Thursday, May 28, 2009

ANOTHER SEASON, ANOTHER REASON FOR MAKIN’ WHOOPEE: Lots to root for on last night’s Memphis-Miami edition of SYTYCD. The brothers Kasprzak! Happy Tappy Silky! Quiet sister of blonde curly girl! Sha-wham! Flannel-wearing headbanger! Memphis Jookin! Dead Husband Girl! I Love My Dancing Gay Son Guy!

Anna Dunn (Flannel Girl) and Caitlin Kinney (quiet sister of blonde curly girl) provide a good jumping-off point for discussion of what Isaac last season referred to as Every Successful Female Contemporary SYTYCD Audition, highlights of which include Silent Movie Panic (staggering around the stage pretending you can’t pay the rent although you must pay the rent) and Sexy Fart Walk (walking sexy while waving hands artistically behind your caboose). Although the judges properly called Flannel Girl on the head-flailing (my neck hurts just thinking about it), the rest of her audition was very much in the classic Silent Movie Panic mode. (Which, to be au courant, we could also call “Bella Swan Trying to Run Away from the Vampires Who Don’t Think She Smells Quite as Good as Edward Does” style.) Caitlin, on the other hand, gave a much more restrained contemporary dance, full of small movements and tinier gestures. No flailing (but lots of gymnastics), no manic attempts to escape from Cam Gigandet or the rent collector’s twirly mustache. The judges seem to appreciate both approaches, but if you watched their faces, the awe was reserved for Caitlin, not Flannel Girl.

Once we get down to the final 20, we’ll stop seeing much in the way of solos for a while -- for the Marshas among you, those who America chooses each week as its bottom three girls and bottom three guys based on that week’s partnered dances will have the chance to dance for their lives, doing short solos in their own styles to try and convince the judges to keep them around. So these auditions are really the chance to see what the dancers can do before they start making Marico Flake (Memphis Jookin guy) learn the quickstep or the samba. I suspect the judges are really excited about Silky’s apparent ability to handle both hip hop and tap, on the theory that he’ll be able to segue between genres fairly easily. This obviously isn’t new to the show -- last year’s winner Joshua Allen, despite a lack of training, was a total genre chameleon -- but the judges do like their street dancers and like them to do well in the competition.

And who here was not moved by the clip package on Travis Prokop and his Texas football coach father? I thought the comments about strength-building were really interesting -- and shouldn't pose too much of a problem for Travis, given the resources at his disposal.

Tonight: LA and Seattle. Next week: VEGAS!

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