So You Think You Can Dance - performance show, 11/10/2009

[tem]

holy s***. that was the worst display I've seen in the 4 seasons I've been watching.

Mollee ? Sexxee ? Ugh. She looked like a high school sophomore dancing for her pimple-faced ******bag boyfriend on a webcam. Both of them were horrible. Truly, truly pathetic. Janette, in the front row, must have been shaking her head in disbelief.

Ryan & Ellenore were almost as bad. That big dumb oaf amazingly has close to no rhythm whatsoever. And that routine was worse than either of them. Lil C sucked it, bigtime.

Last of the bottom 3 is Pauline & Peter for that lame quickstep. They clomped around that stage like they were exterminating cockroaches in an NYC tenement.

Overall, no one was *that* good. Russell & Noelle were OK, I guess, as were Channing/Victor.

Lastly, WTF was Cat wearing ? Some sort of homage to the lizards from "V" ?

[Cainebj]

I have said it before and I will say it again - most of the times when a routine fails, it is not the dancers fault - it's the really bad choreography - but of course, all we get from the judges is praising how brilliant the choreographers are (NOT!) and then dissing the dancers...

Ryan is one of my favorites this season.

[realityboy]

I thought Mollee did slightly better than her partner, but I agree that those should be the bottom 3 couples. I also agree with Caine that the choreographers let them down somewhat. (except for Ryan & Ellenore-the blame for that goes to them)

[murgatroyd]

I have said it before and I will say it again - most of the times when a routine fails, it is not the dancers fault - it's the really bad choreography - but of course, all we get from the judges is praising how brilliant the choreographers are (NOT!) and then dissing the dancers...

Ryan is one of my favorites this season.

I'll take an opposing view, if I may.

There are certainly many times when a routine fails and the fault is bad choreography, or at least for me, choreography that I just don't care for.

But there are also plenty of times when the fault is that the dancers just don't execute it properly.

And then, of course, we get the dreaded double whammy when the choreography is not so hot AND the dancers can't dance it well, either. :eek:

But for the most part, I agree with the judges. It's the dancer's job to sell the routine to the audience, no matter what - and if I see a piece by a choreographer whose work I generally can't stand, or a style I don't care for, and my reaction is, "Wow, I was wrong about [that person/style], I need to pay more attention.", that's a sign of a brilliant performance.

As an untrained viewer, I mostly spot gross errors in execution like missed handholds, big errors of balance, etc. unless a commentator points an error out to me, in which case, I'm more likely to spot it when I see it again.

Otherwise, I can do triage -- I can recognize things which are outstandingly good because it just looks right, or outstandingly bad because it just looks wrong, or place it somewhere in the middle, where I think 'that's not quite right but I don't know exactly what needs to be improved'.

Often my sense of 'rightness' is by mental comparison -- how would some other dancer perform this routine -- and then I can call up a mental image by which to compare -- the good dancer has better line, crisper movement, etc.

In the case of Li'l C, I've found that very few people can do his choreography and make it look right, the way it looks when he does it. That doesn't make it bad choreography -- that just means that the dancers didn't get it. Most dancers have a near-miss, and last night was no exception.

On America's Best Dance Crew one season, one of the girls said about krumping, "the anger comes up out of the ground". It was a Eureka! moment, because that's the thing that people often miss. When it's right, you can see the music going through the dancers' bodies like the pulse, like a wave. Think of a superhero, sucking up energy out of the ground and gathering it and then hurling it out through his fingertips. It's like that. When you get that right, it's awesome -- when you don't, the movement just looks like nothing.

Ryan tried hard, but the timing and transfer of energy just wasn't there. But in his defense, the only krumping I've seen on the show that satisfied me was from Sara and Jesus in season three.

I give Peter and Pauline props for the performance -- for the personality and energy. (Fun to see JT & Tomas on the show.)

The other routine which stood out for me was the salsa. Oh, boy, that salsa was bad. I was sitting here thinking, okay, what is this routine supposed to look like -- how would Brandon and Janette have danced this choreography?

At least they put Russell and Noelle at the end of the show to leave things on somewhat of a high note.

In the 'also danced' category, let's see:

Kevin and Karen's hustle -- tell me honestly -- Doriana Sanchez' choreography doesn't seem so bad now, does it? ;)

Jacob and Ashleigh -- so, no love for Mandy Moore tonight?

Channing and Victor -- ditto -- no love for Stacey Tookey?

Kathryn and Legacy -- oh yeah, they danced. One of many routines in that style where it would take an outstanding performance to convince me it was worth watching -- and that wasn't it.

Jan

[tem]

The other routine which stood out for me was the salsa. Oh, boy, that salsa was bad. I was sitting here thinking, okay, what is this routine supposed to look like -- how would Brandon and Janette have danced this choreography?


oh yeah ... when Mollee started her very strange gyrating at the start, all I felt was this strange feeling of nausea welling up inside of me. And Janette was sitting right in the audience ! She should have been appalled --- and she never even got to dance salsa last season ! (tho her cha cha kicked arse).

[murgatroyd]

oh yeah ... when Mollee started her very strange gyrating at the start, all I felt was this strange feeling of nausea welling up inside of me. And Janette was sitting right in the audience ! She should have been appalled --- and she never even got to dance salsa last season ! (tho her cha cha kicked arse).

Yes, as Mary said, the technique for salsa and cha cha is totally different. But you know Janette would have killed it -- and odds are that Brandon would have, too.

Jan

[Cearbhaill]

Jacob and Ashleigh -- so, no love for Mandy Moore tonight?
I adored that piece.
Husband did, too and he is a casual viewer at best.
It is one of my top 3-4-5 pieces of all time from this show. I'd have to go back to decide for sure, but I liked it very, very, very much :)

I adore Jakob all the way around. He is just so extreme in his movement- like a Tim Burton character. I understand that he may be too extreme for a lot of people and I can see where if he pushed it much further it would be freakish, but I love it. He's like a finely drawn cartoon caricature of a dancer, if that makes any sense- extreme is the best word I can apply here. Say at the top of a sissone- he just throws himself into it and flexes (probably overly so) to an astounding degree. Extreme Dance. :)

Wish I knew more about dance so I could better articulate my feelings on him.

[murgatroyd]

I adored that piece.
Husband did, too and he is a casual viewer at best.
It is one of my top 3-4-5 pieces of all time from this show. I'd have to go back to decide for sure, but I liked it very, very, very much :)

I adore Jakob all the way around. He is just so extreme in his movement- like a Tim Burton character. I understand that he may be too extreme for a lot of people and I can see where if he pushed it much further it would be freakish, but I love it. He's like a finely drawn cartoon caricature of a dancer, if that makes any sense- extreme is the best word I can apply here. Say at the top of a sissone- he just throws himself into it and flexes (probably overly so) to an astounding degree. Extreme Dance. :)

Wish I knew more about dance so I could better articulate my feelings on him.

I have liked a lot of Mandy Moore's pieces -- my favorite is probably the routine with Neil and Sabra to Annie Lennox's "Sweet Dreams".

It'll be interesting watching Jakob this year. If the choreographers can get over the 'kid with a new toy' syndrome then we should get some nice pieces.

Jakob and Russell in a two-man duet -- now that could be fun.

And the amusing thing ... Nigel invoked The Prisoner ... and Ashleigh and Jakob were couple number ... two. :D

Jan

[Cearbhaill]

It'll be interesting watching Jakob this year. If the choreographers can get over the 'kid with a new toy' syndrome then we should get some nice pieces.

So you're saying that he lacks subtlety? :)
Just because he can do it doesn't mean that he always should?

He may be too flashy. I would imagine it is normal for average type viewers to fall for flash and that is what has happened to me?
Dunno but I like it. I would pay to watch him perform.

For me, if he was given a partner even remotely in his league those leaps wouldn't look nearly so incongruous to the meat of a dance. As that one stood Jakob was IMO working with two props, Ashleigh being the most cumbersome.

It will be interesting to see if they ever push him out of his comfort zone into a Latin or hip hop, or something that requires a more grounded feel. I do think a new partner would help even out his performances, but in the long run he is to me more soloist material.

[murgatroyd]

Ah, pushing dancers out of the comfort zone -- or to sum it up in one easy question: But can he krump? :D

The essence of what makes SYTYCD fun for me is surprise -- the joy of seeing someone dance a piece well, especially when you didn't expect them to do that style well.

I agree with the judges that just because a dancer can do an incredibly cool move, the choreographers shouldn't put it in every routine. (Otherwise, you might as well be watching figure skating, where the kids with the big tricks are forced to put them in to get the big points, artistic integrity be damned, and everyone does the same handful of moves because those are the ones that give you the big points.)

For instance: Nathan has great control coming out of his pirouettes -- but we saw it in the auditions, we saw it in the Bollywood routine -- now we've seen that. Let's see if he can do something else. Otherwise it's going to be 'oh, god, not the pirouette thing again' boring.

I don't want to spoil your pleasure in watching Jakob or over think this -- we're talking about professional dancers, and "I would pay to watch him perform." goes right to the heart of the matter.

But SYTYCD is also about pushing the envelope, and encouraging dancers to be more versatile. You can't do that if you always let them coast doing stuff which is in their comfort zone.

So I say, let's see Jakob do something really unlike what he is trained in, and see what else he can do. Bring it on, because I'm curious to see how he'll do.

P.S. note that in my previous message I implied Jakob and Russell would be the two guys in the top four. I'm just sayin'.

Jan

[murgatroyd]

Ryan & Ellenore were almost as bad. That big dumb oaf amazingly has close to no rhythm whatsoever. And that routine was worse than either of them. Lil C sucked it, bigtime.

Just wanted to clarify my previous comments about Li'l C's routine. When I was arguing about the choreography, I was thinking of the pure movement and not the concept.

In the audition rounds, they had a segment "Mary's rules" showing what not to do in an audition, with Shankman providing the demo.

If I could have "murgatroyd's rules" of what not to do in a routine, I'd perma-ban the bank robber idea. I might give a pass to a Broadway choreographer if the cops-and-robbers number is part of a well-known show, something where a dancer might actually be hired to dance something like that.

Otherwise, leave the whole "running from the cops" deal for when somebody hires the dancers in the real world for a music video. The show has done it already; I'm pre-bored with the idea.

Jan

[Cearbhaill]

P.S. note that in my previous message I implied Jakob and Russell would be the two guys in the top four. I'm just sayin'.
That would make me incredibly happy.
I was worried for Russell the first two weeks- it seemed as if they were done with him in sort of an "OK we put a krumper in the Top 20, you can go now" way. But I think he's turned a bit of a corner and seems to be on their "most favored" list again, if they can stop drooling over Legacy long enough.

Girls are tougher- I like Ellenore and dunno who else.

[Roadblock]

I have liked a lot of Mandy Moore's pieces -- my favorite is probably the routine with Neil and Sabra to Annie Lennox's "Sweet Dreams".

+1, that piece was much better than this episode's. They looked too worried about the prop the whole time.

If I could have "murgatroyd's rules" of what not to do in a routine, I'd perma-ban the bank robber idea...The show has done it already; I'm pre-bored with the idea.

+1

[murgatroyd]

I was worried for Russell the first two weeks- it seemed as if they were done with him in sort of an "OK we put a krumper in the Top 20, you can go now" way. But I think he's turned a bit of a corner and seems to be on their "most favored" list again, if they can stop drooling over Legacy long enough.

I'm not getting the Legacy love.

After the audition rounds, I was thinking, if Russell doesn't make the top 10, no worries. That just means he'll be free to go tear up the ballroom circuit with Iveta that much sooner. ;)

Russell and Iveta -- now that was a dream team.

Jan

[Cearbhaill]

I'm not getting the Legacy love.
Not as a dancer, but he'd make a fierce Spiderman!
He's very agile.