Introducing Your Season 8 All-Stars
Tonight’s Top 10 episode is going to rock, not least of which because it’s the first time we’ll see the Top 10 dance with the All-Stars.
First, we have Melody Lacayanga, the Season 1 runner-up. I chose her disco with SYTYCD Canada judge/choreographer Blake McGrath because I don’t normally go for disco and this Doriana Sanchez disco was fun. I didn’t watch Season 1, but looking back over the season, it seems like Melody’s partners tended to get eliminated a lot. I hope this doesn’t happen to her Season 8 partners!
Allison Holker from Season 2 was an All-Star last season and had some phenomenal routines. I’m going to resist my urge to find videos from last season and instead give you something from her original season. Here is her Alex da Silva Argentine tango with her original partner Ivan Koumaev.
Pasha Kovalev was also an All-Star from last season and I am NOT going to show you the phenomenal tango he did with winner Lauren Froderman. No, I am NOT. I’m going to stick with first seasons and show you him “out of his element,” dancing Mandy Moore jazz with Sara von Gillem.
Yet another All-Star from last season, Twitch Boss was originally the runner-up from Season 4. Chelsie Hightower, who was also from Season 4, was scooped up by DWTS along with Lacey Schwimmer, danced this fun Nappytabs hip hop with Twitch during their season.
Comfort Fedoke, also from Season 4 and also an All-Star last season, also danced with Twitch. Instead of showing you that video, I’m going to show you dancing with Mark Kanemura, Chelsie’s partner for most of the season, in another awesome Nappytabs hip hop.
Brandon Bryant was the runner-up of Season 5. I so want to show you his Wade Robson jazz with Janette, but Margaret showed that video in her All-Star post (same reason I didn’t show Pasha & Sara’s West Coast Swing). So instead, I’ll show you their Dave Scott hip hop, where they were both “out of their comfort zones.”
As an All-Star last season, Kathryn McCormick danced so much with Robert that I could just give you one video for both of them. However, let me show you Kathryn in her Season 6 glory (she came in 3rd), especially since her season didn’t get their own tour. So here she is, with runner-up Jakob Carr in a contemporary routine choreographed by Desmond Richardson and Dwight Rhoden.
Season 7’s Robert Roldan (3rd in his season) has already danced once in Season 8, with Caitlynn Lawson, so he was already an All-Star as far as I was concerned. Because the All-Stars started at Top 20 last season, most of his dances are with Kathryn or another All-Star. I wanted to show you his Dee Caspary contemporary with winner Lauren Froderman, but it wouldn’t embed. Instead, I’ll show you their Dmitri Chaplin (Season 2 and DWTS) samba because it’s fun and they were both out of their element.
Chelsie’s only going to be an All-Star for tonight’s episode and it sounds like they may switch up the All-Stars from week to week. It’ll be interesting to see who else they bring on board and all of the great routines that result. Also, I haven’t ever seen it confirmed, but Allison and Twitch may be dating and it’ll be interesting to see them together as All-Stars again. Also, I’m dying to see our Georgia peaches, Kathryn and Season 8’s Melanie Moore dance together. You know what else I’d love to see? I’d love to see a current contestant dancing with an All-Star and choreographed by another SYTYCD alumni. That would be awesome. 🙂
Are they any Season 8 contestant/All-Star pairings you’re dying to see?
You’re fabulous Emilie! I totally failed at putting this post up. I came home from NYC and my computer, already on it’s last legs, totally gave out on me. I’ve now gotten a new one, but in the craziness I blanked on putting this post up. You picked every dance I would have picked, we’re totally on the same wavelength! Kathryn’s dance w/ Jakob is one of my absolute favorites of the whole series, how it didn’t make EW.com’s Top 25 list is beyond me! I’d add, for Melody, her broadway number with Nick, real true classic broadway, no frills just great dancing.
@Margaret: I was channeling you! I mean, would the Emilie we know and love have picked disco??!?!? lol. It gave me an excuse to avoid work – it’s always fun to go back and enjoy some classic SYTYCD routines. Hope your computer situation works out before school starts again!
@ Emilie
You mentioned Margaret’s posting last week of the top 25 SYTYCD routines, which my wife and I used to watch several from earlier years that we hadn’t seen.
Given that everyone would make some substitutions (we would certainly include Melissa and Ade’s breast cancer routine), it was interesting to look at the distributions of these 50 slots versus where the dancers finished in their season. Eliminating the 5 “All-Star” slots from Season 7 left 45. First through fourth place finishers had 27 (60%) of the slots. That makes sense – top performers producing top routines. But that also means 40% of the slots were from lower finishing dancers, which just shows the strength of the dancers who don’t make the Final 4. This is also borne out by looking at this years “All-Stars”, where 4 of the 9 were not in the Top 4 of their season.
There are a lot of incredibly talented dancers passing through this show.
@Lee: Thanks for the stats! Yeah, I was thinking about that as I put together the post. It seems SYTYCD is a bit like American Idol in that the most memorable dancers with the strongest careers aren’t always the top finishers. While I have confidence we’ll continue to see LoFro, Sabra has been extremely low-key since she won Season 3. While she’s probably still dancing, we almost never get to see her anywhere. Yet, Lacey Schwimmer, Lauren Gottlieb, Neil Haskell, Pasha Kovalev and Dominic Sandoveal, all also from Season 3, are having stand out careers and are still highly visible.
aww I’m flattered! In terms of what else I’d like to see, if Nigel is switching out some of the all-stars, I’d really like to see another hip hopper in there, my vote is Joshua from S4.
I’d like to see Kherrington back on the SYTYCD stage.
Does anyone know what song is played when a guy gets eliminated from the show? For the girls it’s “Waiting outside the lines” by Grayson Chance. I don’t know what the boys song is, though, and its driving me insane!!!
@Johanna: We always list the music. Season 8’s music can be found here: https://puresytycd.com/tag/sytycd-season-8-music/ The song you’re looking for is Sharif Iman’s “Shine” –