Another summer, another season of So You Think You Can Dance (unless you live in Chicago where it’s closer to late November), and this year the show is changing formats again, combining the 20 dancer structure of the first seasons with the All Stars of season 7. Thank god, because last season was pretty much a disaster, putting too much of an emphasis on previous contestants when the show should be looking for America’s next favorite dancer. This season also brings some changes for SYTYCD T.V. Club, as I’ll be taking over for Genevieve Koski while Donna Bowman continues to offer her insights each week (except this one). I’ve been watching the show with Genevieve for the past three years, and she will continue to offer her brilliant commentary from the couch to my right, but I don’t think she could sit through another year of auditions. My dance experience comes from a couple years of high school and college musicals, the occasional dance class, and working at a dance theater for a few years, but for the most part what I’ve learned about dance I’ve gathered from this TV show. Mostly, that it makes me cry way too often.
As much as I love SYTYCD, I’ve never much cared for auditions and usually skimmed over the first weeks of the season until Vegas came around. The bad dancers rarely offer enough in entertainment value to make up for the time we don’t get to see legitimately talented performers, and the glory-hounding is just irritating after eight seasons. We’re here to see good dancers doing what they love, not flailing rejects looking for their 15 seconds of fame. Granted, it’s usually a time when we get to see Cat Deeley being all cute and nurturing with the hopefuls, so there’s that to look forward to. And hopefully more leopard-print lady-onesies.
This season’s auditions begin in Atlanta, Georgia, with executive producer Nigel Lythgoe joined by oxymoronical krumper Lil’ C and returning permanent judge Mary Murphy. Obnoxious as she is, I’m genuinely happy to see Mary replace Mia Michaels on the judging panel, who somehow managed to make me hate dance by telling me how much she loved it. Mary doesn’t try to coat her critiques with layers of poetic intellectualism, she just screams through her terrifying Joker smile. I appreciate that kind of transparency. Nigel continues to be a creep, tricking girls into thinking they didn’t make it to Vegas so they hug him tighter when they do, and Lil’ C is his characteristically incoherent self, but isn’t that why we love him? After watching him krump with Russell during last season’s finale, he’s got a free pass on the absurd pretension. For now.
After the audition kicked off with Bianca Hinklerian’s almost-there Colombian Salsa, contemporary dancer Melanie Moore hits the SYTYCD trifecta: powerful backstory, adorable personality, and gorgeous dancing. After her father’s death, dance became Melanie’s emotional outlet, and beyond her superior control, there’s a rawness to her movement that shows she isn’t afraid to be ugly. Sometimes her poses aren’t pretty, but they’re always dynamic, and that’s the kind of energy that amplifies her technical strengths. Did I mention she’s adorable? She does the quirk much better than San Francisco’s Amber Williams (more on her later), and I’m eager to see more of Melanie this season.
Atlanta gives us our first same-sex couple of the season with Deon Lewsa, Jr. and Damon Bellmon, two hip-hoppers who are trying very hard to let everyone know that they’re straight. Flirting with Cat, getting numbers off female pedestrians, emphasizing their brotherly relationship, they’re making sure that they don’t come off too gay, which works in their favor as they’re sent all the way through to Vegas despite a less than stellar showing. I wonder if the judges would have raved the same way about their performance if they were two openly gay contestants? Would it get a little too awkward for Nigel, seeing two guys resting their heads on each other’s thighs? We’ll find out as this season continues, as last year opened up the same-sex can of worms that can’t be closed.
The first day of Atlanta auditions saw a record number of trips to Vegas, which may just be the judges expanding the pool now that the top 20 is back. I missed about 10 minutes of day one due to a short power outage in my building, so I don’t know who made it through choreography (help me, commenters), but when the power came back I was greeted by a saucy ballroom contestant in red getting thrown around the stage like a rag doll. I didn’t catch her name, but those were some insane lifts done by one frightening dance partner, and I will never be able to understand how that human hula-hoop move works. Nigel is speechless after the routine, and for that, I hope red ballroom chick sticks around for a long time.
Day two of Atlanta auditions takes a turn for the “dear God why can’t I fast forward” with a streak of awful dancers, headlined by Joe “White Chocolate” Palermo, a hip-hop dancer who really wants the judges to give him a chance. Too bad he sucks. The judges may have been in a great mood the day before, but they lay the smackdown on Joe, who just mutters, “It’s my one shot” like the benchwarmer that finally goes up to bat, only to strike out immediately. Mary Murphy’s harsh yet surprisingly honest critique: “Come on, Joe.” At this point in the show, the judges are done having their time wasted, but that doesn’t mean the losers are going anywhere. Where else would FOX get the hilarious footage of dancing failures to run during Glee commercial breaks?