Free SYTYCD Newsletter Want to receive the latest news on So You Think You Can Dance sent straight to your email? Join hundreds of other SYTYCD fans who subscribe to Pure SYTYCD for FREE!

Vegas Week: Part One

First off let me just start out by saying that the next round of auditions are back in Las Vegas, besides Vegas Week is more fun to say. With the format change I was somewhat unsure as to what to expect from this week. I do like that they kept the teams separated and it seemed to allow the dancers a little more time to rest…well if they were actually able too. Travis and tWitch join the judges to see their team for the first time. While they don’t have a say in who stays or goes, they can offer the judges there input.

ROUND 1: One minute solos.
One minute really isn’t enough time to really show what you got, so the dancers needed to have their A game ready. The static thing going on with the sound while trying to watch this first part.

ROUND 2: Choreography

Team Stage is up first and they get to learn a contemporary piece from their own mentor Travis Wall. Since it was Travis’s choreography, he seemed to act more as a judge.

Team Street takes on the choreography of Jamal Sims. Here’s where things get a little rough. Many of the street dancers are freestyle and have never tried to learn choreography. So the first round was almost a blood bath…well for the guys anyways. The girls out shined many of the guys and began to agree with tWitch, that his team could be made up of all girls, Nigel, definitely lit a fire under them with some tough love.

Round 3:

Team Stage had an hour to learn a tough Broadway routine from “On The Town” choreographer Josh Bergasse. Things start to fall apart for team stage. We also saw the first injury to take a dancer out of the competition and that’s just heartbreaking.

Team Street worked with one of my favorites Dave Scott. A much better day that the first. Loved seeing tWitch being a mentor and helping the contestants ease their nerves, and it’s also fun to watch his reactions while watching the dancers.

At the end of part one 36 Stage, 38 Street dancers remain. Next week we continue with the last two rounds, which includes the dreaded group round.By the end of the episode the top 20 will be revealed.

June 30, 2015 I Written By

Dance is one of my biggest passions. I grew up dancing at Augusta West Dance Studio (the same studio that Kathryn McCormick). I have a BFA in theatre/dance from Valdosta State University. Tap is my favorite style of dance.

New York Auditions

New York wraps up the first round of auditions, before Vegas week. Thankfully, there was some more diversity in which auditions we saw. Even saw a few of the bad auditions, not sure why I thought the breaker ballet guy was going to be good.  We were treated with a little preview of Vegas week. Even with the format change, Vegas is still going to be an intense week.

STAGE 30

Alexia Meyer: Great dancer. What I loved about her was her musicality. She had movements that went with certain beats of the song.

Ryan Raffloer: His mom forced him to dance, too funny. Great solo for a ballroom dancer. Definitely, saw the Dmitry reference and maybe the attitude of Neil Haskell.

Darious Drooh: Loved seeing him and he friend dance the choreography from Paula’s Cold Hearted Snake music video.

STREET 21

Virgil Gaston: His smile did remind me of FikShun. He has also put in a lot of work since his audition in season 8. I can see him in the top 10 stage dancers.

Korey Cleveland: Honestly, even though I thought he was good, I really want to see him give that 90 day chip to Nigel.

Justin Ballasy: The first example of a style that could go towards either street or stage. Justin is an amazing tapper/hoofer but I agree with the judges that he need to work on his musicality.

 

Final total of dancers moving on to Vegas 219. Street: 105  Stage: 114

Side note: Great to see an update on season 11 winner Ricky. I tried to spot him at the Tony Awards but had no luck.

June 22, 2015 I Written By

Dance is one of my biggest passions. I grew up dancing at Augusta West Dance Studio (the same studio that Kathryn McCormick). I have a BFA in theatre/dance from Valdosta State University. Tap is my favorite style of dance.

Los Angeles Auditions

So tonight’s episode we are given a little more information for Vegas week. Team Stage will face choreography from Sonya, Josh Vergas, and Travis Wall. Team Street will face choreography from Dave Scott, Jamal Sims, and Nappy Tabs.

So Nigel stated last week that the LA auditions were some of the best auditions ever…well for this season at least. He wasn’t wrong the show started off strong but sort of lost steam for me. This episode was heavy on Team Street side of the auditions that we got to see. We did get to see some of team stage but most were lost in the montages. Seriously, wish the producers would show an equal amount from each team.

So I started to write down my standout but I decided I just wanted to enjoy the show. I love seeing SYTYCD Alumni at the auditions. Also love seeing familiar faces return for another chance, in particular, Jaja. If she isn’t in the top 20 this year, I may throw something at my tv. So moving on to Vegas were 29 Stage dancers and 24 Street dancers.

 

Team Stage: 84 Team Street: 84

June 15, 2015 I Written By

Dance is one of my biggest passions. I grew up dancing at Augusta West Dance Studio (the same studio that Kathryn McCormick). I have a BFA in theatre/dance from Valdosta State University. Tap is my favorite style of dance.

Detroit Auditions

Tonight’s auditions took us to the motor city; Detroit, MI.  I felt like Jason was starting to feel a little bit more comfortable in the judging role. Detroit seemed to lack stage dancers, there were a few but the auditions were mainly street dancers. Team Stage had 12 dancers make it to Vegas and Team Street had 23 dancer move on to the next round. Who were your standouts? Here are mine.

STAGE

Christine Shepard, Brooke Fong, Kelsey Rose Young and Gabby Diaz

STREET

Kenya Sutton (Queen of Detroit), Samantha Reyes (Sam I Am), Roydell Shannon and BamBam (how cute was he)

 

Total Dancers through to Vegas: Team Stage: 55   Team Street: 60

Next week is the LA Auditions and from the preview I am excited to see all of the talent the LA has to offer.

June 8, 2015 I Written By

Dance is one of my biggest passions. I grew up dancing at Augusta West Dance Studio (the same studio that Kathryn McCormick). I have a BFA in theatre/dance from Valdosta State University. Tap is my favorite style of dance.

Memphis and Dallas Auditions

First off I would like to say Congratulations to Cat Deeley, for winning the Critics Choice award for best Reality TV Show Host. Maybe the Emmy’s will take notice this year.

There was a whole lot of information to take in the first three minutes of the show. I have found an Interview with Nigel that explains a little more of what we can expect this season and I’m working on a post that will be up later this week.

Lets start with the Judges. Obviously without Mary Murphy the show doesn’t seem the same and let’s be honest no one can replace her. I’m thinking it may take another episode for me to really warm up to this panel of judges but they seem to have great chemistry so far.Paula for me has always been better suited for judging this show compared to Paula. She got a case of the giggles at one point but not sure what caused them. I loved how she just picked up the phone and called Richard Simmons to tell him about Kiosh. Jason is definitely the laid back one of the bunch, but leave it to Nigel to put him on the spot several times tonight. Jason got a little tongue-tied trying to find the right words to say when it came to the acts that weren’t his thing. His impromptu performance of Talk Dirty probably made those kids day.

MEMPHIS

Memphis had some talent and some characters show up to the auditions. Day two had some technical difficulties when the power went out in downtown Memphis due to a fire. So happy they were able to find a generator so the dancers could audition. By the end of the auditions, 23 dancers from team stage and 20 dancers from team street move on to the next round in Vegas.

Standouts…I at least got the first names of the dancers written down.

Team Stage: Peyton and Jordan (Jo Jo)
Team Street: Andre Rucker and Ladia Yates. Courtney Barnes makes his return and yes he is an entertaining character but not right for the show.

DALLAS

Dallas from what I can tell had more team stage standouts. Hard to really see talent in a montage but it helps with the timing of the show. Anyways, moving on to Vegas are 20 dancers from team stage and 17 dancers from team street.

Standouts

Team Stage: Guillermo, Jaclyn Hamrick, Lily Leyva and Edson
Team Street: Steven Ban (Nerdy Hip Hop) and Vishonda Sims
Total # of dancers through to Vegas: Team Stage: 43 Team Street: 37

So what are your thoughts? Are you team stage or team street?

June 1, 2015 I Written By

Dance is one of my biggest passions. I grew up dancing at Augusta West Dance Studio (the same studio that Kathryn McCormick). I have a BFA in theatre/dance from Valdosta State University. Tap is my favorite style of dance.