- Two dances featuring homeless people -- the nice (best of the night, for me) Ade-Billy piece, and the cha-cha with Anya dressed up as a crazy meth hooker with stringy bleached hair, bluish skin, clownish red lipstick, and no pants.
- A surfeit of Broadway or Broadwayish dances (with a lot of my least favorite Broadway move, people chasing each other with long steps and big swinging arms) plus a bunch of pieces with a prop and a hyperliteral storyline (what, are they letting Tabitha and Napoleon choreograph contemporary now?) plus a slow hip-hop to Otis Redding (who I love, but hip hop?) with no footwork means that the show really didn't want my attention this week.
- Despite its Broadwayishness, I liked AdeChike in his jazz dance. His upper body is too tense, but his movement otherwise seemed very retro and very appropriate for the latin jazz music.
- Jose still terrible, Lauren still coldly proficient, Robert still almost dropping Kathryn. Why does Robert hate Kathryn? Why does the show keep cruelly delivering her to him? We're two episodes away from the dance where he ties her to the train tracks and twirls his waxed mustache.
- The more Mia Michaels talks, the more she spends the goodwill she built up on the first several seasons of this show.
Thursday, July 29, 2010
SOME DANCE TO REMEMBER; SOME DANCE TO FORGET: If the dancing on last night's SYTYCD was not bad, neither was it memorable, an effect compounded by the fact that fast-forwarding all of the solos and almost all of the judges' comments (I caught Shankman's bleeped-on-the-west-coast f-bomb and a handful of Nazi Barbie) allowed me to watch a two-hour show in about 30 minutes. So I don't think I can go dancer by dancer. I will say, though:
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I wonder if that "huge broadway steps with big swingy arms" thing is a byproduct of that "Neil as devil tempting innocent Lauren" routine that they praised so so hard back in that season. That was my first big notice of it in SYTYCD, and since then you're totally right; it seems to show up in every single broadway routine.
ReplyDeleteAdam's comment (that he predicted would be west-coast-bleeped) was actually just "balls-out." I thought he completely overreacted because I didn't think it was such a bad thing to say... But given his reaction, if I had heard a bleep I would have assumed it was something much worse!
ReplyDeleteOne of many Mia comments that bugged me last night was when she told Stacey Tookey that she (Stacey) was keeping her (Mia) on her toes by choreographing such a great piece. Isn't that kind of condescending?
Given how literal everybody seems to be on this show, I suppose Fox didn't want anybody thinking that AdeChike's balls were actually out.
ReplyDeleteApparently one of the things I missed in my fast-forwarding was that Lauren Froderman went to the hospital with a concussion and severe dehydration. I missed whatever caused the concussions, but she did look completely wiped, more so than even normal for the show, at the end of her dance with Allison (didn't notice whether she did at the end of her dance with AdeChike).
You have now quoted Sting and White Lion in post titles in successive days. Are you okay, Isaac?
ReplyDeleteAmen on Mia using up all the goodwill from previous seasons. Jose simply has to go. I've never liked any solo dance - until Billy's last night.
ReplyDelete<span>I thought this was The Eagles, no? Not that quoting The Eagles wouldn't also give rise to wondering whether Isaac is okay....</span>
ReplyDeleteI hear "Hotel California" and assume that Isaac likes the "classic rock that really rocks."
ReplyDeleteI usually like Mia but that comment to Stacey Tookey revealed that she has quite an opinion of herself, didn't it?
ReplyDeleteI did like what she said to Billy after the homeless dance - which I took to mean - we both know you ain't gonna win but you will always be a more talented dancer then the rest of these scrubs.
Shit. I was thinking of this:
ReplyDeleteThey're dancing with the missing
They're dancing with the dead
They dance with the invisible ones
Their anguish is unsaid
They're dancing with their fathers
They're dancing with their sons
They're dancing with their husbands
They dance alone They dance alone
Yeah, that was the Eagles. But I could see myself quoting something Stingy, probably Zenyatta Mondatta-era or, if I'm being a smart-ass, Dream of the Blue Turtles. It would be smarter-ass to quote something later than that, but I actually don't know any of the later lyrics.
ReplyDeleteI stand by the White Lion. As you know, I have a deep hard rock/heavy metal history.
And just as I write that, it occurs to me that They Dance Alone really was on Blue Turtles. So I could have used that in a smart-assy way.
ReplyDeleteI thought it was Sting too.
ReplyDeleteOf course, "balls out" is in no way dirty:
ReplyDeleteThe original phrase is actually hinted to in the expression "with a full head of steam". In the earliest days of steam engines, Watt style engines and their successors used a centrifugal governor to control speed. The faster the engine was to run the higher the weighted balls on the governor would rise until at full speed they were at their highest and farthest reach from the center: high or full speed was known as running "balls out".
http://onlineslangdictionary.com/definition+of/balls+out
Image of said governor:
http://www.railway-technical.com/governor.gif
I freaking love White Lion. How can you not?
ReplyDeleteThat said, I think that she earned a little back with that group number choreo last night.
ReplyDeleteVery Alice in Wonderland-ish, no?
ReplyDeleteAllison is so fabulous. If we were picking America's Favorite All-star I would vote for her by a mile.