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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?

First of all, hello, I am Mandy and I am from Vancouver Canada and post on http://www.puresytycd.com/canadasite regularly but will be posting periodically here on the USA site also.

That being said, I have to tell you how thrilled I was to see Canadian Choreographers Maria Torres (an American but was on SYTYCD Canada show), Stacey Tookey, and newcomers Gustavo Vargas and Sean Cheesman, who have done some amazing stuff for the Canadian show.

I’d like to touch on each of these wonderful choreographers throughout the week, but for now, let’s look at the AMAZING Sean Cheesman.

Sean Cheesman choreographing on last weeks show was a great surprise for me. He is one of my favourite judges and choreographers on SYTYCD Canada and has brought so much greatness to our Canadian Show.

His Afrojazz routine for Noelle & Russell  was amazing and in my opinion one of the best of the evening.

They danced to “Frog Dance” -by Mickey Hart & Planet Drum, and Sean Cheeseman threw in all his tricks, really showcasing his  amazing choreography and giving Noelle and Russell a much needed spotlight.

I am so glad to see him choreogrpah on SYTYCD as it has a wider audience than SYTYCD Canada.  I really hope they invite him back for more this season and in the future seasons too as he is truly an awesome choreographer.

Sean Cheesman’s bio reads:

Calgary native Sean Cheesman is an internationally-renowned director/choreographer who has worked with some of the world’s top entertainers, including Michael Jackson, Janet Jackson, TLC, Prince, Vanessa Williams, Tina Turner, Whitney Houston, Queen Latifah, and Britney Spears.

Cheesman has toured with Janet Jackson as a choreographer and dancer and subsequently choreographed tours for Prince. Cheesman appeared in and choreographed the film The Bodyguard and most recently was the host and lead judge of the U.K. television series Dirty Dancing: Time of Your Life.

Sean just completed choreographing the largest stage revue show in Berlin, Germany.

He is also the recipient of numerous awards, including two MTV awards for choreography, a “What’s on Stage” theatre award for the West-End musical Daddy Cool, and was also nominated for a Bob Fosse choreography award.

Finally, things get back to normal in the SYTYCD-verse. Two episodes this week!!

SYTYCD Season 6 Top 16 Routines Music -

Maria Torres hustle (Karen & Kevin): “Come to Me” -France Joli

Mandy Moore jazz (Ashleigh & Jakob): “Relax” -Frankie Goes to Hollywood

JT & Tomas dreaded quickstep (Pauline & Peter): “Hey Baby! (Shake Those Hula Hips)” -Big Kahuna & The Copa Cat Pack

Andy Blankenbuehler great Broadway (Kathryn & Legacy): “I Wanna Be Like You” -Swingin’ Fireballs

Stacey Tookey contemporary (Channing & Victor): “Be Be Your Love” KCRW version -Rachael Yamagata

Lil C hip hop (Elleanore & Ryan): “Lost Boiz Anthem” -Tha J-Squad (not on iTunes – try “Stop That” )

Gustavo Vargas salsa (Mollee & Nathan): “Quimbara” -Celia Cruz & Johnny Pacheco

Sean Cheesman Afrojazz (Noelle & Russell): “Frog Dance” -Mickey Hart & Planet Drum

Hi friends!
courtesy of Idolforums.com and our friends at SYTYCDism, here are the preliminary top 16 spoilers, I will update them as I find out more!

**spoilers after the jump**

Read more…

We still don’t get to vote this week – next week, we’ll get a full meal of SYTYCD – Tuesday performance show and Wednesday result show. I’m still a little glad that the judges are making the tough early decisions. We’ll see if they make the right one (unlike last week…)

Here are some of my thoughts from tonight’s show [SOME SPOILERS]:
Read more…

I can’t wait to see what phenomenal routines and music the Top 18 show brings. If you missed anything from earlier episodes, check out the previous SYTYCD season 6 music.

SYTYCD Season 6 Top 18 Couples Music

Jamal Sims tennis hip hop (Noelle & Russell): “Move, Shake, Drop” -DJ Laz, Flo Rida, Cassley

Tony & Melanie’s wedding dance/Viennese waltz (Ashleigh & Jakob): “At Last” -Etta James

Tyce Diorio’s filled with God Broadway (Bianca & Victor): “Maybe God Is Tryin to Tell You Somethin’” – from The Color Purple (not on iTunes, but try this version  from The San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus and Transcendence Gospel Choir)

Nakul Dev Mahajan’s cinematic Bollywood routine (Mollee & Nathan): “Azeem O Shaan Shahensha” -Jodhaa Akbar

Tony & Melanie’s samba (Channing & Phillip): “Maracatu Funk” -The Samba Squad

Nappytabs’ entirely unsubtle (and awesome!) hip hop (Karen & Kevin): “Ice Cream Paint Job” -Dorrough

Stacey Tookey’s contemporary “fear” routine (Kathryn & Legacy): “2 Steps Away” -Patti LaBelle

Wade Robson’s Van Gogh’s torment jazz routine (Pauline & Peter): “Little Green Bag” -George Baker Selection

Miriam & Leonardo Argentine tango (Elleanore & Ryan): “Violentango” -Astor Piazolla

SYTYCD Season 6 Top 18 Solo Music

Read more…

In our ongoing series of choreography “EmMandy” Awards, here’s the award for “Best New Choreographer” from So You Think You Can Dance season 5 (winner is in Bold). Take a look at the other SYTYCD Season 5 “EmMandy” Awards.

“Best New Choreographer”

• Stacy Tookey
• Travis Wall
• Youri Nelzine and Lilia Babenko (the Russian Folk people)

I picked Stacy because I really see her making history of SYTYCD. Her “Falling Slowly” really should have been on the finale, and both of her pieces deserved much more praise than they were given. I love her style’s fluidity and how she endows each movement with purpose. I also see Travis making a name for himself, but I think most of this is due to his “alumnus” status. Would people be lauding his name as much if he wasn’t a former contestant? The Russian Folk choreographers are mostly on there because I couldn’t remember any other new choreographers. Max had said earlier that the choreography made the dance the “worst of the season”, but I have to disagree. I blame the style of dance for its lack of an enthusiastic reception. The choreography was textbook Russian Folk and I can find nothing that breaks the cardinal rules of choreography (dynamics, energy, force).

In our ongoing series of choreography “EmMandy” Awards, here’s the award for “Best Choreographer” from So You Think You Can Dance season 5 (winner is in Bold). Take a look at the other SYTYCD Season 5 “EmMandy” Awards.

“Best Choreographer” (group of work)

• Tyce Diorio
• Mia Michaels
• Wade Robson
• Tabitha and Napolean
• Louis Van Amstel
• Sonya Tayeh

My criteria for this category was story-line, musicality, music choice and innovativeness. These guys are choreography powerhouses. Not only do they include an interesting and novel story-line, but they always have flawless musicality and really bring the music to life. Plus they continuously seem to be re-defining hip-hop as a style. Louis had the most dances in the finale, but none of them pushed the boundaries of Ballroom enough to be called innovative. But I do want to mention Mia’s impeccable music choice for “Gravity”—it brought new meaning to a song that the artist has said is about her “first big heartbreak”.

Hi, everyone! I’m Mandy, the brand-new choreography expert here at Pure SYTYCD. When Season 6 kicks off, I’ll be doing weekly posts about the a-mazing choreography on the show, including the auditions and solos.

But since Season 5 has ended, instead of going week-by-week to share my opinions, I’ve chosen to highlight the best of the best, and the worst of the worst. It’s kinda like our very own “Outstanding Choreography” Emmy awards, but with lots of sub-categories!

Hopefully we’ll be able to set up a voting system when we do this again at the end of season 6, but for now I’ve selected my personal “winners”. Feel free to post yours in the comments section.

So without further ado… (winners in bold)

“Best Choreography”

• Tabitha and Napolean D’umo, “Mad” (Jeanine and Phillip)
• Wade Robson, “Crash Test Dummies” (Ashley and Kupono)
• Stacey Tookey, “Falling Slowly” (Karla and Jonathan)
• Mia Michaels, “Addiction” (Kayla and Kupono)
• Travis Wall, “If it Kills Me” (Jeanine and Jason)
• Tyce Diorio, “This Woman’s Work (Melissa and Ade)

I chose this piece because it contains everything a moving piece of work should—a solid, provoking story-line efficiently and beautifully moved along by the choreography, phrases that highlight and play on the dancers strengths, and true musicality. The other nominees either had a great story but didn’t move it along as well (Falling Slowly, This Woman’s Work) or didn’t fit the music well enough to really hit a chord with the viewer (Addiction, Crash Test). All of them, however, were standouts of the season and will be remembered for years to come. (The addiction dance was my personal favorite though)

Keep watching Pure SYTYCD. Over the next week we’ll be awarding the SYTYCD Best Choreographer, Best New Choreographer, Most Innovative Concept, Strangest/Worst Carried-out Concept, Best Prop, and Best Group Dance.

Well here we are. Probably the most important power rankings of the whole season. And on one hand, the most obvious and on the other, the most baffling.

According to John’s SYTYCD top 6 poll the last time I checked, you’ve ranked the contestants thusly: Kayla, Jeanine, Brandon, Ade, Evan and Melissa with each of the pairs being fairly close (i.e. Kayla and Jeanine not too far apart), but with some pretty large gaps between them (i.e., the difference between the K/J pairing and the B/A pairing and…biggest of all, the E/M pairing).

Before last night’s show, I was prepared to count Evan out of the Final 4. Not because that’s my personal choice, but because it really seemed like his fan base was dwindling a bit (does this relate to the absence of Brother Blogs for a few weeks?) while Ade and Brandon were picking up steam.

But. I anticipate a lot of debate, because I have to go with my gut here.

1. Jeanine: As one commenter said, she seems to be in the majority of people’s best guesses for Top 4. Her samba wasn’t her best performance, but she did well and the both of them showed a lot of charm and personality throughout. Her solo wasn’t spectacular or much different than her others, but it was cute. And then there was that great Nappytabs hip hop about getting evicted where she successfully jumped through Ade’s scissoring legs. And then, I really got the feeling that Sonya gave her a lot of “center stage” time in the group piece, she really stood out to me (as did Cat and Nigel’s comments about her costume, after). I think she’s the best combo of skill and personality this season, so she’s my pick to win and my first guess for the Top 4.

2. Kayla: She’s started to show a lot more personality, slowly but surely and she’s always been pretty precise. Some people don’t dig her, but a lot of people do. Her Stacey Tookey contemporary with Brandon really impressed me and I thought these two “cold” dancers actually brought out a lot in each other. Her solo was nothing new and a bit boring, but it was a’right. I didn’t love the disco as much, but then I never do. Sorry, y’all. This one almost one me over in the first half, but then got really awkward at the end, where it seemed like most of the time they were pausing to set up jumps and lifts and not actually dancing. My mom and I debate heartily over disco.

So these are the two I feel fairly confident about. Let me talk about the girl I think is going home:

-Melissa: Beginning with her Broadway with Evan and through her solo, I was digging Melissa a bit more than I had before, wondering if I’d given her a raw deal. And then there came the quickstep OF DOOM! DOOM! DOOM! (Sorry, there’s an echo in here). I was actually pretty happy with their performance. But you know what? Melissa LOST me when she seemed to be throwing Evan under the bus. She admitted in the intro video that she doesn’t trust him and she didn’t say this in a way that indicated it was something *she* needed to improve on. And has anybody noticed she seems to roll her eyes a lot – check out the intro video for the girls’ routine if you don’t believe me. She’s had a good run on the show, but now I’m ready for her to go.

The top 2 boys are a really tough call. Really, really tough. And no matter what I say, there’s going to be some heated disagreement (which I’m excited to see, bring it on!), so I’m going with my gut here.

1. Evan: I think he didn’t just “stay visible” as Lil C said. I couldn’t stop watching him! I agree with Nigel that he stood out for me in Sonya’s group number. His Broadway was fun and strong. I honestly felt like he probably spent a lot of energy helping Melissa shine in the piece. While he didn’t switch up his solo either, I loved the enormous flip across the stage that he did. And, he’s “dancing bigger,” all the time. I love the commenter who pointed out that Brandon’s not much taller than Evan, who’s been getting all the “short guy” heat. Clearly, Evan isn’t as muscular as Brandon, so perhaps that has something to do with it.  When I heard that Melissa and Evan had the dreaded quickstep OF DOOM! DOOM! DOOM! (dern echo!), I was very, very, very worried. But they did a good job and it was enjoyable. All in all, I feel like Evan had a strong night in both his dancing and his personality. With Ryan rallying with a new, great Brother Blog and then certain other issues with the other contestants…I think we might find Evan in the finale. I just love watching him dance, so how can I not predict that? It IS America’s Favorite Dancer and I think a lot of people just really enjoy Evan, as I do.

2. Ade: His work in the group number was solid. He wasn’t as strong as he could have been on his second Latin dance this season, but even so, I enjoyed him and Jeanine in their samba. He’s been picking up steam all season. Again, his solo wasn’t terribly new (to him), but it showed us his style. And then that Nappytabs hip hop with Jeanine, which was just pure pleasure to watch. Probably the stand out routine of the night (the group routines and the Tookey contemporary are the only other standouts to me). He’s become such a front runner for me over the course of the season, from someone I never really paid any attention to, to somebody I’d love to see dance whenever I get the chance.

-Brandon: He’s picked up some steam in the last few weeks, so I may be really wrong about him going home this week. However, while I tend to enjoy his dancing, he seems really cocky and arrogant to me and I just don’t like it. One of the commenters pointed out that he doesn’t seem to be really generous to his partners (though I think he sensed a bond with Kayla, so maybe it was different with her), and that really nailed it for me, that ambiguous thing that wasn’t working for me about Brandon. I lost a lot of liking for him in between Vegas week (with Natalie, it has to be said) and Top 20, it almost seemed like he shut down his personality a bit. Then, there’s the fact that the judges stood for his solo, Nigel called it the best on the show, but *no one* was fooled that it was his audition routine all over again. It’s a pretty awesome routine and of course, with the music and the little to no clothing, he pulled out all the stops to demonstrate he wants to be in the Final 4. But when it comes down to it, I don’t think his messy disco and his fabulous contemporary and all of this calculated arrogance-humility is going to be enough. I may be completely wrong here, but this is what my gut says.

I think a Jeanine, Kayla, Evan, Ade finale will be pretty fascinating to watch and I’d be sorry if any of them left.