Welcome to Pure So You Think You Can Dance

Nigel Lythgoe was on FOX 5 Atlanta talking about auditions for SYTYCD season 6 (which premieres this fall). So You Think You Can Dance auditions are going on in Atlanta right NOW with Nigel, Mary Murphy and Lil C. In this video, Nigel says there is a lot of good hip hop and street dancing in Atlanta. He also gives us some where are they now updates on past contestants on So You Think You Can Dance Joshua, Twitch, Kherington, Neil and more. Anchor Suchita Vadlamani also asked about Nigel’s Tweet where he referred to one of the current SYTYCD season’s audition moments as “brokeback ballroom.”

I must admit that I’m not really big into spoilers. I usually try to avoid them. That’s why I have to avoid my Pure SYTYCD twitter account so the east coast doesn’t ruin it for me. However, I know that many of my readers love to read So You Think You Can Dance spoilers. So, here’s a link to some pretty good discussion of who’s made it to SYTYCD 2009 las vegas and who is confirmed as the So You Think You Can Dance 2009 top 20.

Personally, I like to be surprised and guess who the top 20 are going to be without spoilers. However, I don’t mind (and kind of enjoy) spoilers about the audition shows. For example, SYTYCDism posted these SYTYCD spoilers for tonight’s episode:

- Asuka Kondoh [and her partner Ricky]
- Rey Barcena
- The Return of Sex
- Adam Shankman’s audition
- Joshua Allen, Katee Shean, Comfort Fedoke, Lauren Gottlieb cameos
and much more!

I also saw that Nigel said on his twitter feed that Sex won’t be back after we see what happens tonight at the Seattle auditions. Nigel also leaked that there would be a “battle” tonight that made him laugh. I hope the battle is with sex and a posse of past SYTYCD alumni who just dance circles around him. That would be fun to watch.

I hope Adam Shankman doesn’t make it through to Las Vegas. Except maybe as a judge. I don’t mind him behind the desk. Although, him auditioning is a rip off of Dance Wars (I think that’s the one) where Nick Lachey (sp?) auditioned for the show.

Mark, Katee, Courtney, Kherington, Josh, and Gev headed on to the Ellen DeGeneres show to celebrate the premiere of So You Think You Can Dance season 5. What a great way to start So You Think You Can Dance 2009. Nice to see a bunch of familiar faces as well:

Man, I fogot how much I loved Kherington. This video didn’t have enough Kherington for me. Not to mention Josh and Katee together. That was beautiful and cute little Courtney was great too. Let’s hope season 5 of So You Think You Can Dance is just as amazing.

A big thanks to Selly from Dance Outlook for sending us the following writeup about the So You Think You Can Dance Tour visit to Kansas City. If you have been to a different city and have pictures, videos or want to write about your experience, then let us know. About one more month left for the So You Think You Can Dance tour and there are still tickets available for future tour stops.

Without further ado, here’s Selly’s experience and pictures from the So You Think You Can Dance Kansas City tour stop:
On Wednesday night, I attended the 2008 SYTYCD Tour at Sprint Center in Kansas City. I had amazing seats (thanks to presale) in the 5th row. I actually enjoyed the show more than I expected to. This has been my least favorite season, but I had a lot of fun seeing all of the dances live. I didn’t take notes, so this isn’t going to be a formal review by any means, but just some general notes/comments.

Kherington needs to close her mouth. Instead of smiling at inappropriate times like she did on the show, most of her facial expressions are approximately :O This was actually one of the first things I noticed during the show.

After the requisite video montage of Nigel’s Top 5 “memorable” (aka bad) auditions, the dancers came out and performed Shane Sparks’s Elevator group number.

The dancers were introduced and did mini-solos. They then re-introduced themselves live. Katee then said that she would not be performing at all that night due to injury. I knew she had hurt her back, but I still had hope for at least the Will/Katee Complexions Pas De Deux or at least No Air.

Twitchington performed first with their “We’re Escaped Convicts” hip hop by Napoleon and Tabitha. Among other dances, they did a “world tour” of dance styles from around the world featuring Thayne and Chelsie’s Cha Cha, Josh and Twitch’s Trepak which Gev introduced in Russian (and a dress), Courtney and Mark’s Viennese Waltz (once again, Gev wore a dress), and the group Bollywood number.

Some of the highlights of the night for me were Bleeding Love, Five Guys Named Moe, The Garden, The Dance, Twitchington’s “Bed” contemporary (which I have rose petals from in my purse), Money Money, and pretty much anything involving Chelsea H., Courtney, or Mark.

Despite the odd facial expression, I was actually really impressed by Kherington. Because all of the dances involving Katee except for group numbers were cut, some “emergency backup dances” were added in addition to the ones on the normal set list. These included Courtney and Josh’s Frankenstein hip hop (which I have no recollection of ever seeing before), Courtney and Gev’s Rumba, Jessica and Will’s “Shirt” contemporary, Marksie’s Kiss Kiss jazz and Twitchington’s Too Darn Hot Broadway.

I think there were a coupe other Courtney dances added, too. Because Katee did not perform, Jessica King did her solo which I was not at all impressed with. I know there’s a lot I haven’t talked about, but it’s really hard to remember everything. However, if you have any specific questions, it would probably make it a lot easier for me to come up with an answer than to post every single little detail that I can dredge up.

At one of the merchandise stands, I bought a tour t-shirt (just the regular one, not anything dancer-specific), leggings, and a program, all of which were ridiculously overpriced, but super cute. People were going crazy with grabbing fake money, rose petals, and confetti when they swept the stage off. I managed to grab some rose petals and ended up with a random lost bobby pin from the stage in an attempt to get confetti.

I took a lot of pictures before intermission, when my camera
conveniently died, but I’m fairly sure my camera is broken. They all
turned out massively blurry and most of them had weird lines across
them. I tried to pick out some of the better ones though.

Stay on your toes,

Selly from Dance Outlook

I was thinking about Wade Robson winning an Emmy and it reminded me of the Burning Room routine that Katee and Joshua(Season 4) performed for the final four episode. This piece is so beautiful and full of raw emotion. I thought you might like to see it again and see the inspiration they used for their performance.

Before Wade Robson set this piece on Josh & Katee for SO YOU THINK YOU CAN DANCE, he created the original version on his beautiful dancers from his Cirque Du Soleil/Criss Angel BELIEVE show. He then decided to shoot a short film of two of his dancers that really connected with the piece, Ben Susak & Pam Chu. This was Josh and Katee’s inspirational guide. Enjoy

Burning Room-Josh and Katee – Season 4 – Final Four Episode

I’m sure all you Joshua Allen fans are going to love watching this video.

Here’s the videos from the SYTYCD finale eliminations.

Video of So You Think You Can Dance Finale – First Elimination

Courtney Galiano was eliminated to the song “It’s Only Life”—Kate Voegele

Video of So You Think You Can Dance Finale – Second Elimination

Katee Shean was eliminated to the song “From Where You Are”—Lifehouse

Video of So You Think You Can Dance Finale – Final Elimination

Along the same lines as my previous SYTYCD Finale posts, here’s all the judges favorite videos from the final results show.

Nigel Lythgoe’s Pick
Katee Shean and Joshua Allen danced Bollywood to the song “Dhoom Taana” from Om Shanti Om choreographed by Nakul Dev Mahajan

Video of So You Think You Can Dance Finale – Joshua & Katee

Mary Murphy’s pick
Katee Shean and Stephen “Twitch” Boss danced Contemporary to the song “Mercy”—Duffy choreographed by Mia Michaels

– Original Music Video
Video of So You Think You Can Dance Finale – Katee & Twitch

Top 5 Male dancers group dance to the song “Five Guys Named Moe” from Five Guys Named Moe (Broadway; Choreographer: Nigel Lythgoe)

Video of So You Think You Can Dance Finale – The Top 5 Guys

Adam Shankman’s Pick
Courtney Galiano and Mark Kanemura danced Jazz to the song “The Garden”—Mirah choreographed by Sonya Tayeh

Video of So You Think You Can Dance Finale – Courtney & Mark

Video of So You Think You Can Dance Finale – Katee & Will

Lil C’s Pick
Chelsie Hightower and Mark Kanemura danced Hip-Hop to the song “Bleeding Love”—Leona Lewis choreographed by Napoleon D’umo and Tabitha D’umo

– Original Music Video
Video of So You Think You Can Dance Finale – Chelsie & Mark

Adam Shankman’s pick
Comfort Fedoke and Stephen “Twitch” Boss danced Hip-hop to the song “Forever”—Chris Brown choreographed by Dave Scott

– Original Music Video
Video of So You Think You Can Dance Finale – Comfort & Twitch

Mary Murphy’s Pick
Courtney Galiano and Gev Manoukian danced Rumba to the song “Wishing on a Star”—Rose Royce choreographed by Tony Meredith and Melanie LaPatin

Video of So You Think You Can Dance Finale – Courtney & Gev

Nygel Lythgoe’s pick
Katee Shean and Joshua Allen danced Hip-hop to the song “No Air”—Jordin Sparks & Chris Brown choreographed by Napoleon D’umo and Tabitha D’umo

Video of So You Think You Can Dance Finale – Katee & Joshua

Debbie Allen’s pick
Kherington Payne and Stephen “Twitch” Boss danced Viennese waltz to the song “A New Day Has Come”—Celine Dion choreographed by Jean-Marc Genereux

– Original Music Video

Congratulations to Joshua Allen! A well deserved win and I couldn’t be happier. Ever since Joshua made the top 20, there was a certain humility about him that I found very endearing. Looks like America did too.

However, let’s dig a little deeper into why I think Joshua won this year’s So You Think You Can Dance. The fact is that maybe it wasn’t so much what Joshua did, but what others did that led Joshua to the win. For example, I really think that America didn’t like the fact that Twitch was in Hairspray. America loves an underdog and Twitch was the supreme come back kid. Twitch was Rocky coming back for another fight after being knocked down how many years in a row. Unfortunately, I think that his underdog polish was smeared when people found out he’d been in Hairspray.

Katee Shean was a beautiful dancer and certainly a joy to watch. I wonder if she wasn’t too good. I only say that, because she was so good that the judges just absolutely gushed over her. The only question is whether Katee fans just thought Katee had it in the bag and decided not to vote or whether all the gushing over Katee made Twitch and Joshua fans get out and vote even more. Either way, at least Katee went home with $50k. That should ease her pain of being third a little.

Courtney Galiano, well I honestly don’t know why she didn’t do better, but America just didn’t like her as much as the others. My mother absolutely adored her, but unfortunately my mother doesn’t pick up the phone and vote. I guess Courtney needed to target a little bit younger demographic of voters.

Of course, I think Joshua actually was given a gift by the producers of So You Think You Can Dance that pushed him over the top. Joshua was seen as this likable, humble, strong man. As a street dancer he can certainly play the underdog card really well, but yesterday’s episode he hit it out of the park.

During Joshua’s segment he told a true underdog story about a guy (Joshua) who came from humble means, but wanted to dance so much that he’d clean the dance studio in order to pay for lessons. Sounds like something right out of a movie, no? All of America took Joshua under their arms and voted so they could make this great American story have it’s fairy tale ending.

I really don’t think there’s much argument that Joshua Allen was a great dancer and was very deserving of the prize of America’s Greatest Dancer. However, after the success of my top 4 SYTYCD poll, I thought it would be fun to put a couple polls up to see how readers of this site would vote for their FAVORITE dancer and then for the BEST dancer.

Here’s the poll for your FAVORITE So You Think You Can Dance season 4 dancer.

Here’s the poll for the BEST So You Think You Can Dance season 4 dancer.