Dance has pervaded our mainstream culture with popular reality television shows, such as “So You Think You Can Dance.” Presented by Fox, this show is at the forefront of the genre, especially with younger audiences looking for more than just ballroom dancing competitions. The 2008 nation wide tour, running from September through November, featured this season’s top ten dancers. The dancers performed at Boston University’s Agganis Arena for two sold out performances in late October.
The show has attracted promising young dancers from across the country to partake in its rigorous audition process for all of its four seasons. Each week the dancers are challenged to perform hip hop, contemporary, jazz, ballroom, even bollywood dances in front of a live studio audience. The usually flawless performances never cease to amaze even though these dancers have limited time each week to learn and perfect a dance that is often outside of the dancers’ area of expertise.
This season America connected to the partners rather than the individual dancers on the show; once the partners were separated for the top ten, dancers who had never been in the bottom three were suddenly eliminated because audiences were only connected to their chemistry. Season four’s winner Joshua Allen, a hip hop dancer from Fort Worth, TX, easily won over the hearts and votes of the primarily female audience with his dimpled smile, chemistry with his partner Katee Shean, and of course his ability to excel in any genre he was given. Twitch, the runner up, was also adored by audiences for his adorable goofiness and unique hip hop moves.
During the tour, the top ten dancers performed some of the season’s favorite dances with interludes and solos from each of the dancers. The most featured choreographers of the tour were Mia Michaels, a SYTYCD contemporary choreographer from the beginning, and new comers Napoleon and Tabitha D’Umo, a choreographing couple who bring stories of romance to hip hop. On the television show and the tour, the dancers amply acknowledged their choreographers hard work.
Some of the Boston audience members may have been disappointed that all of the dances performed during the tour came directly from the television competition; however, viewers were still thrilled to see some of their favorite dances performed live. The season favorites in hip hop like “Bleeding Love”, which examined the relationship between a workaholic husband and his lonely wife, “No Air”, about a soldier’s wife’s dejection, and the more traditional hip hop numbers including “Forever”, “Party People”, “Don’t Touch Me” were extremely popular. Among the smattering of ballroom style dances, there were quite a few romantic contemporary dances like “The Garden”, “Slow Dancing in a Burning Room”, “Alone”, “Dreaming with a Broken Heart”, and the intense “Mercy” involving Twitch, Katee, and a door frame. There was also a segment during the show where the SYTYCD dancers ‘traveled around the world’, performing Latin dances, waltzes, Bollywood routines, and the Russian dance from “the Nutcracker”. All of the dancers were able to perform in the season’s favorite dances as well as in their self choreographed solos, particularly impressive and creative were those of the hip hop dancers Gev Manoukian, Twitch, and Joshua Allen. The fans were animated following every single number and showed great support for these young dancers.
Most of the dancers’ interludes were too cute and obviously scripted as they enticed audience members to buy SYTYCD apparel by modeling them on stage. However, dedicated viewers thoroughly enjoyed the relations between dance partners Courtney Galiano and Gev Manoukian. Gev pronounced his love for Courtney during the show, but she said that they were only friends and that she still had a boyfriend. The bit about his unrequited love for her persisted between dances, which was thoroughly entertaining, especially when one of the few male audience members shouted “Have a heart, Courtney,” after her repeated rebuffs of Gev’s come-ons. Before the big finale Courtney kissed Gev full on; though it was probably no more than an act, the audience was evidently appreciative.
Dance’s growing popularity does not appear to be waning and these dancers certainly have an abundance of talent no matter what is thrown at them. If you cannot see this season’s tour, be sure to watch the Fox show “So You Think You Can Dance” next May through July and vote for your favorite dancer.
