"So You Think You Can Dance"

Cafe Society
81

I love Danyelle. She can win tomorrow, as far as I’m concerned. James’s African-tinged leaps on the stage were so weightless and amazing, too. His partner Alex in the nightgown was meh to me though. I want to like Heidi, but she bugs. On the topic of Heidi, ValleyGirl listens to Caribbean Blue on her naptime CD every single day, and I have to admit I never noticed it was waltzable. I called MrValley from the other room, “Come see! They’re doing the Viennese Waltz to Enya!”

Musa’s dancing was not the best, but damn he is good at conveying the emotion. That couple really brought the sexy. The Flashdance people – have to wonder why the choreographer put in so many lifts when that clearly was their weak point. It seems that some of the other choreographers altered the dances to adjust for moves the dancers couldn’t handle.

Why does Nigel hate women? Geez, between Paula Abdul and Mary, the women judges are always complete freaks.

82

These frenetic solos … geez. It is really not my cup of tea.

83

That sucks.

Shows you what I know about dance – Stanislav’s solo was the only one I enjoyed. Yawn they seriously liked the women’s (sorry, I meant “girls” :rolleyes: ) “throw every trick at the camera” solos but not Stanislav’s?

84

My DVR cut off the last two minutes. I can assume that Stanislov was booted from the comment above? Honestly, I thought he did much better than Ivan. Ivan and whatshername’s Flashdance routine was embarrassing.

Was surprised that Erin was booted. I thought she and Jessica were equally good dancers, but Jessica had no personality.

Anywho, Musa is hot. For him to pull of the salsa is amazing. And I was impressed with both hip-hop routines. I thought both men danced above and beyond what I expected out of them.

Can’t wait for them to whittle down the pairs so I can figure out people’s names.

85

Didn’t see all the routines (two consecutive hours of commercial-stuffed TV is just a bit too much to ask), but what I saw was pretty impressive. I’m with my mother on this: It’s tough to figure out who to vote for when everyone’s really good.

I was astonished by the almost complete 180 from the judges. Not only were they largely civil and unbiased, they actually knew what the hell they were talking about. Frankly, if I were one of them, I’d be insulted to be compared to those meaningless talking heads on American Idol. I’m thorougly convinced that the unbelievably jerkish behavior of the prelims had to be an act…which has me scratching my head as to what the hell the point of that act was.

The show’s coming on in Hawaii in about an hour. I’m actually kinda interested in seeing how eliminations are done. The judges have some authority, but not too much…good move, IMO. Solos should be entertaining and help distance the competitors a bit.

Agree with the insistence on “girls”. Gah. (I don’t like “boys” either, for that matter.) Look, “PC” issues aside, it’s really annoying. At least get a thesaurus, for crying out loud.

86

OK, I’ve watched Wednesday’s show.

It almost seems like they didn’t plan for their own success, in that the whole tone comes across as though the only people watching are the ones who tuned in last year.

Some comparisons and contrasts come to mind:

Last year’s prize: $100,000 and a free year’s stay in a luxury Manhattan apartment to free your time, energy and attention up to go for your big Broadway break.
This year’s prize: Guaranteed casting in a Vegas show.

Better prize this year, but it really goes to show how much lower a profile dance has in today’s world, compared to the million-dollar recording contract offered by Idol. The world of a dancer (my sister was one, and my other sister is a Broadway Musical star) is all about doing what the choreographer says. Many dancers can not or do not choreograph, so they need to be like session musicians: Do whatever they say, exactly how they want it, no matter who’s doing what around you.

Last Year’s Cast: something like 10 or 12 finalists, who would draw their partners AND their styles from a hat.
This Year’s Cast: 20 finalists who are tied to their partner’s hip until one of them gets the boot.

I can see why they might have done this. Last year, you would see the same people pair up occastionally, and also see the partnership grow with each pairing. I suppose they might be trying to encourage more of this. Of course, this means they need to pad out the number of finalists, which for the moment means there’s too damn many people on stage.

Last Year’s Judges: Nigel (dance authoritay), Mary Murphy (Ballroom), Dan Karaty (Hip-Hop), Mia Michaels (Contemporary Lyrical), with frequent absences and substitutions.
This year’s judges (so far): Nigel, Mary and Dan

The judges seem a lot more comfortable with each other this year than last. Mia Michaels seemed very uncomfortable judging last year, and I wonder if she was just off this week, or if she decided to give it a pass this year.

Mary Murphy didn’t start the freaky screaming until rather late in last year’s season, causing Nigel to sniff her “water” glass more than once. She seems to have liked all the attention, because she’s had work done on her mouth and eyes, and commenced with the screaming right away. Make her stop.

Nigel usually adds the voice of experience, and Dan never pays a compliment without qualifying it.

As far as the actual performances:
Donyelle & Benji (hip-hop) - Who knew Benji could hip-hop even close to that well? The first display of a surprising level of versatility among these dancers.

Allison & Ivan (salsa) - Not bad, but I didn’t get as much passion from them.

Aleksandra & Jason (African-flavored contemporary lyrical) - Jason really did seem lighter than air. Very good.

Jessica & Jamyz (70’s Disco) - Good. Not stellar, but good.

Erin & Stanislav (Paso Doble) - Tough dance. Not spectacular, but they got through it, which is saying a lot.

Joy & Dmitry (Hip-hop) - Didn’t hold a candle to Donyelle and Benji.

Heidi & Ryan (Enya Waltz) - Surprisingly well done.
**
Ashlee & Ben** (80’s Disco) - Their discomfort with the style really showed. Not great.

Martha & Travis (Broadway) - Definitely the ones to beat. Contemporary lyrical dancers are not always known for their ability to handle stricter styles. These two suggested they could tackle just about anything.

Natalie & Musa (Mambo) - She did great, he did better than expected.

87

I think tonight’s picks reflect a failure to stand out at all, as opposed to actively standing out badly. Jessica and Jamyz having to do such a familiar style as 70s disco was their downfall here, I suspect.

Their solos:

Erin - Remember what I said before about dancers not automatically being choreographers?

Stanislav - Swively!

Allison - Flashy, but I didn’t love it. She fairly daring and graceful, though.

Ivan - Silly.

Jessica - Nice turns.

Jamyz - Very muscular performance.

So Erin and Stanislav go, which saves us the trouble of figuring out what to do with two stray dancers.
even though the girls’ solos were frenetic and a bit random, they knew they were perofrming for professional dancers, and knew that what they were doing was demonstrating their ability in terms of moves and transitions. They could have catered a little more to the audience though.

Last year, the judges showed a great deal of respect for the Paso Doble, and were a bit disdainful of dancers who they did not feel were giving the emotion of the dance its due. So here’s Stanislav, who didn’t go for it in the PD, and his idea of showing what a versatile dancer he is is to swivel his hips over and over. I’m not surprised he went, although I thought it would be Ivan.

P.S. This blog page shows last-year and this-year pictures of Mary Murphy.

88

Huh…I dunno, guys…

Just finished watching the elimination show, and I absolutely cannot help but list all the things I didn’t like about it:

The host. Grating beyond belief. From saying “one guy…and one girl” about 500 times to those insane drawn-out pauses when announcing whether this couple was in the bottom three or not. She’s the most annoying game show host I’ve seen in my life. More than Ryan Seacrest. More than Jeff Probst. More than Regis flippin’ Philbin.

The endless screaming from the audience. It was like a cheerleading competition, for crying out loud. I never even noticed Mary’s screaming.

Not being able to vote for individuals. I don’t think sandbagging will do any more than delay the inevitable (and Nigel himself said point-blank that it wasn’t going to work), but at some point, someone who has a shot at winning this is going to get fragged for having the wrong partner, and I’m sorry, but this is a bad thing. I know reality TV isn’t fair, but at least have some of these people’s fates in their own hands.

The friggin’ ridiculous way the solos were set up. At most 30 seconds, with a countdown at the end (and I have to say, WTH??)…what’s that supposed to accomplish? Give them at least a full minute, for crying out loud.

The sad thing is that unlike American Idol, the performances are great entertainment. The energy, the style, the fluidity, the (yes) sex appeal. And the judges really know their stuff and are always listenable, and occasionally even…gasp…entertaining. Why not the have show be about THOSE THINGS and throw all all the aggravating junk and ludicrous drama and phony-baloney speculation?

For the love of humantiy, I can’t be the only one thinking this.

(Strangely enough, I don’t have any problem with the random dance selections. You wanna play the game, you play by their rules. Definitely not anywhere near as unfair as both-or-neither voting.)

89

Wha??? Wait… Ivan wasn’t cut? Like someone else mentioned, my DVR didn’t catch the last 2 minute or so. I was annoyed since it cut just as the name was to be announced. But that DVR is great for skipping all the BS that goes along with these things. I couldn’t watch this show without Fast Forward.

I’m still cheering for Benji. Amazing.

90

scotandrsn – thanks for your amazing detailed critique! I love hearing from people who know something more than “that looks cool” or “I don’t like that,” which is pretty much my level of expertise.

91

That’s about where I am, too. I know enough to know that there’s a lot more going on than what I can see. My roommate is a former ballerina, so she gives me a clue here and there, but it’s nice that we’ve got somebody who knows what the hell is going on. :slight_smile:

I was definitely sorry to see Stanislav go. I think I just like watching ballroom dancers.

92

Thanks! I didn’t think I was being that detailed.

Good dancers make everything look too easy. I find it’s very easy to appreciate dance if you put yourself in the position of the performer.

Try this at home!

  1. Stand on an obstacle-free, fairly low-friction surface.
  2. Turn around a full 360 degrees.
  3. Now do it on one foot.
  4. Now do it on one foot without your knee wobbling back and forth, or your other leg touching the floor.
  5. Now do it with your other leg out horizontally, bent at the knee with your foot pointing toward your ass.
    6)Now do step 5 with your arms positioned just so around your head, and don’t move them to regain your balance at any point during the turn.
  6. Great! Now do three of those turns in a row without stopping.
  7. Halfway through the third turn, jump from your standing leg so that your hips reach the current height of your head, come down on the other foot, and immediately drop to your knees. Hopefully you’re not dizzy or out of breath or badly injured at this point, because you’ve got about 50 more moves just like that to do in the next 3 minutes, and you have to remember them all in the right order through your adrenalin rush.
  8. Now do the whole thing while conveying the impression, through the way you do the moves, that you are pining for a lost lover.

Dancers can’t simply do the moves and come off really well any more than actors can simply say the words. There has to be a sense of intention and emotion behind what’s going on with your legs. The emotion in dance is tougher to convey, because it’s more difficult to attach it to a narrative, especially in a blank space like the show’s stage. But as an audience member, even if you don’t think you know anything about dance, you should feel comfortable deciding if you got any sense of appropriate emotion from the dancers, or whether the choreography conveyed some sort of intention, however abstract.

It wasn’t hard for people here to see that, I believe it was Joy and Dmitry’s hip-hop routine, seemed to be the two of them simply tossing their limbs around in a prescribed fashion, “regurgitating the moves”, because it comes across in the same way that an actor reciting their lines in an uninflected monotone would. And the judges called them, quite rightly, on their lack of commitment.

93

My DVR also cut the last 2 minutes; it looks like Fox let the show run long, and my cable company never got the word. I’ll have to add +2 minutes.

Stanislav goes; Ivan stays…I don’t geddit.

Notice that Jaymz changed the spelling of his name overnight? (Or, the producers noticed the mistake)? At least this makes a little more sense; “Jamyz” looks like it should be pronounced “jammies”.

94

Musa was smoldering. I felt almost as violated as I did during Ace’s performance of “Father Figure” on AI. But I digress.

I love Donyelle, and I’m curious to see what she’ll do with some of the other styles. Travis is by far my favorite male dancer, and I think he and Martha are awesome together.

95

Like everyone else with a DVR, my TiVo chopped it. I’m outraged to learn that Stanislav got cut over irritating Ivan. Especially with his little “fuck you, here’s my hat” thing at the beginning. I dunno, throwing what the judges didn’t like in their face just doesn’t seem like a good idea when you’re trying to get those judges to like you. Ivan is a little twit and Stanislav is the better dancer… I don’t get it.

As for the solos… I didn’t really care for any of them very much, and especially for the women, it just didn’t seem like the dancing went along with the music at all.

The performances the other night… the one I didn’t get was the contemporary piece with the girl in the ugly nightgown. Everyone keeps saying it was great but I just thought it was boring. I guess it’s just me.

96

Not just you. I didn’t understand it, either. The jumping the guy was doing was pretty cool, but it seemed like the woman was just running around him and flapping her arms occasionally for most of it. I think I just don’t like contemporary dance.

97

I thought he was great, and their duet work was perfectly synched. Too much Disney smiling from her, I thought, though. The choreography blended so well with the music however, that I think her shortcomings couldn’t bring down the thing as a whole, especially in light of her partner’s grace. She’ll probably get her due later. The judges last year became noticably more critical of the remaining dancers with each elimination.

Contemporary lyrical (or “modern” as they used to call it before they realized they had been calling it modern for about a century) doesn’t have the prescribed moves and style of other genres of dance. Followers of stricter styles, like ballroom or ballet, are often very critical of lyrical. Each choreographer basically sets the universe their dance exists in. In my experience, you can watch 50 lyrical performances before you see one that clicks with you just right. It’s very much a “take it or leave it” kind of thing that can vary from choreographer to choreographer.

It’s a common joke in dance that people choose lyrical because it hides the fact that they are not very good dancers. That’s why the Broadway number so impressed me, coming from two dedicated lyrical people.

98

Are Ashlee & Ben the pair that did that Flashdance-style routine a couple nights ago? Whoever it was, their shocked expressions at learning they weren’t in the bottom 3 were better than the shocked expressions on Kat & Chris’ faces when Chris was voted off American Idol. It sounded like the whole world gasped at that one.

99

Did anyone but me wonder why that one chick was wearing white under her dark blue dress? I felt like I was peeping at a pair of Grannie Panties. Ick. Who’s in charge of their costumes?

100

Yup, it wasn’t just you. If they’d been blue panties I wouldn’t have even noticed. Bad choice in costume.