SYTYCD Top 20 Results Show

The opening routine was amazing!
Bottom 3 couples:
Jordan and Tadd
Clarice and Jess
Miranda and Robert
Mitchell
Based on our opinions going into it, Jordan or Miranda and Robert should go.
Based on solos we think Tadd or Robert and Jordan should go. Jordan did a lot of tricks but no dancing.
Very surprised no one went home. This a good top 20 and it will be hard to kick off anyone. Who understands these judges?!

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SYTYCD Top 20 Performance Show

Jordan and Tadd:
African Jazz-didn't love it. It looked too fast for them to do and the lifts looked very placed. Overall they had pretty good lines.

Sasha and Alexander:
Contemporary- loved it! Wendy put it well, "they are breathing together"

Clarice and Jess:
Broadway-didn't love the choreography. They performed well.

Ryan and Ricky:
Lyrical Hip Hop-sadly Ryan did pretty good. We enjoyed it. She should not "explain"things to the judges.

Caitlynn and Mitchell:
Jazz-sad we didn't get to see Mitchell because we don't like Robert. She did very well, loved the choreography and performance.

Miranda and Robert:
Jive-loved the choreography and execution

Missy and Wadi:
Jazz-we didn't think they had great chemistry. Choreography was just so-so.

Melanie and Marko:
Contemporary- the control of these two dancers is so incredible. Wow is all we can say. Choreography, music, performance, holy crap.

Ashley and Chris:
Hip Hop- Wendy is in love with the choreographer Chris Scott. She would like to know what the chances are that he is straight. I say he is! :-) don't love the song and timing was off. We were disappointed with the whole piece.

Eveta and Nick:
Quickstep- we didn't love it a much as we thought we would.

So You Think You Can Dance: Top 20 Revealed

**Disclaimer: Sorry if names are spelled wrong. We just wrote them down as we heard them**

Someday we’re going to learn to blog in a more timely fashion.

We should probably start off by saying we’re happy with the Top 20. It should be a really great season. We think we like the new format and that the Top 20 were revealed in a performance show. This usually happens, but so many of the Top 20 were people we hadn’t seen before, even through Vegas week. However, 2 dancers that we did see during auditions and were super sad to see go were Patty Anne Miller (the style consultant from Berkeley) and Virgil “Lil O.” We had really fallen in love with both of them.

First dance of the show: Ricky, Miranda, Melanie, and Sasha doing a Stacey Tookey contemporary. Jess immediately said, “Oh, how I’ve missed her!” regrading Stacey’s choreography. This routine was beautiful. We think Ricky is phenomenal. He seems nice and humble and is a joy to watch. Does anyone else think Sasha and Ricky look like siblings? We agree with Cat and we “wish it could be like this every week.” It was so nice to see the dancers free of worries and competition.

Next, Chris, Wadi, Tadd, and Robert doing a Dave Scott hip hop. We loved the dance and are happy with who made it, but we really wish Virgil had have been there, too. Robert looks a little like Legacy, don’t you think?

Then we saw Iveta doing a ballroom with Pasha, choreographed by Jason Gilkison. We’re happy she made it, and she looked incredible with Pasha.

After that, Jordan, Missy, Clarissa, and Marko did a Jazz routine by Sonya Tayeh. Wendy likes her choreography more than Jess does, but we both really liked this routine. Strong dancers who looked great together.

Next up was Jess and Nick with a broadway/tap routine choreographed by Chris Scott. First off, let’s talk about this choreographer. Who is this guy and where did he come from? Seriously incredible. And he’s super cute, which is a bonus, right? This routine was awesome, highlighting these dancers perfectly. We don’t remember seeing much of Nick in Vegas, but we are really impressed with him. It’s amazing that he’s THAT good at tapping but so clearly well-rounded in other areas. And as you know, we’ve loved Jess since auditions.

When we heard that Travis Wall had choreographed the next routine to one of our current-favorite bands, Passion Pit, we were psyched. But sadly, we didn’t love the routine done by Ryan, Kaitlyn, Mitchell, Ashley, and Alexander. Part of the problem was that Ryan is probably our least favorite dancer in the Top 20, and she was in a distracting black costume surrounded by better dancers in muted white. There seemed to be too many dancers on the stage, and unison movement wasn’t in unison. That combined with our eye being constantly drawn to Ryan made it difficult to really take in the choreography.

We were very happy to see the Guys and Girls routines. The dancers kept calling Chris Scott’s Guys routine a hip hop, but it was actually this masterful combination of absolutely everything. We can’t remember the last routine we watched that was so captivating from beginning to end. The way he used the doors to take dancers “off stage” made it impossible to pinpoint one dancer’s strengths over another’s weaknesses. We can’t say it enough: we LOVED this routine.

The Girls dance by Sonya was also extremely entertaining. It was very Sonya. We just wish they would have done the lighting on the stage differently, because the costumes seemed to get lost in the matching colored background.

The final Top 20 routine was also very impressive. Like we said at the beginning, this is going to be a great season. We haven’t picked our favorites yet, but I’m sure that will come this week when the competition gets started.

Do you have any favorites? Was there anyone from Vegas that you thought should have made the Top 20 over someone that did? Let us know!

So You Think You Can Dance recap: Salt Lake City & New York auditions

My wonderful friend, Susan, sent me a message encouraging me to update this blog. I can’t believe I forgot! I still haven’t watched the 5th audition, but Jess and I watched and took notes on SLC and NY last week. So, my apologies. Here are our general thoughts:

First off, we’re always proud to see a Salt Lake audition. We know there’s a lot of talent in the Beehive State and love when others recognize it as well.

Chyna Smith–Jess started off by thinking she was annoying and needed longer shorts. She was glad Chyna was from Idaho and not representing Utah. She thought Chyna’s solo was too fierce for her personality, and while she agreed with Nigel’s comparison to Molly (noting that, in our eyes, that isn’t a compliment) Jess conceded that Chyna seems more mature than Molly. I thought her routine was a boring solo piece, but I liked her. We agreed with her making it to Vegas.

Annie Gratton–Stupid song choice. Jess called her thrashy; I called her spastic. We admit she’s flexible, but she’s got no height to her jumps. We don’t really see why she got sent through to Vegas, but we don’t really care.

We caught a brief glimpse of contestant #5417. We never got her name, but she was in a black lacey top over a red sports bra, and we know she’s one of the dancers that went to Vegas. I LOVE HER. I want to know who she is.

Tadd Gadduang–We didn’t love as much as the Judges did, and we think it’s utterly ridiculous that he made it to Vegas.

Samantha Hiller–She looks so much like my co-captain in high school, Camille. Those of you who know both girls, wouldn’t you agree? We thought she was a good dancer, but not SYTYCD material. Clear evidence of this was when she did her attitude turn into an arabesque en pointe and she was hopping to get around the second half of the rotation.

Chase Thomas–Direct quote from Jessica, “Thumbs down. He needs to learn how to jump.” Direct quote from me when he was sent to Vegas, “Oh my gosh. You’ve got to be kidding me.”

At some point this switches to the New York audition, but I’m not 100% sure when because it’s not in my notes...

Two more dancers that made it to Vegas who we only saw briefly, #6303 and #5381, we love.

Princes Lockeroo–Made it to Vegas and we’re still not sure how that happened.

Brandon Jones–We love, love, love him. Jason commented that he is a, “strong male dancer that has so much softness and power,” which I think puts it perfectly.

There was a krumper with an attitude in New York. I don’t have his name here, but you know who I’m talking about. I don't really love krumping. Ever. But, um, I like him. So did Jess. We liked him even more when the shirt came off :) He got a lot of crap for his attitude, and while I agreed with parts I thought the judges were a little harsher than necessary.

Mary Kate–The Irish dancer that Jess and I were crap talking during the interview section, because we don’t often love the form of dance. Eventually we ate our words, because she had a very smart audition, using a lot of the stage, showing strength and flexibility that impressed us. We were happy the judges sent her to Vegas, even if their vote wasn’t unanimous.

Virgil “Lil O” Gadson–We really liked this little break dancer or whatever you would call him. He was bouncy and fun. We loved his smile and were stoked when he made it to Vegas. In fact, we were chanting, “Vegas, Vegas, Vegas,” before the announcement was made.

Jess LeProtto–We are so in love with this boy. And trust me, that’s saying a lot. Normally we watch Broadway routines with a bit of indifference, and we could not have disagreed more with the judges’ accusation that he “didn’t grab” us with his routine. We were grabbed. When we heard the judges were sending him to Choreography, we were going crazy. Princess Lockeroo makes it straight to Vegas because she does weird circly motions really fast, but this clearly talented, polished, and lovable performer has to go through Choreography? We can just never understand what the judges are thinking with those two alternatives.

Kristen Dobson–Great ballroom dancer. Jess thought she should have gone straight through to Vegas.

Robert Taylor Jr.–Another direct quote from Jessica, “I’m trying to decide. It’s cool but...yeah, I liked it.”

And that’s that :) We’ll try and get caught up soon.

Please let us know who your favorites are heading into Vegas week!

Season 8 Premiere: Atlanta & San Francisco Auditions

We were impressed with a lot of the people from the Atlanta auditions, but we weren't really floored by anyone in either city. Our early favorite is definitely Amber, the girl from Brigham City. We like her bubbly personality (for now, although we wonder if it will get old) and she is very talented. We were happy to see Ryan come back, because we didn't think she deserved it last season but can already see some improvements. It'll be interesting to see what she can do in Vegas.

We don't think we'll ever understand what makes the judges decide to send someone to Vegas or just send them to choreography. The only person who we disagreed with the judges sending to Vegas is Danielle Ihle. Not our favorite.

We're so happy Mary is back. As crazy and loud as she is, she makes the show for us. Excited for Salt Lake auditions next week and to see what this season brings!

It's Here!

This advance review of the So You Think You Can Dance Season 8 premiere got us even more excited than we already were!

(click on the photo to read the review)

How are you feeling? Are you excited for the return of Mary Murphy and the Top 20? What do you think about the All Stars' limited involvement? We're generally excited about the changes (or maybe we should say "return to the way things should be.") We still wish the All Stars would just go away, but I think we're happy that they won't be present the entire season.

Give us your thoughts! 

Are you ready???

Mary Murphy's back and so are we! Check in next month for our thoughts and breakdown of the Season 8 premiere. Continue to check back as the competition heats up and we review each dance, partnership, solo, and judge's opinions. Make sure you tune in, too, so you can comment back! Let us know when you agree and when you think we're way off base.

We can't wait!