Another week and another injury. Clearly the dancers on So You Think You Can Dance this season are going for it more than ever before. This week Ashley got hurt during Monday rehearsals and was didn’t dance. Her injury was bad enough that she wasn’t even in the audience last night. As with Alex last week, she’s automatically in the bottom three. It’s going to be a difficult choice on the other two this week because everyone stepped up their game and everyone peaked in one way or another.
I loved how engaged Cat was last night. She’s been talking more, and giving more opinions, this season than ever before and I like this change. She’s an advocate for the dancers, she’s engaging the All Stars more when they are standing next to the dancers and offering support to them. I love her even more this season than I already did.
I hope they keep the trend of having the boys dance together. It’s happened a few times this season with great success and last night proved that even more with Jose/Dominic and Kent/Neil pairings. Of course the Alex/Twitch combination from a few weeks ago will stand as one of the best dances ever on SYTYCD. They need to pair up the girls too, which is probably not going to happen this season since there are so few left at this point.
Like last week, each dancer performed with an All Star they’d not previously danced with and then performed with another contestant. Here’s my top three from last night:
- Jose (Tabitha & Napoleon D’uomo hip hop). Jose in his style is smoking’ hot. This breakin’ style hip hop was stellar. The moves were fierce and complex, especially Jose going up in the air and landing on Dominic’s feet. The bit with the sword seemed like an afterthought, but the battle to get to it was very cool. Note: This was supposed to be Jose’s dance with another competitor, but with the odd number of contestants, he was paired with an All Star.
- Robert (Travis Wall contemporary). This was dedicated to Travis’ mom as she struggles with illness. Robert and Allison danced the beautiful choreography perfectly. Travis captured what it’s like to want to fix someone and this dance will stand with classics like Mia’s “Addiction” and Tyce’s “Breast Cancer” from seasons past.
Lauren (Tiana Liufau Tahitian). Here was something completely new for SYTYCD and it wasn’t the kiss of death that some ethnic dances can be (like the Russian folk dance). This was strong, aggressive and down right hot. I have to admit that this was less about Lauren and more about Mark because he was looking oh so good.
Here’s a look at the rest of last night’s performances, in the order in which they appeared:
- AdéChiké (Liz Lira salsa). This was a little to posed sometimes. It was as if they had to pause for a moment to get to the next move so that affected the musicality a bit. Overall though AdéChiké and Anya did a great job here and AdéChiké seemed to find the right performance mode for this super complex salsa.
- Jose (Joey Dowling Boradway). The judges came down hard on Jose here saying that is lack of training showed here because his personality wasn’t evident. Well, his personality wasn’t evident because it wasn’t appropriate for the piece. I thought he nailed the performance aspect and while his technique was flawed at times it was still quite well done. This was far from the train wreck the judges made it sound like.
- Billy (Louis Van Amstel jive). Louis put together a super hot rock and roll routine. I loved how he used the Meatloaf duet to let Billy and Anya really play off each other. Billy nailed the performance here too, really finding the connection with Anya. It was everything he should’ve had in the “Footloose” performance in week 1.
- Kent (Tyce Diorio Broadway). The judges comments confused me here. Neil outdanced Kent every step of the way here. Kent did a perfectly fine job, but this number belonged to Neil. It looked like Kent just wasn’t dancing as big as his All Star partner. It was a good routine, one of Tyce’s better Broadway numbers, but Kent needed to leave more on the floor.
- Lauren & Billy (Many Moore jazz). The choreography let these two down a bit. For a story about shoes with magic powers, neither Billy or Lauren were doing things that were too complex. They did, however, dance the routine great and infused it with a lot of fun. A solid “performance” number from them both and more proof that Billy is growing on the performance side very nicely.
- Kent & AdéChiké (Dee Caspray contemporary) Few things can be more beautiful and powerful than two male dancers doing contemporary. In many week’s this would have made my top three, but the fact that it wasn’t there doesn’t mean that I didn’t love this dance. It fit Kent and AdéChiké very well and they nailed the complex choreography where they chairs were additional partners. I didn’t quite get the “story” side of it, but the piece was wonderful nonetheless.
- Robert (Doriana Sanches disco). Robert was supposed to be with Ashley but with her injury he danced with All Star Kathryn for this number that felt like I was watching Dance Fever…and that was a very good thing. This number was a great closing one for the show with the high energy and fun. Robert rocked the performance and this, along with his earlier contemporary piece, should keep him safe this week.
It’s hard to pick two to join Ashley in the bottom three this week. I’d love to see AdéChiké there, of course. I hope Jose’s fan base keep him out of danger since the judges were extra hard on him with the Broadway number. I’m thinking we’re going to see previous bottom three people, like Robert, Billy or Lauren. Everyone hit high notes this week, so we’re getting to the point where the cuts really hurt.
Results update: And there goes Ashley since she needs more time to heal. As usual I’m wildly disappointed that AdéChiké escapes the bottom since there are dancers far better and more engaging than him. I wasn’t so surprised about Jose given the Broadway number last night but was sad to find Billy there since he really had a great night.
I loved the Alvin Ailey performance. It was an edgier number than I’m used to from them and I loved it. Twitch and Comfort together again was also a treat.
I’m psyched the Season 7 tour is coming to Radio City. We are definitely going. They said it’s going to have dancers from the All-Stars and Seasons 6 and 7, so it’s going to be fab!
