This week’s So You Think You Can Dance was the best of the season so far, and certainly among the top shows I’ve ever seen. Seven couples performed and I loved every dance from this week. The results show was stressful because I couldn’t imagine how any of the couples could end up in the bottom three. It’s hard for me to talk about highlights this week becuase everything was a highlight. So I’ll share two videos of a couple of the funkier dances that were done.
This first one, from Jason and Caitlin, is a pop-jazz piece choreographed by Brian Friedman. Caitlin is a space alien and Jason is the last man on earth. Her goal is to impregnate him. How’s that for a theme! This was the dance I voted for this week. I was thrilled to see that enough people voted for it to keep Jason and Caitlin out of the bottom three. The dance starts around 2:11 in this clip.
I also loved this dance from Kayla and Kupono, who got a contemporary routine from Sonya Tayeh. I love Sonya’s work and this dance didn’t disappoint. Sonya said this is a dark dance in which Kayla is pulling away from death and Kupono is dragging her into it. The judges loved it. I loved it. And they still ended up in bottom three. That was disappointing, but at least they survived the solos to dance another week.
I couldn’t find a clip of the classical pas de deux Melissa and Ade performed (the first time this type of dance has been done on SYTYCD. The dance was from Romeo and Juliet and it was gorgeous.
Karla & Vitolio, who did a spiffy Quickstep, didn’t dazzle the judges with their solos, so they were sent home. I’m not surprised by Vitolio’s departure (and am kind of glad to see him go). While I thought Karla’s solo was stronger than Jeanine’s, I think Karla hadn’t impressed the judges overall as much as the other two women.
One shout out on the results show… the opening number was stunning! I can’t find a clip of that up yet either. It was performed to Diana Ross singing “Brand New Day” from The Wiz motion picture soundtrack. It was just sublime. If I can find a clip later in the weekend I might just have to post it. And the funny thing with this, right before we started watching SYTYCD, we were watching some of The Wizard of Oz on TCM and the wicked witch had just been killed, which of course is the cue for this song in The Wiz.
