SYTYCD Solos

One thing I was appreciating during this latest season of So You Think You Can Dance was the solos. It seemed to me that more people were actually putting some thought into choreographing their solos to the music, and we had less of the "just turn on some song and do your stuff" kind of thing. I find that hugely important, since to me dance is inextricable from music. If you really want to have the biggest impact, you've got to get the most out of each part of the equation.

Brandon, however, deserves special props for taking this to still another level during the penultimate week of the show. He went beyond simply choreographing with the music, and also optimized both his choice and editing of the music. I didn't know the piece he used, but it was orchestral, choral, and hugely dramatic. Not only that, but he used the ending of it, with a powerful, bravissimo!-sort of ending that practically commands you to stand up and applaud your hands off. Combine that all with the fact that Brandon is a fantastic dancer, and it's no surprise that he got a standing ovation from the judges.

In fact, I think it's incredible that I've seen 4 seasons of this show now and this is the first solo like this that I remember. You'd think it would be a no-brainer, but so many dancers just let their music get cut off wherever the 30-second break comes. So even if it was a beautiful solo, you're left with a sense of frustration at the interruption, rather than a sense of satisfaction from the completion of an excellent performance.

As for the actual results, I thought Brandon had it in the bag after that solo. But Jeanine was tied with him in my own preferences, so I was quite please with her winning in the end. (And she had a wonderful tango-esque solo the last week.) I was surprised at Evan making it into the top 4. As much as I love him, Ade was honestly the better dancer. But oh well, it was still good to see the "nice guy" get that far.

And as for the choreographies, I thought the final competition show was kind of weak for a finale, aside from the Paso Doble, which was probably the best one of those they've had on the show yet. Throughout the season, though, there were some really good routines, so the final results show with the judges' favorites was excellent. I thought the hip hop routine that started the whole season was excellent, and I was also very impressed with the "Addiction" contemporary piece, and Brandon and Jeanette's tango. Lots of good stuff.

Predictions, Wrong and Maybe-Not-So-Wrong

The So You Think You Can Dance? finale is tonight/tomorrow night. I missed the first season, so this is the third one I've followed. It's interesting how sometimes you can pick out a clear winner right from the start, and sometimes you can't.

In Season 2, Benji was just so ridiculously fun to watch that he was a shoo-in from the beginning. The fact that he actually won made me believe in the "wisdom of crowds." Last year was different. Nobody jumped out at me so much, and I probably would have been happy with several different winners. Luckily, Sabra was one of them.

This year is wacky. First of all, Evan Kasprzak completely sold me in the auditions, but inexplicably failed to make it through the Las Vegas cuts. Then, for most of the season, Will Wingfield seemed about as clear a winner as Benji had been. He did absolutely everything beautifully. He was stuck with a weak partner for a while, which was too bad, but it almost didn't matter because it was usually hard to watch her anyway, with him on stage. And at least as important as his partner routines were his solos, which included actual variety. I tend to think the contemporary (and ballroom) dancers have the solos that are the most same-seeming, and get the most boring after a while. So being able to do something noticeably different each time is a big plus.

But Will got voted off! What was America thinking? Ironically it was on the night that Nigel had reminded everyone to register to vote for the presidential elections as well. This does not have me looking forward to November. Anyway, that leaves me with Katee as my pick for the best remaining dancer, with Joshua as my second choice. The two of them have definitely been the best partnership of the show, doing a lot of my favorite routines. I don't think either of them has ever been voted into the bottom yet. Twitch could have a chance just as a personality favorite, but he still has weak points in his dancing, so I don't think he'll take the whole show.

But if we learned anything from Will's elimination, it's that this competition is about America's favorite dancer, not best. So I'm not going to get too attached to any of my own predictions tonight.

Sabra Can Dance

I watched the finale of So You Think You Can Dance last night. I was somewhat surprised that Sabra won, but extremely pleased. I had expected it to be Neil, and wouldn't have been disappointed with him, but was hoping it would be either Sabra or Danny. Lacey was the only one I didn't think should have been in the top four (I'd rather have had Lauren stay on instead). My thoughts on various dancers:

Danny - Most all-around beautiful dancer. Probably just didn't engage the audience enough to win.
Sabra - Like a little sprite. Always fun to watch.
Neil - Didn't care for him at first, but it got better. Gotta love the leaps, though, and that plange over Sabra on the table.
Lacey - Performed too explicitly. Hard to relate to her as a real person because of it.
Lauren - Took me a while into the season for her to grow on me, but she certainly did. I can really feel how happy dancing makes her.
Pasha - I liked him a lot, but he didn't need to be going all Dimitry-shirtless on us all the time.
Sara and Dominic - I was consistently amazed at how incredibly well the two breakdancers picked up all the partnering stuff.
Hok - I had huge hopes for him early on. He did my favorite solos but could never quite cut it on the partner dances. Sigh.

As for the choreographies this season, I was less consistently impressed with them than I was last year. There was nothing on the same gorgeous, memorable level of Ivan and Allison's hip hop, or Travis and Heidi's contemporary. There were a few good ones, though. Neil and Sabra's "negotiating" jazz dance was really good, and I enjoyed Lacey and Sabra being foxes much more than any of the judges did. I also liked the Wade Robson solo that everyone did individually several weeks ago. (And I appreciated the opportunity to make that kind of a comparison between contestants as well.) There were some others that I enjoyed re-seeing during the finale, though they hadn't made a huge impression on my the first time around and probably still won't be too memorable. I was excited to see the first Lindy Hop on the program ever, though it seemed pretty low energy. Hard to blame them, though, since they've got to be worked to death at this point, plus it was an incredible amount to learn in such a short time.

The "Other" Ballroom Dancers

I caught some of last year's IDSF World Championship competition on KQED today, and it was really interesting to watch how (mostly) familiar dances are done in very unfamiliar (to me) ways. Unfortunately, I only got to see a few dances, and only two of them included the solo dances, as opposed to groups. Though I did get to see one woman get her scarf draped over her head and waltz around like that for a while until it fell off, because neither partner would free up a hand to fix it. That was funny.

I have to say, the Viennese waltz was really horrible. I don't know if it was the strict steps they were doing that looked funny to me, but most of them barely even seemed to be dancing with the beat. I think there were only two moves besides the basic step (a fake-out non-dip, and a skitter-around-in-place thing) and they weren't even used very musically most of the time. I don't know if the music is a surprise to the contestants (it probably is) but still, I could do way better choreography on the fly than all that.

And of course, the basic ballroom hold always seems extremely wrong to me. I know the motivation behind it, since it's about impressing judges, rather than connecting with your partner and the music. But I guess I wouldn't make a very good judge, since I don't actually like to see arched backs and heads sticking out at odd angles. Oh well.

One thing that did really intrigue me, though, was the quickstep. This dance seems to be what ballroom types do when they want to polka and only have swing music. They pulled out a lot more musicality for this dance, too, compared to the Viennese waltz. I've never encountered quickstep in the world of social ballroom, but it looks like it could be really fun. Entertaining footwork and some really fast traveling possibilities. I'll have to keep my eyes peeled for opportunities to learn some.

More People Think They Can Dance

And by and large, I'd say they're right. Very strong group of dancers in this year's So You Think You Can Dance. I'm definitely pre-disposed towards Lacey Schwimmer, being the sister of Benji, my last-year favorite (not to mention actual winner). Plus, she has a good name for a sister. :-) I'm yet not she has quite the same spark Benji did, though, plus it'll be a lot tougher for her since the judges won't want it to look like favoritism. Hok is another one I'm enjoying watching so far, and I'm really curious to see how he does when he gets to some sort of ballroom dancing. But I think I'm going to have to see more of everybody before I make a call.

One thing I'm noticing more this year is how the choreographers are really adapting their dances to the dancers. You can really tell which moves in a hip hop routine were only put in there for the benefit of a contemporary dancer. I expect this was going on last year too, but I wasn't realizing it as much.

Did I Call That Or What?

Benji won! (Just like I thought he would.) I must say, though, that they could have organized that last show much better. Eliminating the two girls and then pulling the envelope on Benji and saying "I'm sorry... but you'll have to wait until after the break," -- that was just cruel. And then when he won they went almost instantly to the credits. No final dance, no look back at his auditions, no nothing. I feel very incomplete. They should have cut out those extra hip hop guest performances, which were boring anyway, and left more time at the end.

However, I did like all the repeat performances from the top 20 competitors, with each of the top four doing their favorite couple dance and a solo, and each of the judges picking a favorite. I got to see most of my own favorites again that way, though I really would have liked a repeat of Ivan and Allison's tango and second contemporary piece. Those two as a couple had some of the best choreographies (including their first contemporary, which they did do tonight), even though I still think Benji was the individual dancer who most deserved to win. So much fun to watch. I wish I could see him actually do some west coast swing, though.

So I Think I'll Predict a Winner

Okay, so I feel like a total dweeb blogging about who I think is going to win a reality show, but I have to admit that So You Think You Can Dance really does have me hooked. I also think it's been interesting to watch the contrast of Dimitry and Benji through the show. Dimitry has the sort of traditionally gorgeous, muscular, chest-baring look that would stereotypically make women swoon, but his dancing never really seems to quite work for me, and I get tired of watching him. Whereas Benji is the geeky, goofy one, but my god he can move like nobody's business. I love watching him dance, and I really like seeing the sort of support he's getting from the audience. It gives hope to those of us who are decidedly non-Dimitrys. :-) I'm going to go ahead and peg him now for the overall winner, though I really wish there could be a winner from each gender, so Donyelle could win also. Short term, I think Ryan and Martha are the next to be eliminated (but Dimitry's next after Ryan).

As long as I'm here, I'll also mention that I've been really surprised at how much I've enjoyed the "contemporary" routines so far. That's a pretty generic category that I never really had a concept of before, and didn't really expect to like. But Ivan/Allison last week and Travis/Heidi this week both had incredible dances in that style. They're in that weird category of dances I really enjoyed watching but didn't have any urge to actually do myself.

So You Think You Can Dance

Mom got me started watching So You Think You Can Dance last week. I love watching great dancers learn new styles and perform in them every week; it just seems like so much fun. The pace of the show is driving me crazy, though. I wish they'd trim the shows down to about half the time. Cut out all the bits about reshowing and insulting the people who didn't make it on to the show, and heck, I wouldn't even mind skipping the judges a lot of the time. Then the elimination show just drags on forever. Argh. I just want to watch them all learning and performing. Oh well.

I don't know quite what I thought of the Viennese Waltz and West Coast Swing routines last night. Maybe that's what those dances are like in competitive ballroom, but it didn't really seem natural to me. But still, everything was fun to watch, and it's incredible what these people manage to do with just a week of preparation.

And speaking of learning new dances, I just signed myself up for a few hip hop lessons, starting next Friday. We'll see how silly I can make myself look with that. Should be interesting.