I really enjoyed the opening number this season, a departure and it was really well done, the single shot camera following the action is so “Goodfellas” it’s awesome…
I just love Amy’s control and her emotion, for me it hits all the right notes. I think with Fikshun they will be a team to watch.
Agreed about the Viennese Waltz, I felt it was a bit stiff in places. My all time favorite SYTYCD Viennese Waltz was Mollie and Jakob. It was also a Gilkinson routine, they had absolutely no dancing in hold, but the concept and the rise and fall was pretty gorgeous. Mollee & Jakob * Viennese Waltz - Ordinary Day - YouTube
So far not much interest in this season, eh? I haven’t found any favorite to root for yet either, no particular dance I found wonderful, and in fact I haven’t even sorted out all the dancers and their names yet.
Anyway, just three things:
I vastly agreed with Nigel’s comment that he’d like to see some actual cha-cha-ing in the cha cha routine.
In fact, I’m way tired of how it seems like all the dances have to have ‘stories.’ For the contemporary, okay. Broadway, okay, that’s natural. But why does an African hiphop dance need a story? Or a Bollywood? If you can’t figure out the emotions going on, well, the dancers or the choreographers are doing a bad job. And for ballroom! I’ll tell you what the story for them ought to be: here’s a guy and girl, they’re dancing a tango/foxtrot/waltz/whatever!
I think the only ‘genre’ they haven’t forced a story on so far has been disco.
I’m also way, way tired of all the ‘woman ends up spurning/beating/killing the guy’ dances. It’s not daring or surprising or a twist or anything like that by now. It seems like almost half the dances are using a variation on that as their ending. (Weirdly, I can only remember a single dance that ended with the guy rejecting the woman – that one with the door, where in the end he shoves her out and slams the door.)
I don’t think I like the new format, with them dismissing the two dancers at the start of the show and then making them dance anyway. Other than providing more time for Cat and the others to try tear-jerking the audience over how terrible it is to say goodbye to X and Y (and, really, don’t they and the audience know Someone has to go each time???) what does that accomplish? It’s got to affect the dancing of the ones that know they are gone at least a little, and how is that fair to their partners when, like this week, the two going are in different pairs?
Go ahead, let them all dance, and then do that “botton 3” stuff at the END, just before the recap on showing who/how to vote.
Last night’s show was the first I’ve gotten to actually sit down and watch this season. I think the highpoint for me was Amy and Fik-Shun’s bellhop routine - that was fun. I haven’t spent enough time with the show to have any favorites yet.
Agreed that there should be less story and more cha-cha. I hope the choreographers were listening. I get that story is probably easier for the audience to really grasp than technical stuff, but I’d like to see more variation in style.
After watching American Ninja Warrior on Monday and SYTYCD on Tuesday, I feel a sudden need to do a LOT of sit-ups.
Once again Amy and Fik-shun are my favorites. They both did so well, and Amy is a natural at hip hop even if it isn’t her prescribed style. I actually believe that this is a case where a great partnership is happening. They are gelling as the season wears on, and hopefully they’ll be the ones to beat. Neither one is trying to “out shine” the other, they both shine because they are generous with each other’s dance space. Fik-shun had trouble his first hip hop with Mariah, because I felt Mariah was battling for camera time. If Amy and Fikshun get Ballroom next week, I hope it’s a Foxtrot or Quickstep, they have the personalities to make these dances sparkle.
I thought Nigel was being a pompous prick calling out Dmitry for the Cha Cha. I know there have been several routines in Ballroom on this show that has very little ballroom in it. It is so technical that it is very tough for people not trained in the style. I just think Jenna and Tucker are so mis-matched. Normally the stronger dancer will be generous with the weaker one, but Jenna is a maneater on the screen. You hardly noticed her partner.
At least in the Argentine Tango which was horrible on technique they could mask the shortcomings with awesome lifts. But that frustrates me because they should have been called out on a routine that hardly resembled Argentine Tango - at all. Other than the power lifts, I didn’t see this as a very well danced routine.