Thursday, July 1, 2010

BUT I DON'T KNOW WHAT TO DO WITH THOSE TOSSED SALADS AND SCRAMBLED EGGS -- THEY'RE CALLING AGAIN: Excellent episode of SYTYCD last night, aided by nice choreography, the absence of at least one overused choreographer, and some pretty good pairings. My short summaries after the jump:

  • AdeChike (with Lauren): I was thinking, as this routine unfolded, that I think the worst Dave C. Scott piece is better than the best Napoleon & Tabitha piece. He can build a dance around an idea or theme without having to tell a literal three-act story. Here, he just gave AdeChike something fun to do, fast and full of personality, and everything clicks. AdeChike was in perfect unison with Lauren and full of hammy goodness (like when he did the Carlton Banks solo break). I also decided to interpret all of the disco inflections to Scott thumbing his nose at Doriana Sanchez's anachronism. And Wardrobe finally got it -- they put Lauren in unflattering chinos, as if to say, "watch the other guy!"
  • Ashley (with Ade): I don't know if this was innovative choreography, but it was, as they say on TV, new t0 me. I was really interested by the freeze-frame lifts. I didn't think Ashley did a bad job of it, but I kept thinking of all of the dancers who would have danced it better -- Kathryn, Kayla, Melinda, Katee. There's nothing I can see particularly wrong with Ashley, but she seems more company than prima donna to me.
  • Robert (with Courtney): This was well-danced, but I do think Sonya would benefit from a week or two off. As idiosyncratic as her work is (at least for the show), if the show overuses her, it's going to seem rote. There were parts that got a little hokey for me ("you're a tiger, you're a tiger, now roar!"), but Robert (and Courtney) had no problem committing to Robert slapping her around. Weird piece, but I mildly liked it.
  • Melinda (with Pasha): Not to sound like a broken record, but Melinda just isn't right for the show. The big pieces were in place, but Melinda struggles with the details. I pre-agreed with Nigel that Melinda seemed to be checking steps off her to-do-list and then waiting for the next one to come along. She has sloppy footwork. Her hands float. She's not graceful in the lifts. Watching Melinda is a good way of gauging how much I've learned about dance from this show. I really want to like Melinda -- she's pretty and seems both nice and full of personality -- but she's just not good enough here.
  • Lauren (with Neil): There was no way I was going to like this piece -- I don't like Lauren and I don't like Broadway (its big movements and big characterizations, I think, are overkill for television, like having a full Broadway orchestra play in your bedroom). I do like Joey Dowling, but I prefer her with a side of yelling at people to speed it up, and this wasn't a particularly exhausting piece. Lauren, I will admit, is surprisingly good with her legs. She has excellent control, power, and extension. I just don't like the way she mugs for the camera, and this piece was built around that.
  • Billybell (with Kathryn): How did Kathryn not win this show? Even with an unremarkable Stacey Tookey piece, dancing across from an exceedingly talented contemporary dancer, she wins the night. She is so fluid that she sometimes looks like she's swimming. She does little movements that all of the other women on this show have done as transitions, and I go "oh, now I get why that's there." How was I supposed to pay a moment of attention to Billybell? My evaluation of his performance is as follows: I am vaguely aware that he wore white jeans and a red tie. I will say that his solo was excellent, one of the best I can remember.
  • Jose (with Anya): Man, are they ever lobbing softballs at Jose. The program for this dance seemed to be (1) let Anya dance around you for a while; (2) do some kind of bullfighter stance; (3) maybe some of that b-boy stuff you're good at; (4) grapevines. The dirty little secret is that Jose is not all that scintillating a breakdancer either. He just seems like a really fun guy to be around. If they ever get around to making him dance something as hard as what the other contestants are seeing, he's cooked. It was nice of the feds to let Anya out of spy jail long enough to appear on the show, though.
  • Kent (with Allison): I kind of liked this. It had a lot of the stuff that I really like -- steps and leaps done in perfect unison, perfectly spaced, with perfectly matched lines. Other than that, I don't remember it much, but I remember thinking it was well done.
  • Alex (with Twitch): First, let me say how glad I was that they did not go, as they have always done with guy-guy partnerings, to a fight-dance. This was mildly competitive, but at least the guys weren't trying to kill each other to demonstrate the heterosexuality of dance. Second, this supports what I said about Sonya -- if you don't overuse choreographers, they might have time and inspiration to come up with a really good, really entertaining dance. Third, this refutes what I said about Dave Scott -- Napoleon and Tabitha are actually capable of putting together a piece that is better than Scott's worst (and maybe even best) work. It was nice that they remembered that the point of hip hop is doing anything that looks cool, so they smartly used Alex's insane flexibility and ballet training in a funny way that seemed organic (unlike the incorporation of Jose's hip hop in his ballroom). Fourth, I'm not as feverish as the judges about this -- Alex did still tend to be a bit overly upright and stiff at times. But fifth, he pretty much killed it. He was light on his feet, his leg work was stunning, he was great in character, he had excellent rapport with Twitch.

Bottom two: Jose and Melinda, with a third to Lauren on personal preference. Winner of the night: Alex (tied with Kathryn), with a distant second to AdeChike. Right?

9 comments:

  1. I want them to give Kent something that doesn't rely on him trying to "be manly."  Because that's all he and they end up focusing on, it seems.  Give him something where it's not an issue so we can really, really focus on the dance.  They did hit him with a little bit of criticism last night, which I thought was a very good thing.

    I could see how much Melinda was struggling in last night's routine - if she's not the one to go tonight I will be shocked.  Even if it does mean a terrible gender imbalance.  In fact, if they sacrifice a guy just for that reason I'll be hella pissed.

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  2. Nowhereman3:46 PM

    I definitely agree that Melinda's biggest failing is her lack of control. I'm not sure if it's due to her focus on tap, which is so centered on the lower body, but it's like she can only focus on the appendages or part of the body that's being expressly choreographed for each step. When the work is upper-body centric her legs are just kind of "there;" when she does lower body centric stuff her arms (and especially her hands!) are all over the place. Her dances never really reach her face, either; she's always a dancer doing a dance rather than truly inhabiting the work.

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  3. Marsha4:11 PM

    The jidges' double standard is really annoying me.  They have no trouble praising Jose doing something out of his comfort zone where all he does is mug for the audience and the routine is so dumbed down for him as to be laughable. Yet they cannot imagine Billy doing hip-hop, so instead of actually commenting on his performance and what he needs to work on (save for Adam's one real comment about hit-suspend-release) they just giggle about Billy doing hip-hop. If the whole format of the show is supposed to be about who can dance outside their comfort zones, then you have to go in ready to accept  Billy and Alex doing hip-hop, and Melinda and Jose doing Latin ballroom. If they dont' succeed, so be it, but if you go in thinking that it's silly for them to even try, then what's the point?

    Agree with your bottom two, and I add Robert to make three. But Jose won't be there, as he has fan support, I think. It'll be Melinda, Ashley, and Robert. Melinda goes home.

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  4. isaac_spaceman6:18 PM

    There are two sides to the comparison you made, though.  On the one hand, Billy looked ridiculous doing his hip hop in a way that Jose did not look ridiculous doing his ballroom (and in a way that Alex did not look ridiculous doing his hip hop -- it may have been a bit upright, but it was still among the best hip hop by a non-hip hopper that the show has seen).  I don't think it was necessarily the fact that he couldn't get the steps or movements that made him look ridiculous -- it was how badly he failed to capture the attitude.  When somebody who is as nonthreatening as Billy earnestly tries to look scary, it just doesn't work (Jose actually got some mild criticism about this earlier too). 

    I promised an "on the other hand," though, and here it is:  Billy's hip hop (last week?  the week before?) was at least moderately challenging.  Jose's ballroom was barely even ballroom.  So he didn't have a chance to look ridiculous.

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  5. Marsha6:54 PM

    I don't necessarily disagree, and I'm not saying Billy did well. But the comments from the judges shouldn't amount to, "I just can't take you seriously doing hip-hop because you're so cutesy-wutesy." Explain how he failed, and maybe fault the choreographer a bit for giving him a task that was bound to fail. But I came away with the impression that it could have been the best hip hop in the world and they wouldn't have taken him seriously becasue they can't see past their image of him. 

    The judges gave Alex the chance to step outside the box, and the choreographers didn't ask him to be scary guy, and he rose to the occasion. I'm just saying that the judges seem so unwilling to see Billy any other way than puppy dog that he starts with a strike against him that they don't seem to have for others. Maybe they'll do it to Kent when he hip hops too, and they shouldn't do that either.

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  6. Maggie8:03 PM

    Jose's ballroom is when this show misses Mary - she totally would have called out how unchallenging the choreo was.  I do love Dmitri.  

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  7. isaac_spaceman8:19 PM

    I think we're in agreement about almost everything:  Billy is a better dancer than Jose, he has had more difficult choreography, the judges are giving Jose pass after pass (probably for reasons having nothing to do with style or performance, in my opinion), and Jose is going to be a train wreck if anybody tries to give him choreo that is as difficult as what the other dancers are getting outside of their own styles.  The only place I think I disagree with you is the notion that it is unfair to criticize Billy for looking ridiculous in his hip hop.  He did look ridiculous in his hip hop.  

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  8. Marsha12:19 PM

    I'm not making myself clear, because I agree with you that they can criticize Billy for looking ridiculous. What I think is unfair is for them to assume going in that he WILL look ridiculous. I thought that their comments were almost entirely in the vein of "we knew you'd be ridiculous, and we never even gave a moment's thought to the idea that you might do ok at this," rather than "here's why you looked ridiculous, and here's what you can do about it."

    I'm actually looking forward to seeing what Jose can do if they give him hard choreography. I actually like seeing them fail sometimes, and I like when you think they're going to fail and they hit it out of the park like Alex did.

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  9. Sheila2:12 PM

    I agree with you about how annoying the judges have been about this, and I did think their comments to Billy were unfair (in that they didn't even seem to give him a chance). But I think the difference between how they treat dancers like Billy and Jose is unfair to Jose as well.

    It seems so patronizing when they (really mostly Nigel) tell Jose (and Russell, and Joshua, etc.) how amazing it is that they're doing so well when they don't have training. I mean, #1 - you chose this guy as one of the top six male dancers you saw. Why are you acting surprised that he's doing well? And #2 - that really seems to discount the years of hard work that went into developing the skills that he does have. Is there only one kind of "training" that should be expected to make a quality dancer? I just wish they would treat everyone the same: they are all being asked to dance outside of their presumed areas of expertise, and that's kind of the point of the show. So how about they judge what they actually see and forget the preconceived ideas of who "should" be good at any style other than their own.

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