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I always love your superior Canadian recaps.
BoomKack got so dissed by the judges for that weak hip hop choreo, wow. I think we will see solos from Victor and Karen, Nathan and Mollee next week. Legacy is the only dancer on this season who should be called a street dancer (ie: never been to a dance school) and for Nigel to continue to call Russell untrained is more than slightly racist.

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JQ_NW_American said on November 25th, 2009 at 3:50 am

“The American Tango is like the beginning of a love affair, when you are both very romantic and on your best behavior. The Argentine Tango is the next stage when you are in the heat of passion and all kinds of emotions consume you. The International Tango is like the end of the marriage, when you are staying together for the sake of the children”-Chris or Terri Cantrell (?).

For an American Smooth tango, they did a solidly good job. They played by the rules; they didn’t have a lot of proverbial fire because American tango isn’t so much about heat as a cooler aggression. Particularly with Karen, the emphasis on really creating a strong beat dynamic with her steps was pretty good.

The lindy hop looked different, I believe, because it wasn’t the smooth style that Nick Williams does, but the Savoy style which is a little slower and less frantic. Thus is the trial of a new choreographer, showing us something inoffensively different. Part of me thinks Rayven and Jaime would’ve gone farther if they hadn’t got Tabitha and Napoleon’s first soft (“lyrical”) hip hop.

Personally, I’m really tired of seeing Jakob show off how flexible he is. Maybe I’m jealous, but to me it takes away from the masculinity of his performance, which removes a lot of the Boy+Girl dynamic found in a lot of these duets. It also, to me, throws off the pacing, as we’re seeming taking this pit stop to stretch it out.

More than anything, I miss judges who are willing to bitch out on these kids when they dance poorly. If only Mia Michaels didn’t decide to… and Dan Karaty didn’t want to Launch His Line.

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mygif

There’s a sinister narrative developing on SYTYCD (America) whereby highly trained black male dancers (Brandon, Danny) are overwhelmingly chastised for arrogance and technique without heart. Meanwhile, Joshua was allowed to win a season as an “untrained hip-hop dancer”.

I made this comment on my own blog last year:

“I feel like there’s something to say about Brandon and Danny Tidwell and Will — all classically trained, superb technicians — as black men. Last year was won by Josh (a black “untrained” hip-hop dancer) with a runner up of Twitch (a black untrained hip-hop dancer). But two points (Danny and Brandon as superb technicians and athletes coming second to female contemporary dancers) don’t make a trend. As the show continues, there will be more data as to whether the American public is simply not ready to see strong black men outside the hip-hop/comedy box. I found both Danny and Brandon to be incredibly strong, muscular, sexual and challenging (the way they planted their feet on the stage, and owned their solos) in a way the pre/teen mostly female voting audience might not be ready for.

For comparison — Evan’s position as second runner-up makes him equal to Katee from last season, which makes it all the more clear how ludicrous his success was.

I was severely pissed that Evan made the finale, because I’m just fucking sick of the disparity between how amazing you have to be as a black man or woman of colour to make the finale, and how mediocre you can be as a “cute” or “charming” non-threatening white boy. He was a shitty partner who made the girls look infinitely worse, and my embarrassment squick was tripped on several occasions watching him dance not only Latin ballroom but also his own solos. The number of times he overbalanced/lost his balance/wasn’t there to support or connect with his partner or simply didn’t have the strength required for a routine was glaringly obvious to me, even in routines the judges praised (such as the Mia Michaels and Randy routine). The judges would have been merciless to a female dancer who displayed his inadequacies — on the Australian season a girl was sent home for raising her shoulders momentarily due to not enough core strength — Evan didn’t have any core strength that I noted.

This season has also been particularly glaring for its shoddy hip-hop and strong bias towards contemporary dancers (even the ballroom dancers got shorter shrift than usual).

I like Janine, but there is no doubt in my mind that this was Brandon’s season.

P.S: The show also needs to learn how to LIGHT BLACK PEOPLE OMG. Kayla’s long white limbs and light-reflective face really brought home to me how badly they lit and costumed Ade and Brandon half the time.”

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mygif

Is there any official position on the lack of guest judges? It’s starting to get really boring with the Same Old Trio, much as I love Adam Shankman.

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