Personal Favorites From This Season of SYTYCD
Hey everyone! It`s been a really long time since I posted last, so I just wanted to say congratulations to John and his adorable new baby! I wish you and your family the best and may you all be happy and healthy!
This season of So You Think You Can Dance was really one of the best, with so much talent and many awesome dances. There were such amazing dancers that after the Top 12, I didn`t want anyone to leave! In this post I wanted to highlight my favorite performances of the season, and want to hear all of yours as well. 🙂 You can also take a look at Amanda’s post about the judges favorites.
Although each dancer possessed so much potential, I did have my favorites that I rooted for until the very end.
Kayla was by far my favorite and one of the most talented. I know I`m not the only one who feels this way, a lot of the people I have talked to have also voiced this opinion. She should not have been the first to go at the Finale! Her lines were definitely the prettiest, and in all the partner dances, I couldn`t take my eyes off her. I found a lot of the time that the guys she was dancing with had a whole barrel of trouble keeping up wit her and matching her strength. My only problem with her was that her solos were often very desperate and repetitive and a lot of the times I was worried she was going to be booted off because of them. Otherwise, her technique was flawless and she was very purdy. 🙂
My second favorite of course was Jeanine, for obvious reasons. For one, her solos were the greatest. They possessed a quality none of the other solo`s did. Musicality. That may seem like a small thing, but it really makes a huge difference. Those dances are way more appealing and probably one of the reasons she won. In the partner dancers, she was SO hard hitting, and almost always outdid her partner, whoever it was. I`m really happy she won. There is nothing bad I can say about her.
Favorite Solo this season:
My least favorite dancer was probably Vitolio. He was not dynamic or versatile whatsoever, and he didn`t have much of a likeable personality. I was really glad when he got the quickstep, but I loved Karla, and was really sad when she was partenered with him.
Now, onto the performances that I loved the most.
This season was a super good season for Contemporary dances. There were so many good ones, but my favorite one hands down was Evan and Randi`s Contemporary by Mia Michaels. This piece was full of fun, butt 😉 equally balanced out with superb technique and complex sequences. The music only added to the fun atmosphere and if I don`t watch this piece at least 3 times a day I don`t feel right.
Some other noteworthy pieces include:
Jeanine and Jason to If It Kills Me (Jason Mraz) by Travis Wall
Kayla and Kupono to Gravity (Sara Bareilles) by Mia Micheals
Melissa and Ade to This Woman`s Work (Maxwell) by Tyce Diorio
Karla and Jonathan to Falling Slowly (The Frames) by Stacey Tookey
This season also had plenty of mentionable Hip-Hop dances, and it was hard to choose my favorite, but the one I was most enchanted with was Kayla and Jason`s by Shane Sparks. The story in this was just hilarious, and surprising light hearted considering it was about zombies and eating brains. It wasn`t anything too complicated, but fun and entertaining, which, if you think about it, is what the show is about. There were other Hip-Hop dances that were less simple, and more technical, but this was just fun!
Other awesome Hip-Hops:
Randi and Evan to Hal o (Beyonce) by NappyTabs
Janette and Brandon to What A World (Common) by Shane Sparks
Jeanine and Philip to Mad (Ne-Yo) by NappyTabs
Jeanine and Philip to Love Lockdown (Kanye West) by NappyTabs
Other AMAZING dances:
Caitlin and Jason Bollywood to Jai Ho by Nakul
Kayla and Max PopJazz to Hot Like Wow (Nadia O) by Brian Friedman
Janette and Evan Jazz to Move (CSS) by Sonya Tayeh
Group Dance Top 8 Let it Rock by Travis Wall
Group Dance Top 16 I Know You Want Me (Pitbull) by Dmitry Chaplin, Napoleon and Tabitha D’umo
Worst dance of the season:
Jeanine and Philip Russian Folk Dance
Only the choreography, dancing was superb.
That`s it, my favorites of Season 5, looking forward to 6, and SYTYCD Canada starting Tuesday the 11th!!
Nice post Max and welcome back. I’m looking forward to seeing your work on the new SYTYCD Canada site: https://puresytycd.com/canada
The family and baby are doing very well. Luckily, I’ve been able to still do some stuff on here at the same time.
I agree with your assessment of Kayla and Jeanine. However, they were both beautiful and I was fine if either of them won. So, life is good.
The ‘Butt Dance’ was your favorite? That was one of my least favorites. I thought Even look ridiculous in the huge zoot suit (I guess that’s what it was supposed to be?) I do agree though Jeanine ‘Let the Drummer Kick’ was great. She squeezed so many styles into that 30 seconds yet it never seemed rushed or desperate. I wanted it to just kepp going on and on. Her musicality was superb.
My top routine faves were:
Jeanine/Phillip “Chain Dance”
Kayla/Jason ‘Zombie Dance’
Jeanine/Jason “Heart Pendant”
Top 3 Girls “Super Hero”
But honestly, I really enjoyed this season. Not sure why I keep seeing comments about it being lackluster. I thought everyone in the Top 10 (or 12) were all amazing and deserved to be there. I’m looking forward to seeing them all on tour.
1) Kayla/Kupono “Addiction”-Contemporary
2) Jeanine/Brandon-pop jazz w/ Laurie Anne Gibson
3) Kayla/Jason “Zombie” -hip hop
4) Kayla/Brandon – Finale Broadway
5) Jeanine/Jason -Travis Wall Contemporary
6) Kayla/Evan – Viennese Waltz
7) Jeanine/Philip “Mad” – hip hop
8) Brandon/Janette – “Thieves” – pop jazz with Wade
9) Kayla/Max – Samba
10) Kayla/Brandon – contemporary w/ Stacey Tookey
11) Janette/Brandon – cha cha
12) Randi/Evan – “Halo” hip hop
Group routines:
Pitbull routine by Dmitry & NappyTabs
Top 4 pop jazz by Wade
Top 3 girls “Superhero”
these are in no particular order, except the Addiction routine is actually my favorite of the season. so good. And I’m sure I’m leaving some out…but these are the ones that popped in my head.
Oh and Max…..the Janette/Brandon hip hop was choreographed by Dave Scott, not Shane 🙂
I agree–I don’t think that this was a lackluster season at all. It wasn’t my favorite, but I still think it was awesome!
My fav dances of the season:
1) Jeanine/Jason: Travis Wall contemporary
2) Melissa/Ade: Woman’s Work contemporary
3) Jeanine/Brandon: Battlefield pop jazz
4) Melissa/Ade: Rumba
5) Jonathan/Karla: contemporary
6) Evan/Randi: butt dance
7) Kayla/Kupono: Addiction contemporary
8) Jeanine/Philip: mad hip hop
9) Evan/Jeanine: final 4 Heartbreaker with Sonya
10) Jeanine/Brandon: Ruby Blue with Wade Robson
11) Final 4: Wade Robson cheerleaders
12) Jeanine/Philip: broadway (split pants)
13) Group dance (top 16 I think): I know you want me
14) Jeanine/Philip: chain hip hop.
15) Kayla/Brandon: contemporary w/ Stacey
16) Randi/Evan – “Halo” hip hop
17) Top 5 girls Bollywood
I agree about how this season wasn’t weak (once we got into the top 10) at all. The only thing this season lacked was star personalities (Jeanine was the closest to it, but she can’t match up with, say, Twitch).
My Top 10 Favs
1) Kay/Kup: Addiction Piece
2) Kay/Bran: Tookey Piece
3) Kay/Kup: Vampires Piece
4) Kay/Bran: Broadway Piece
5) Jea/Jas: Travis Piece
6) Mel/Ade: Cancer Piece
7) Jan/Bran: Arg Tango
8) Jan/Bran: Robson Piece
9) Jan/Ade: ‘fro-Pick Piece
10) Jea/Evan: Finale Jazz Piece
Honorable Mention: Kay/Max-PopJazz, Jean/Phil- Mad, Kay/Jas- Zombies (not a strong technical HH, but I lol’d pretty hard throughout haha).
As someone previously posted, this season was amazing for Contemporary pieces because they had so many great contemporary dancers in the top 10. It’s pretty obvious from my rankings that I was a big Kayla fan, but that should be no surprise since she dominated all the routines thrown at her to the point where her partner almost seemed nonexistent on stage. She just had so much flow and grace, not to mention the most raw dancing talent (how can anyone forget that flip during the finale Broadway?).
Most Underrated: Kay/Kup Vampires Piece
It’s hard to believe nobody has mentioned this one. I know its chic to hate anything that smells of Twilight right now, but this dance was bomb. The fluidity of this dance, of how the movement of one dancer seemed to have an inertial push onto the movement of the other, gave it an ebb and flow not seen in many of the other routines. Also, the leaps and kicks were phenomenal.
Most Overrated: Tie between Mel/Ade Cancer Piece, Kay/Bran Disco, and Jean/Bran Paso Doble.
These dances were all great, but they were SO overrated.
The Cancer piece was danced well, but an emotional response of that magnitude was totally unwarranted. This dance depended too much on the Cancer theme for its power, which irked me.
The Disco was one of the few Kayla dances that I didn’t like. It was clumsily done and there was too much lifting that broke with the groove of the dance. Brandon was really laboring to pick up Kayla, and the double “death-drop” was just a bad idea (Kayla almost fell over trying to spin Brandon). I felt this was mostly the choreographer’s fault since you can’t give Brandon a faster version of the Bran/Jan disco (which was great) with more lifts when dealing with a partner now probably 30 pounds heavier and 8 inches taller.
The Paso Doble was decent, but there is no way you give that much applause to a routine where the only thing they did exceptionally well was gesture strongly and make angry faces. Danced well, but vastly overrated.
I thought this was a very strong season for dancing.
I loved the dance choreographed by Travis and was so happy for him; he remains my favourite SYTYCD dancer ever.
I also really enjoyed the Butt dance – Mia’s choreography was really different from anything else we’ve seen on the show – the Kayla/Kupono addiction routine, and the Stacey Tookey (Kayla/Brandon) routine.
I would put Kayla right near the top of my list of favourite dancers from all seasons (with Travis and Danny), just as Adam Shankman did. When she was on stage, I couldn’t take my eyes off of her. Jeannine is also an excellent dancer and I had no issues at all with her winning, but I was very disappointed that Nigel made it so clear who he wanted to win (Jeanine or Brandon) . After a full season of tellling Kayla how everything she did was wonderful, all of a sudden he spent the last show before the finale telling her she hadn’t shown enough personality throughout the season. I felt sorry for Kayla, and angry at Nigel for working so hard to influence the voting.
Kayla, I pretty much echo your ranking of the top dances of the season. The one dance that no one has mentioned yet, however, is Ashley and Kupono’s crazy crash test dummy jazz piece by Wade Robson. Freaking amazing, everything about it. I guess it fell off the radar because neither made it to top ten, but it’s still an amazing piece. I also thought Stacey Tookey’s first piece (the one with Karla and Jonathan) was better than the second (the one with Kayla and Brandon.) Although both were good, of course!
Lil’ Sea, I just wanted to throw in a comment supporting Melissa and Ade’s “cancer” piece. It is true that the strength of the piece comes from the performance of it instead of the choreography, but I don’t think that means it is a weak dance. In fact, a dance so rooted in emotion is more difficult than one that is more technically challenging, because you don’t really have much technique to hide behind. Beyond that, Melissa did do a really good job – particularly the one part when she was just flailing against Ade, beating her fists against his chest and kicking her feet of-so-gracelessly. It was a perfect picture of rage against fate, against God, against disease. Beautiful. That said, I don’t really want to see the piece again…because I know it CAN’T be performed to that level again, and anything less would just make it insipid.