– I didn’t say anything about Sunday’s show on Sunday because I figure the non-watching-Dance portion of this blog’s audience can only take so much. See? I am thoughtful.
– That having been said: watching this with one of my new roommates (who b-boys more than a little, although not at the serious competition level) is entertaining because he picks out the flaws in hip-hop and breaker performances, and I can comment fairly knowledgeably on the ballroom stuff, which leaves us with contemporary, where we can go “oooh my” at the girls with the long legs. It is most equitable.
– Lindy-hoppers are the nerds of the dance world. Lindy hop takes an insane amount of strength and skill, and what do you get for all of it? The freaking Lindy hop. I ask you.
– Leah Miller: still a black hole from whence no charisma shall escape. She makes likeable dancers hanging out with her less likable. She is worse than Lauren Sanchez, for crissake, and everybody just pretends Lauren Sanchez never existed. (Admittedly, this is mostly because Cat Deeley is awesome, but Lauren Sanchez was pretty damned bad.)
– Speaking of nerds, I was very impressed with the SCA/NERO knight-wannabe who turned out to be arguably the best hip-hopper we’ve seen so far in the auditions. Holy shit, was that guy good.
– Also good – numerous ballroom dancers just smoking their auditions. Calgary was very good for ballroom. Montreal had the contortionists, Toronto the best hip-hoppers on the whole, Vancouver the best contemporary dancers, and Halifax made sure to give us all a bunch more white people.
– That Tiger guy’s dancing was visibly angry, which is something I genuinely don’t asssociate with b-boying; he danced pissed off. It made it oddly compelling, although I hope he has more than one speed.
– Emmanuel Sandhu needs to do a triple axel jump off a cliff.
– And people getting offended over that Dove girl, who was not a very good dancer all told but who got her trip to finals based mostly on persistence, need to relax. She’s not going to make top twenty, folks, not even close – not with the insane talent field they’ve got.
– Closing thought: A friend of mine who lives in Regina made the trip to the Calgary auditions a few months back (she didn’t make it past choreography). I teased her in an email saying “really? All that way?” She responded “look, every dancer in Canada has been waiting for four years to do this.” It’s going to be a very, very motivated group this year, which bodes well.
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Hey, Lindy Hop rules. It’s fun and you can do it anywhere. Case in point: S.O.S. by Rihanna is an EXCELLENT song to Lindy Hop to.
I tivo-ed SYTYCDC, so I’ll have to get back to you about the actual show.
I am completely steamed that we didn’t see more swing. Are you trying to tell me that the Swinging Air Force folks in Montreal didn’t audition? I’m sure I saw some of them in line, so why the hell didn’t we see their audition? Or the Toronto folks? I’m feeling a little ripped off at the moment. Heck, we saw more salsa dancers then swing folks. I could have done with a little less b-boy and contemporary and more ballroom and swing. You’re right, Lindy Hoppers (and West Coasters) are the nerds of the dance world, never getting respect.
I had no idea what Lindy Hop even was, so I looked it up on youtube, and now I’m registered for a class starting next week!
Yay Matthew!
Okay, so I watched my Tivo-ed SYTYCDC, and am totally overwhelmed by how awesome tre anthony’s onscreen presence is! Also, I can’t figure out whether the Canadian contestants are more charming than the American ones, or whether I just find them more charming because I’m Canadian.
Also, yeah, Canada has an awesome swing scene and we saw none of it. I like hip hop, but there’s a looooooot of it.