[JoBeth66]

Decision time!!

Opening number - You Can't Stop the Beat - REALLY fun & upbeat. Great way to start out the show.

Sabra & Dominic - safe
Anya & Danny - dancing for their lives. (Jan - you called this one.)
Lacey & Kameron - safe
Sara & Pasha - safe
Shauna & Cedric - dancing for their lives. Knew this was coming.
Jaimie & Hok - dancing for their lives. Not surprised.
Lauren & Neil - obviously safe.

Anya - eh. I didn't think her solo was all that. LIKE the costume, though.
Danny - call it what you will,but I think he's an amazing technical dancer. He's just beautiful to watch.
Shauna - eh again. Why did she keep grabbing her dress?
Cedric - Time for him to go. One trick pony.
Jaimie - She's the only one I felt was actually there for the girls.
Hok - Definitely dancing his heart out. I don't think he'll go because he HAS shown improvement.

My pics are Shauna & Cedric, but I think Anya is in danger, too.

(edit - ok, Hillary Duff just looked BORED. bored bored bored. Bored. )

 

[JoBeth66]

No surprises.

Shauna & Cedric are out. And it looks like they ran over time - Fox cut away from the show right at 10 for a commercial.

 

[mwhip]

Kinda BS...Shauna has had crappy partners to work with so she drew the short straw.

 

[laststarfighter]

The people left in Shauna's genre are all better than her. Anya has no competition unfortunately. She's got only one dance move for chrissake.

 

[murgatroyd]

Kinda BS...Shauna has had crappy partners to work with so she drew the short straw.

How soon we forget!

Before Cedric, Shauna was partnered with Jimmy, who clearly out-performed Shauna in their number from "The Wiz" but was bounced in order to make space for Cedric.

Jan

 

[murgatroyd]

I have my SP padded, but I bailed as soon as the credits started to roll. Perhaps they did a quick edit for the West Coast. I wondered about that, because there was no analysis of the guys' solos, they just cut right to the chase and announced that Cedric was going home.

I am fascinated by the solos (not in a good way, this season) and wonder how it is that the dancers come up with them. Is it suppsed to be all their own choreography? How do they choose the music? (Presumably there is a pot of music the show has rights to, from which the dancers can draw what they like.) What about the costumes? (better known as the 'why the heck does Shauna always wear white' department) How much say do the dancers really have?

For the solos, I pretty much agree with you, JoBeth. I thought Jamie would be safe and it would be between Anya and Shauna. For the guys, obviously I wanted Cedric to go.

Can't wait to see what will happen next week. (Translation: who will Wade Robson get to work with next? And who will Jamie and Hok get to work with next?)

Jan

 

[murgatroyd]

Opening number - You Can't Stop the Beat - REALLY fun & upbeat. Great way to start out the show.

I re-watched the opening number a couple of times, trying to get a feel for the choreography and how it covered the whole stage -- not easy given the camera work and direction.

Part of this involved watching the guys (I wasn't ONLY looking for Hok, as you'll see in a moment) to see how they were all sorted out.

And you know what I noticed?

If you still have the results show on your TiVo, watch it again.

Danny's actually smiling. Bigtime. This is the most animated I've ever seen him on the whole show, audition rounds and all. He's selling the heck out of the number. He's giving the performance the judges have been asking for.

He looks happy.

And so I started to wonder. Maybe the real problem is that Danny is shy.

He doesn't lack confidence in any of the technical bits -- he knows he can do that.

But maybe he's just not naturally expressive on stage, so when he has to be up there, he just sort of closes in on himself instead of pushing the energy all the way out to the corners of the house.

Maybe in the group number he is comfortable enough as part of the group to be able to cut loose and enjoy himself and sell it, because he isn't the sole focus then.

I also noted that on the results show, Adam took back his comments that Danny is arrogant. What changed between the performance show and the results show?

Well, if they tape the performance show on Monday, and they do the results live on Thursday, they spend the days in between learning and then rehearsing the group number for the results show on Thursday, right?

So in between the two comments, in the meantime, Adam had actually worked with Danny, which he hadn't done before. So he got to know him.

This could be totally off-base, of course. I'm just speculating.

But it seems that Adam was able to get a good performance out of Danny -- somehow. :up:

Jan

 

[jehma]

Can't wait to see what will happen next week. (Translation: who will Wade Robson get to work with next? And who will Jamie and Hok get to work with next?)

Jan

Jan,

You've hit it on the head there for me. I'm thrilled every time Wade Robson does a number, and I think Hok is the most interesting dancer there (even if not the "best").

Elizabeth

P.S. Some interesting biographical information on Wade Robson's wikipedia page:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wade_Robson

 

[JoBeth66]

Jan - I just re-watched the opening number 4 times, and I think you're RIGHT! It's obvious that Adam changed his mind about Danny, and I'm guessing that working with him on the group choreography made a huge impression on him - Nigel's said it before, Danny's not arrogant. Arrogant people don't put in the hours and the work that he clearly does - he's just not a natural performer, though he has the skills & the talent.

Maybe Adam brought him out of his shell enough that we'll see more of Danny having fun in the next few weeks.

 

[cmgal]

Jan,

You've hit it on the head there for me. I'm thrilled every time Wade Robson does a number, and I think Hok is the most interesting dancer there (even if not the "best").

Elizabeth

P.S. Some interesting biographical information on Wade Robson's wikipedia page:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wade_Robson

Ewww!!! Wade slept in Michael Jackson's bed as a child? Poor kid. Love, love, love his choreography

 

[murgatroyd]

Jan - I just re-watched the opening number 4 times, and I think you're RIGHT! It's obvious that Adam changed his mind about Danny, and I'm guessing that working with him on the group choreography made a huge impression on him - Nigel's said it before, Danny's not arrogant. Arrogant people don't put in the hours and the work that he clearly does - he's just not a natural performer, though he has the skills & the talent.

Maybe Adam brought him out of his shell enough that we'll see more of Danny having fun in the next few weeks.

So it isn't just me?

Isn't it like watching a completely diferent guy?

I think I know what Adam was driving at when he made his comments, though. Clearly he had his finger on something and didn't know how to articulate it.

Danny is like an A student who has never really been challenged by the work he has been given in class. In the solos and work with a partner, he is coasting. Danny dances like a guy who knows he is going to get the callback at the audition. But performing is not the same as auditioning.

The experience should be good for him -- especially when it comes to the tour. Because no matter how good he is, when it comes to getting jobs, he'll have to step up and learn how to play to the audience, or people won't hire him.

Jan

 

[murgatroyd]

Jan,

You've hit it on the head there for me. I'm thrilled every time Wade Robson does a number, and I think Hok is the most interesting dancer there (even if not the "best").

Elizabeth

P.S. Some interesting biographical information on Wade Robson's wikipedia page:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wade_Robson

Wade is in You Got Served?

I just saw that (my dance WL picked it up).

Oh, wait, he plays himself. Maybe he was on the judging panel.

P.S. the PopGurls interview linked to in the wiki article has to be the Lamest Interview Ever.

OMG, it is so bad.

Jan

 

[lodica1967]

I keep hearing the name You Got Served on SYTYCD, what's the connection to the show? Also, is it any good?

 

[murgatroyd]

You Got Served

YOU GOT SERVED follows the competitive world of street dancing where crews battle each other for money and respect. Elgin and David are best friends and leaders of the best dance crew in the area. When another town's top group challenges them to a battle, David and Elgin, along with their buddies, must create and perfect the most cutting edge moves in order to remain on top. The stakes are raised as friends double-cross each other and true motives are revealed. When the biggest battle comes to town, David and Elgin must work past their differences to prove that they are still the best crew on the streets.

It's a nice little film. South Park did a pretty good send-up.

The connection with SYTYCD is that Dave Scott (whose work we've seen on SYTYCD this season) and Shane Sparks (who has been on from the get-go) were the choreographers for the film.

Oh, crap. imdb lists instructional videos for learning hip-hop and Shane is in them. So many DVDs, so little time....

Jan

 

[ced6]

Ewww!!! Wade slept in Michael Jackson's bed as a child? Poor kid. Love, love, love his choreography

So that explains why so many of his pieces have a disturbing, nightmarish quality to them

 

[dvdapex]

Can't wait to see what will happen next week.

Two things are guaranteed:
1. Benji will get more camera time than any of the dancers.
2. The guest judge will spend almost as much time shilling his/her project as Mary spends screaming.

 

[murgatroyd]

Danny's ... just not a natural performer, though he has the skills & the talent.

My husband was listening to me natter on about this last night, and he asked "are the group numbers part of the competition?"

He wonders if Danny is not putting on his 'nuschler face' (which is how former Giants ballplayer Will Clark used to describe his game face) because he is in a competition, whereas in the Hairspray number, he can relax and just perform.

If you watch him in the before-and-after bits in the competion itself, though, you can see he his nervous. Watch how he bites his lower lip. At first I thought, maybe he too has a secret crush on Cat and that's making him nervous, but I also saw him do it when he and Anya were standing in the 'on-deck' area as they did the teaser before the commercial break, when they were nex to dance.

It would be fascinating to see how different his dancing is when he is performing live but not on camera.

Edited to add:

Hillary Duff just looked BORED. bored bored bored. Bored.

I finally watched Hillary Duff when I dumped the show off to tape (I typically skip the musical performance the first time I watch the results show).

OMG. She is going on tour? People actually pay money to watch this girl? Why?

Jan