So You Think You Can Dance – The routines get more interesting

16 contestants danced, 2 got nixed this evening on So You Think You Can Dance. But did the right (if you can call them that) dancers leave?

Tiffany & George pulled a Nappy Tabs hip-hop routine. Cute and athletic … pretty much on key, but it was nothing fantastic or really notable.

Amber & Brandon. Jazz routine. And a rather smokey one.

Dareian & Janelle . Well … I thought it was a peppy little routine these two did. Nothing heavy duty, just light, airy and pleasant. The judges were hyper-critical and in the opposite direction of what I thought.

Lindsay & Cole. I really liked this contemporary routine, but I really hated the lighting throughout it. Between Cole’s goofy routine last week and his meticulous routine this week, I’m really digging the guy all of a sudden.

Will & Amelia: Wow. What a funky dance number with such strange, angular moves. First of all, doing “You” by The Creatures (side project of Siouxsie And The Banshees) is a creeky, goofy tune to do a routine to. But I dug it. The quirk worked. There are times when the judges are a little too stuffy in their critiques, as if they’ve taken lessons from the group over at Dancing With The Stars. But that’s okay — everything will come out in the wash. This was my favorite routine of the evening. Will worked it, Amelia stayed right with him.

Salsa time with Matthew & Audrey. But … with “Cinco Salsa” as the piece, it didn’t work. A bastardized version of Ludwig’s 5th as a salsa number doesn’t cut it. It did, however, work against them. I’m splitting the blame down the middle on this one: half on Matthew and Audrey, the other half on the poor choice of music.

Witney & Chehon do a Stacy Tookey contemporary number … and an interesting and provocative one at that. Loved the fact it started with the initial intro to Whitney Houston’s “I Will Always Love You,” but the song got hacked and choked, kicking into high gear and completely goitering the piece the two were interpreting. Still, they were able to pull it off and bookend either side of it to the point the middle (*choke, cough*) didn’t really matter.

Cyrus & Eliana. Nappy Tabs doing a hip-hop routine.  “It was so crazy sic frozen good … whatever you call it” was Mary Murphy’s summation … and I couldn’t have said it better myself.

The lowest vote getters? Amber, Lindsay, Eliana, George, Brandon, Dareian are the six called out. And with the judges calling out 2/3 of them to showcase another solo dance, this is how that went down:

• Based on the routine alone, I would send Amber home. Her routine was lackadaisical, as if she was done with the competition.
• Brandon: Hostile solo routine. Almost a kick to watch … but was there much dancing going on?
• Eliana: Again, based on the routine solely, Eliana is just too, too, too good a dancer to have such low votes at this stage of the game. She’s an amazing performer.
• Dareian does a pretty spiffy solo as well.

In the end? The ones not saved turn out to be Amber and Brandon. Amber … not surprising. (She was one who fit the profile of my question up there in the excerpt.) Brandon? It was a tough choice to try to figure out who would be saved, who would be let go. But someone had to be 86’d. That someone turned out to be Brandon The Stepper.

Notes:

• Did Christina Applegate get bleeped for exclaiming “Jesus H. Tapdancing Christ” … ???
• Really glad Cyrus ended up with a hip hop routine this episode, but I want to see the guy branch out, step out of the box and flame on with some other genre.

Quotations:

“This was baby-making choreography …” — Nigel of Amber and Brandon’s rather smokey jazz routine

“When did ballerinas get swag? She was better than him (Cyrus) in some of the hip-hop routines …” — Nigel on Eliana

Clacked by Michael Noble
on Jul 26, 2012 @ 02:04 EST5EDT