Wednesday, June 8, 2011

So You Think You Can Dance recap: Salt Lake City & New York auditions

My wonderful friend, Susan, sent me a message encouraging me to update this blog. I can’t believe I forgot! I still haven’t watched the 5th audition, but Jess and I watched and took notes on SLC and NY last week. So, my apologies. Here are our general thoughts:

First off, we’re always proud to see a Salt Lake audition. We know there’s a lot of talent in the Beehive State and love when others recognize it as well.

Chyna Smith–Jess started off by thinking she was annoying and needed longer shorts. She was glad Chyna was from Idaho and not representing Utah. She thought Chyna’s solo was too fierce for her personality, and while she agreed with Nigel’s comparison to Molly (noting that, in our eyes, that isn’t a compliment) Jess conceded that Chyna seems more mature than Molly. I thought her routine was a boring solo piece, but I liked her. We agreed with her making it to Vegas.

Annie Gratton–Stupid song choice. Jess called her thrashy; I called her spastic. We admit she’s flexible, but she’s got no height to her jumps. We don’t really see why she got sent through to Vegas, but we don’t really care.

We caught a brief glimpse of contestant #5417. We never got her name, but she was in a black lacey top over a red sports bra, and we know she’s one of the dancers that went to Vegas. I LOVE HER. I want to know who she is.

Tadd Gadduang–We didn’t love as much as the Judges did, and we think it’s utterly ridiculous that he made it to Vegas.

Samantha Hiller–She looks so much like my co-captain in high school, Camille. Those of you who know both girls, wouldn’t you agree? We thought she was a good dancer, but not SYTYCD material. Clear evidence of this was when she did her attitude turn into an arabesque en pointe and she was hopping to get around the second half of the rotation.

Chase Thomas–Direct quote from Jessica, “Thumbs down. He needs to learn how to jump.” Direct quote from me when he was sent to Vegas, “Oh my gosh. You’ve got to be kidding me.”

At some point this switches to the New York audition, but I’m not 100% sure when because it’s not in my notes...

Two more dancers that made it to Vegas who we only saw briefly, #6303 and #5381, we love.

Princes Lockeroo–Made it to Vegas and we’re still not sure how that happened.

Brandon Jones–We love, love, love him. Jason commented that he is a, “strong male dancer that has so much softness and power,” which I think puts it perfectly.

There was a krumper with an attitude in New York. I don’t have his name here, but you know who I’m talking about. I don't really love krumping. Ever. But, um, I like him. So did Jess. We liked him even more when the shirt came off :) He got a lot of crap for his attitude, and while I agreed with parts I thought the judges were a little harsher than necessary.

Mary Kate–The Irish dancer that Jess and I were crap talking during the interview section, because we don’t often love the form of dance. Eventually we ate our words, because she had a very smart audition, using a lot of the stage, showing strength and flexibility that impressed us. We were happy the judges sent her to Vegas, even if their vote wasn’t unanimous.

Virgil “Lil O” Gadson–We really liked this little break dancer or whatever you would call him. He was bouncy and fun. We loved his smile and were stoked when he made it to Vegas. In fact, we were chanting, “Vegas, Vegas, Vegas,” before the announcement was made.

Jess LeProtto–We are so in love with this boy. And trust me, that’s saying a lot. Normally we watch Broadway routines with a bit of indifference, and we could not have disagreed more with the judges’ accusation that he “didn’t grab” us with his routine. We were grabbed. When we heard the judges were sending him to Choreography, we were going crazy. Princess Lockeroo makes it straight to Vegas because she does weird circly motions really fast, but this clearly talented, polished, and lovable performer has to go through Choreography? We can just never understand what the judges are thinking with those two alternatives.

Kristen Dobson–Great ballroom dancer. Jess thought she should have gone straight through to Vegas.

Robert Taylor Jr.–Another direct quote from Jessica, “I’m trying to decide. It’s cool but...yeah, I liked it.”

And that’s that :) We’ll try and get caught up soon.

Please let us know who your favorites are heading into Vegas week!

1 comment:

  1. I love Chyna! But that's probably because I was her sister's visiting teacher for a year :) She's wild, but she comes from a great family.

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