the routine with the other dancers chastizing them for it and them pretending to be ashamed of themselves. Once, they even pretended to be the prop guys bringing in the surgical table for the Bob Fosse routine and got “caught.” It was pretty funny as running gags go, but I did wonder if they’d actually perform the routine. And then they started to do it, in the second half and the *rest of the dancers* came out in matching Russian folk costumes and did a little bit of the dance with them. And then it turned into a remix of the Russian folk with really hard-hitting, high-energy music. The guys stripped off the shirts and the girls peeled off a layer of their skirts, making them shorter and suddenly there were enormous jumps and lots of floor work (think the Russian routine with Twitch and Josh). It was amazing – a great payoff to the running joke. It was one of my favorite moments of the night and illustrates something I really like about SYTYCD. When something doesn’t work, they don’t hesitate to make fun of themselves and…make it better. Take a “failed routine” and make it something that works. That’s amazing.

Probably another of the highlights was Phillip’s solo. It was longer than *everyone* else’s, including Jeanine and Brandon and he got a standing ovation from the audience. His face was priceless, as it always is. Brandon got people out of the seats with his solo, but I have to say that Phillip did it first and did it best.

There were dozens of wonderful moments throughout the night, but those are just some of my standouts.

Then, waiting in the cold. And wouldn’t you know it, every single dancer who’d met me in the afternoon remembered me! How cool is that? I was pretty starstruck over Evan, though I tried to be cool. After all, I’m 15 years older than the 12 year old girl who was standing next to me – who almost fainted she was so excited to meet Jeanine. She was flustered and giggling and then apologized to Jeanine, who said (classy lady), “Are you kidding me?” in this tone that clearly said, “you’re why I do this.” It was late and all of the dancers were so warm and took their time. Many of them climbed onto the barricade and leaned over to take pictures with their fans who were a bit farther back. They did everything they could to get to us, which was nice.

Just past me, Evan was really sweet to a 5 year old whose birthday was in 20 minutes, according to her mom (it was late). And he was definitely nice to me – we took a picture of our wrist tattoos (his is “brother” in Greek of course and mine is “I’ll see you later” in Russian, which contains some of the Greek alphabet and looks similar).

Ade is my mom’s favorite and she insisted on waiting for him (which I was happy to do). When he came by, she said, “I heard you gave my daughter two hugs earlier this afternoon” and he laughed and hugged her. And then me again.

I had to retrieve my mom’s coat for her and ran to and from the parking lot, so I was really breathless when I got back. Randi had just moved on, but she came back and took a picture with me, giggling with me.

I have to say, seeing Jason again may have been the best of all. I was trying to juggle all of the things in my hands so I could give the camera to my mom and he was hugging on me the whole time and he said, “Hey, I just want to hug you.” Lol. Big flirt. I told him not to get into too much trouble in Miami. Somehow, I don’t think he’ll manage that.

It was a great night, as Amanda said.

Here are some more pictures for you, as promised.

Some surprising news coming out of the SYTYCD world today. If you all haven’t heard, Mia Michaels took to her Twitter yesterday to announce that she’s leaving our beloved show after 5 years. The reaction has been intense. Many people feel that the show won’t be the same without Mia, which is definitely true. Over the seasons, her pieces have been among the most memorable ones ever performed. Just think about these…

-Ashlé and Melody’s Message in a Bottle dance

-Travis and Heidi’s Bench dance

-season 2 group routine to “Hide and Seek”

-Lacey and Kameron’s week 1 contemporary

-her tribute to her father danced by Lacey and Neil

-Danny and Neil’s Dance of the Princes

-Chelsie and Mark’s “what would Tim Burton’s wedding look like?”

-Kherington and Twitch’s dance on the bed

-Katee and Joshua’s Hometown Glory dance

-Twitch and Katee’s Door dance

-Evan and Randi’s Butt dance

-Kupono and Kayla’s Addiction dance

these are a selection of Mia’s best dances, but there are obviously more. It’s pretty obvious this show has meant a lot to Mia, she’s an Emmy winner because of SYTYCD.

For an opposing opinion, check out this article from Entertainment Weekly online, the writer makes some good points about there being plenty of great choreographers that can fill the void left by Mia.

what do you guys think?! is the hole Mia leaves too big to be filled by people like Travis, Benji, and Sonya? And what have been your favorite Mia Michaels pieces over the 5 seasons of SYTYCD?

Hi everybody! I thought I’d talk about the routines that made the list of the 15 best from seasons 1-5. Nigel hosted this great look back at the best of the best from the last five years.

They started with season 1 (obviously) and it’s amazing to look at how barebones the concept of the show was at that point. Two routines were highlighted from season 1. First was Destini and Jamile’s awesome hip-hop routine by Shane Sparks. I didn’t start watching SYTYCD until season 2, so I was thrilled to be able to see this routine that I had heard so much about. It didn’t disappoint, they both hit it hard and everything just worked. The 2nd routine highlighted was Melody and Nick’s “All That Jazz” routine. The music from Chicago has been featured multiple times on the show over the years, but I feel that these 2 best friends (the clip where Nick says to the camera “we’re canoodling!” while he squashes Melody into the sofa is classic) embodied everything about that Fosse style.

Jamile and Destini

Melody and Nick


Read more…

I don’t think that this video will be anything to amazing for fans of So You Think You Can Dance, but it is a nice behind the scenes look at So You Think You Can Dance. Cat does have an interesting backstage ritual. Mary fans will also like to hear about her scream (not me). There is also a few nice moments with Kayla and Brandon, Joshua Allen, and Benji Schwimmer.

Alright Fox, you listening? Good…

So You Think You Can Dance All Stars! Similar to Survivor’s All Stars season, this would have the top 4 of the first five seasons going head to head in an automatic Top Top 20.

Imagine:

Season 1: Nick, Melody, Jamile and Ashle

Season 2: Benji, Travis, Donyelle and Heidi

Season 3: Sabra, Danny, Neil and Lacey

Season 4: Josh, Twitch, Katee and Courtney

Season 5: Jeanine, Ade, Kayla and Evan (my own imaginary, for the moment, top 4)

Dream couples anyone? Oh the routines we’d see!! Who would you love to come back that wasn’t in the top 4 of their season? Personally, for me, I’d really love to see Chelsie, Kherington and Mark from Season 4. Lauren, Kameron, Hok and Pasha from Season 3 (my first season). Caitlin, Randi and Paris from this season dancing with the all stars from seasons past.

You hearing me? Fox? Fans? Dancers? Okay, let’s do it.

As I was watching and posting about the various routines we’ll get to see again on the SYTYCD 100th episode, I couldn’t help but think back to some of my other favorite routines from past episodes of SYTYCD that won’t be shown on the SYTYCD 100th episode. SYTYCD season 1 will have to accept my apology since I didn’t watch it. However, here’s a couple of them that are in my top SYTYCD routines.

So You Think You Can Dance Season 2
Benji Schwimmer and Heidi Groskreutz Mambo to the song “Black Mambo” —Angel and the Mambokats. Benji and Heidi are cousins that have been dancing together forever, and this performance is quite possibly the best routine technically (I believe Nigel called it the “most professional performance on the show) that’s ever been done on the show. Certainly others might have moved you more, but this routine just throws everything at you and flat out entertains. I can also assure you it was one of the most searched routines on Google as well.

I could have posted pretty much any of Allison Holker’s solo, but Allison’s “Feeling Good” solo will do. Anyone that has the term Allison-ed coined in honor of her deserves to be on the list in my book.

While possibly not the best routine on the show, I can promise you that Travis and Martha’s krump routine was shocking at the time. From this routine millions of people were introduced to Lil’ C and Krumping. The song is “Clap Back” —Ja Rule.

I really don’t believe that any of the final 2 men dances could compete with Tranji, choreographed by Shane Sparks to the song “Gyrate” —Da Muzicianz (ft. Mr. Collipark). I think you had to see season 2 to really appreciate what Benji and Travis brought to the table with Tranji, but it was awesome.

So You Think You Can Dance Season 3
Lacey and Kameron danced a routine to the song “Dancing” by Elisa choreographed by Mia Michaels. I think we’re all better having been introduced to the music of Elisa on SYTYCD. This routine put together great music, great choreography and amazing dancing. Is there any wonder why we keep watching SYTYCD?

Neil and Sabra’s table routine was pretty epic as well. It was choreographed by Mandy Moore to the song “Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)” —Eurythmics . I loved this dance, because it really took Sabra to the next level of dancing for me. Plus, Neil’s slow pass over the top of Sabra (at the 0:28 mark) is a moment I’ll never forget.

The start of this Shane Sparks routine to the song “Fuego” by Pitbull with Lauren and Pasha had me completely floored. Shane Sparks took 2 pretty white dancers and really entertained.

Danny and Lacey danced a samba to Dmitry Chaplin’s choreography. Certainly Dmitry poured in a bunch of great choreography and Danny and Lacey killed the dance, but I think the thing that I remember most about this is the music “Hip Hip Chin Chin” by Club Des Belugas. It all just melded into a really fun, memorable dance.

So You Think You Can Dance Season 4
Chelsie and Mark’s “Bleeding Love” routine by Nappytabs needs no explanation.

Sonya busts out an amazing piece for Courtney and Mark to the song “The Garden” by Mirah. Such creative choreography. Courtney steals the show for me in this, but the whole thing is just Sonya.

Katee and Joshua’s Nappytabs routine to “No Air” —Jordin Sparks & Chris Brown had so many amazing moments. It was such a wonderful mix of solo and partnering. Plus, the moment Katee pulls Joshua’s leg and he pops up is so memorable.

Katee and Twitch did a door routine to the song “Mercy” —Duffy and choreographed by Mia Michaels. I actually almost left it off the list, but after watching it again, there’s no way I could leave it off. Twitch and Katee just rocked this routine.

This final video is probably the best Viennese Waltz that will ever be performed on So You Think You Can Dan Dance. I tried to find a video with the back story, but even without Jean Marc Genereux’s storyJean Marc Genereux’s story is great and Twitch and Kherington’s Viennese Waltz to “A New Day Has Come” by Celine Dion is in the running for my favorite SYTYCD dances of all time. When it happened I watched it over and over. Just as good watching it again today.

I just looked at the clock and realized I spent a few hours creating this list. A few hours VERY well spent. The sad part is that there are dozens of other performances that should have made the above list. No Katee Bollywood or Pas de Deux for example. Oh goodness, I better not start listing or I’ll be here all night. So, I’ll leave the list up to you. What other So You Think You Can Dance routines are on your list (and preferably a link to a video of the routine)?

Also, if you’re familiar with all the videos on this list…you might be a SYTYCD-a-holic!!