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Podcast: SYTYCD Season 9 – Top 14 Week

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Episode 51 direct download

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Time Stamps
0:00 – Introduction: Ballet boys as judges, and Ms. Tedholm’s Facebook comment
3:31 – General thoughts about the Mia Michaels episode
5:23 – The Door routine: Cyrus & Eliana
8:44 – Hometown Glory routine: George & Tiffany
11:23 – The Butt Dance: Will & Amelia
14:02 – The Bed routine: Dareian & Janelle
15:58 – Time routine: Audrey & Matthew
18:07 – The Bench routine: Chehon & Witney
20:41 – Addiction routine: Lindsay & Cole
24:45 – Bottom 6/Elimination discussion
30:05 – Wrap-up: Thoughts about Brandon/Amber elimination from Top 16 week, and thoughts on the live shows thus far

Episode Length: 32:24

The Top 14 week of So You Think You Can Dance celebrated Mia Michaels and her iconic routines from the show. Each of the dancers were called on to recreate some of her most beloved routines. Our feelings, along with many fans, were mixed on this approach. Should these routines be performed again, or are they only meant for the original dancers? Can an alternate, yet equally valid interpretation of the routines be presented? We discuss these questions, along with our thoughts on the somewhat shocking elimination of Amelia in this podcast!

We found it very useful to compare the original performances against the new ones. In the time stamps above we’ve linked to blog posts that have both routines embedded for easy viewing.

Let us know what you think after listening to the podcast! You can leave us a comment here or on our blog, Reflections on Pop Entertainment. You can also follow us on Twitter and tweet with us. You can also visit our Facebook page, like us, and leave a comment there! We love feedback and will respond either with a comment or in our next published show.

August 22, 2012 I Written By

Over the past few years my fiancée Meghan slowly brought me into the world of television, turning me into a full-fledged fan of both scripted and reality shows. So You Think You Can Dance turned into one of my favorite reality shows as it is a competition that takes itself seriously, providing the audience with artistic choreography and talented dancers. It's certainly not something I ever expected to get emotionally invested in, but here I am! Meghan and I are very analytic when it comes to the things we enjoy. We constantly discussed and analyzed shows with each other and after doing this for a couple years, we decided that we should turn these discussions into a podcast. We created Reflections on Pop Entertainment, a podcast that provides commentary and analysis of popular entertainment as found in visual mediums, particularly television and film. So You Think You Can Dance Season 8 is the first television series we're covering with weekly podcasts and has allowed us to find our voice as well as actively contribute to the fan community. We hope that you'll enjoy our installments as they are posted to Pure So You Think You Can Dance!

Mollee Gray Music Video – You Don’t Know Anything

I have to admit that I haven’t kept up on a lot of the past dancers as well as many, but tonight on Twitter I saw that Mollee Gray released a new music video with Mollee singing (and a little dancing). It’s called “You Don’t Know Anything” I did a search for it on iTunes and couldn’t find it, but I do have the music video which I’ll embed below:

I liked the song and the video was pretty well done. Shauna Noland was also in the music video, but was the only SYTYCD alumni that I could find in the list of dancers. I especially like the last sequence of the video where Mollee joins the dancers. It had some really intereing choreography.

To be honest, I didn’t know that Mollee had started a singing career. Turns out Lacey Schwimmer was singing in Las Vegas this weekend as well. I wonder how many other past SYTYCD dancers are singing as well. We should make a list.

August 7, 2011 I Written By

Just call me Charlie...but where are my angels?

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?

July 20, 2011 I Written By

SYTYCD rumblings

What a great show last night!! I sprinkled my thoughts here and there on other posts but overall I was really impressed. I thought I’d bring you all a smattering of SYTYCD news that I’ve seen over the past couple of weeks. Much of it comes from our friends at Entertainment Weekly

*added 6/24
I haven’t had the chance to read some of your comments about the results last night, but Kate Ward, a writer at EW.com has written an article aptly titled, “SYTYCD results make fans angry. you won’t like them when they’re angry”

I have to admit, I was pretty annoyed to see them keep Ryan after her abysmal “dance for your life”. I was watching the live feed online and it shorted out so I missed Missy’s and Iveta’s but from what I’ve heard Iveta’s was better. I saw all the guys and I thought Ricky really made his case to stay, his solo was great. Frankly, it’s not his fault Ryan seems to rather look at the camera and mug than connect with him. One of the posters recommended that they should have let all three girls and one of the boys go and kept Nick and Ricky or Nick and Wadi. I agree that Nick had a great personality and I would have loved to have seen him do contemporary with his long limbs to really see what he can do.

thoughts on this? I think it’s pretty interesting…

————

They’ve recently released their list of the 25 greatest SYTYCD performances of the past 7 seasons.

25. Kathryn and Ryan’s cha-cha (Season 6)
24. Pasha and Sara’s “Rockafella Skank” (Season 3)
23. Lauren and Twitch’s “My Chick Bad” (Season 7)
22. Lacey and Kameron Week 1 (Season 3)
21. Jakob and Ashleigh’s “Hit Me With a Hot Note” (Season 6)
20. Tranji’s “Gyrate” (Season 2)
19. Melody and Nick’s “All That Jazz”
18. Ellenore and Jakob’s “Tore My Heart”
17. Jeanine and Jason “If It Kills Me”
16. Brandon and Jeanette’s Disco
15. Katee and Joshua’s Bollywood
14. Jaimie and Hok’s “Hummingbird and the Flower”
13. Robert and Allison’s “Fix You”
12. Brandon and Jeanette’s “Ruby Blue”
11. Chelsie and Mark’s “Bleeding Love”
10. Ade and Billy’s “Mad World”
9. Danny and Lacey’s “Hip Hip Chin Chin”
8. Allison and Ivan’s “Why”
7. Kayla and Kupono’s “Addiction (Gravity)”
6. Heidi and Benji’s “Black Mambo”
5. Allison and Alex’s “Hallelujah”
4. Neil and Sabra’s “80’s Power Lunch (the table dance)”
3. Travis and Heidi’s “The Bench”
2. Katee and Joshua’s “No Air”
1. Alex and Twitch’s “Outta Your Mind”

This is a pretty stellar list, I must say, but there are a few glaring omissions. Where is Will and Katee’s spectacular pas de deux from season 4? Or Kayla and Max’s incredible WEEK 1 samba from season 5? I know this doesn’t include solos, but I don’t think anyone has topped Blake’s amazing solo from top 6 week in season 1, I’ve rewound it 100 times at least and still can’t figure out how he switches directions in his back handspring!

any other routines that didn’t make the cut?
Read more..

June 23, 2011 I Written By

Lacey Schwimmer to Choreograph on SYTYCD Canada

Well, it looks like there’s going to be more than one Schwimmer working on SYTYCD Canada this season. I can’t remember where I saw that Benji Schwimmer was going to be on Canada, but Lacey recently sent out a tweet saying she wasn’t going to be on this season of DWTS, but that she was going to be choreographing for SYTYCD Canada:
Lacey Schwimmer on SYTYCD Canada

As an interesting side note, I met Benji at the finale of DWTS the year Lacey made it to the finale. I’d asked about his future plans at that time and he made it sound like SYTYCD Canada was the place to be to make money. I guess they’re really investing in it to make it one of the top Canadian shows. I’m not sure if that’s changed since, but it was interesting to learn that he could make more on SYTYCD Canada than the US show.

August 24, 2010 I Written By

Just call me Charlie...but where are my angels?

Returning for Season 7

Louis Van Amstel. He tweeted this yesterday: As far as i know i WILL BE part of SYTYCD this coming season.
Im actually really looking fwd to this season
This is news I like for obvious reason that Louis is an amazing ballroom choreographer. Also it gives me hope that maybe we could see Dmitry, Lacey, or Chelsie. So welcome back Louis can’t wait to see what you will bring to season 7.

May 28, 2010 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.

Latest SYTYCD Twitter Round-Up

As you might imagine, Twitter is exploding with interesting Tweets from our favorite folks associated with SYTYCD. Not all of it is related to Season 7 and the All-Star announcements, though many are.

Here’s a sample for you:

official_tWitch

Thanks for all the love everyone! I’m very excited for this season 7 sytycd coming up. I think ya’ll are going to love it!!! 7 minutes ago via twidroid

travISova

Exciting news!!! Dick Clark productions sent off “If It Kills Me” for a submission for an Emmy today!!! HOLY CRAP BALLS 32 minutes ago via Twitterrific

That Emmy news is well-deserved! I’m so glad! I have confidence a nomination will follow!

ADEEVERYDAY

@CaitlinKinney27 I’m jealous you’re seeing @melissasandvig about 1 hours ago via Tweetie in reply to CaitlinKinney27

Ellenore

Hey everyone! Exciting News: Just booked a couple of episodes of the tv show “One Life to Live”! I’ll tell you the dates when I get them! 🙂 about 2 hours ago via mobile web

CaitlinKinney27

So freaking excited to @melisasandvig today!!!! Yaaaaaahhhhh about 2 hours ago via Twitterrific

ChelsieKayH

Thank you everyone for your support and sweet comments about last night!! In make up trailor now! Excited for our pro dance tonight! about 2 hours ago via Echofon

dizzyfeet

Another All-Star name tomorrow. I’m meeting with Kenny Ortega for lunch. We have some really exciting ideas that we’re working on together. about 4 hours ago via Echofon

LaceySchwimmer

YAWN! shooting @theDaily10 today! then off to choreograph with Dmitry for a Pro dance number for Monday and for Tuesday! about 4 hours ago via web

adammshankman

End of day tweet: starting to get cast for mptf benefit. Motion picture and television fund. I love this event. about 14 hours ago via Tweetie

NickLazzarini

Karaoke with @NeilHaskell and @travISova about 15 hours ago via Twitterrific

This last one’s just so weird and funny to contemplate. Imagine karaoke with those three!

March 30, 2010 I Written By

Top 5 Most Disliked SYTYCD Contestants

It’s the offseason of SYTYCD and so I decided that I’d start making some lists related to the various dancers from the past 6 SYTYCD. Plus I’m at McDonald’s with my son and so what else should I be doing while he has the time of his life on the playplace? Exactly.

I figured I’d start this out with a bang and make a list of the most disliked dancers ever on SYTYCD. Granted this is a bit difficult to evaluate, but I think most people on the list are pretty obvious.

It is also worth mentioning that many of these dancers had a LOT of fans that adored them as well (including myself for a few). However, in most cases for every one that loved them there were also plenty of haters. I also should add that this doesn’t mean that the dancers on this list aren’t amazing dancers. In fact, all of them are outstanding. However, outstanding dancers doesn’t mean people like you.

Now to the list…

1. Danny Tidwell – Danny is a great example of someone who had a ton of fans, but also a ton of haters. The knock on him was that he was seen as arrogant and “entitled.” I personally think he was arrogant. He was a great dancer and knew it. Compare him to Jakob Karr who was great technically as well, but was always super humble. Had Danny been so humble he probably would have won his season.
2. Blake McGrath – I didn’t even see this season of the show, but the internet archives I’ve read show that people really didn’t like Blake on the first season. He was arrogant and wore it on his sleeve. In fact, he still does. At least you know who he is, but Blake definitely had plenty of haters.
3. Lacey Schwimmer – Lacey is a really interesting case. She had to be in her brother’s shadow a bit even though she was very different. She was also partnered with no 1 on this list. Not to mention her rawness and unique qualities along with how proud she was of her uniqueness all combined to have many people not like Lacey.
4. Will Wingfield – See Danny’s desription and it was the same storyine, but not quite as strong. Brandon Bryant almost fell into this group also, but was able to avoid it with a killer solo and a little more humility. Brandon can likely thank Mia for that.
5. Ivan Kourmaev – Most people loved Ivan until he started staying on the show “longer” than people thought that he should. As people who were more “talented” than him went home people started to really dislike Ivan and want him off. Not his fault for defying odds.
6. Legacy – This is similar to Ivan, but Legacy did grow a little more than Ivan did on the show and so the dislike wasn’t quite as strong.
7. Kayla Radomski – Perfect technically and lack of personality was the gripe by many. White lightning still had a huge fan base, but many people wanted her off despite her technical prowess. I also think many women were jealous of her incredible legs. I don’t blame them. If I were female I’d be jealous too. Since I’m not she was one of my favorites.
8. Paris Torres/Tony Bellissimo – Paris was on for such a short time that people couldn’t make a real judgment, but for some reason people seemed to hate her first impression. People just never thought that Tony even deserved to be on the show.

I’m sure I missed someone since I wrote this on my phone. So, let’s hear who you think should be on this list that isn’t? Would you rank them differently.

P.S. I’ll plan on doing more uplifting lists in the future.

January 2, 2010 I Written By

Just call me Charlie...but where are my angels?

Lyndsey Parker’s Red Carpet Interviews at the Dizzy Feet Gala

The title pretty much speaks for itself. For all of us who wished we could’ve been at the Gala, Lyndsey Parker was there and interviewed several dancers on the Red Carpet. It’s a long video with, among others, Adam Shankman, Jeanine, Lacey, Quest Dance Crew, Derek Hough, Mary Murphy, Season 5 dancers Kayla and Melissa with Caitlin and Jason in the background, as well as Ade talking to Katee, Cheryl Burke and Mark Ballas. Enjoy!

Dizzy Feet Gala: Reality Rocks’ Red-Carpet Interviews from Yahoo! Music on Vimeo.

December 17, 2009 I Written By

Dizzy Feet Gala Experience

I’m really excited to be able to post about the Dizzy Feet Gala. Thanks to Dona whom I know from my work with Pure Derek Hough, I received the following blog post about Katie’s experience at the Dizzy Feet Gala. Sounds like she had a wonderful time. I’m regretting that I didn’t head to LA to be there myself. I guess there’s always next time. Thanks Dona (and it seems like Dona’s friend Dee as well) and Katie for the information about the event.

Dizzy Feet Gala Blog by Katie
What an amazing night tonight was!!!!!! It was filled with high energy, great music, dances and well deserved awards to some inspiring people to continue to give back to this world what it mostly needs; the gift of art and all its creativity through dance!

From memorable dances from the So You think You Can Dance seasons, to the all so entertaining routines from Dancing With The Stars, a collective group of people came together today to celebrate its first Dizzy Feet Foundation gala.

My friend and I were privileged enough to see the works of some brilliant choreographers tonight!! And the seats were amazing! I think you couldn’t go wrong with sitting anywhere really. The structure of the place is done so thoughtfully that wherever you were, you would have a great view!

Derek and Cheryl from DWTS danced a great Cha Cha Cha, getting the audience excited with a great opening number, and making the audience want more. Derek and Cheryl definitely seemed like they were enjoying their night; however later we found out that the dance was put together earlier this morning. I say fantastic job for a time crunch. You wouldn’t have even thought for a second otherwise.
Lacey Schwimmer and Lance Bass also graced the dance floor tonight. Being such huge fans of both Dancing With The Stars, as well as So You Think You Can Dance, we were thrilled to bits when a Travis Wall routine was picked for the night. Jason and Jeanine’s Necklace routine had the room applauding, it was an exact replica of the performance piece shown on the show only a billion times better watching it live.

However, I have to say the standing ovation and the only standing ovation of the night, was from MTV’s America’s Best Dance Crew: Quest Crew. I have had the opportunity to watch them perform live a couple of months ago at a benefit concert, and while the routine was the same as before, the atmosphere and the energy in the room was significantly different. In such a wide spread audience of all ages and walks of life, it was tremendous to see the older lady a few rows in front of us stand up and clap for these extremely talented individuals. From a little bit of Hip Hop to a little bit of Pop from Ms. Britney Spears, it seemed that they covered all aspects and types of genres in the musical field in their 3 plus minute routine. It was well deserved and exciting to watch the whole Kodak Theatre stand up and praise them with applause.

Some other highlights of the night included routines from Katee and Joshua doing their “No Air” routine, Mark Ballas and Kristi Yamaguchi doing their jive, and Cheryl and Gilles performing their Tango from Dancing With The Stars.

I have to say some of the routines that definitely stuck with both myself and my guest for the night were those that were Emmy winning performances from the So You Think You Can Dance performers:

Melissa and Ade’s Breast Cancer piece, done beautifully by Tyce Diorio, was also performed for us as well as Mia Michael’s Addiction piece that took our breaths away.

Along with phenomenally breath taking pieces performed by some of our favorite dancers. As Adam Shankman stated “this night was like the Stones for reality TV junkies”. There was talent from a young boy doing Michael Jackson’s Billy Jean routine and performing the Moon Walk, to witnessing what this important foundation is all about. Watching the recipients of the awards given out, I was truly blessed and also deeply saddened that children around the world who could become great simply do not have the resources to do so in their schools and community.

Being apart of something so wonderful was an absolute pleasure and left me wondering what I CAN DO to help. After all, is that what this whole event was all about? Finding a way to help and keep these programs ongoing so that our children and for more generations to come can also experience what I was able to this very night, because of the hard dedication and talent of such amazing individuals that did find an opportunity?

Here’s more information about the Dizzy Feet Foundation: http://www.dizzyfeetfoundation.org/
I’m sorry I wasn’t able to get any pictures. It was just really difficult to keep any lighting on (whether from my iPhone or camera) hidden as much as possible or away so as not to disturb the people around me. I didn’t want to be “ONE OF THOSE PEOPLE” LOL

I did however pull out my camera at the last minute and recorded the BH “move” finale where all the dancers came up on stage after what seemed like the first verse. I apologize for any shakiness or anything like that. Here’s my dizzy feet gala video on youtube:

We tried to stick around for a good hour after the show to see if we could catch Derek. We actually ran into Mark while walking around, however there were so many people around, and he was carrying around a suitcase, we figured he had to go or was just in for a short stop from a flight perhaps, and in no way did we want to keep him any longer. Plus, we were both on the hunt for Derek. Unfortunately, it seemed that either he had already left or found some other exit we were not at 🙁

This isn’t much, but I sort of just started writing once I got home and wanted to share a little bit with you guys. Awww I wish the night could come back. lol I miss it already! hahahaha

I hope I did it some sort of justice for those who couldn’t go : (Again, I had the most amazing time and I want to just thank Dona and Dee for the tickets.)

November 30, 2009 I Written By

Just call me Charlie...but where are my angels?