Your guest host is Kelley Abbey. She is pretty.
Top seven boys: Broadway. I was kind of meh on the whole idea of a top seven boys’ performance because there didn’t seem to be any reasonable way to choreo a routine that would showcase all of them equally, so I figured they’d end up just doing a sort of bland bit that would showcase them all equally not-at-all, and I was unfortunately correct about this. I also nailed both Broadway selections for just going with the most predictable options (in this case, West Side Story for the boys). I love the Australian show for tinkering with format, but this is one of their failures.
Issi and Don: “funky street Latin.” This was probably the best Issi and Don have danced together so far: Issi finally had performance quality when not dancing in her genre and Don was dead on the beat throughout and not rushing. Both had a few weak bits – Issi mostly at the start, Don a bit after her – and the confidence was occasionally lacking (Jason’s comments about “finding Broadway versions of yourselves” was actually pretty brilliant) but on the whole this was danced reasonably well for something that’s about as far from being a formal genre as possible.
Jessica P. Ballroom and Heath: contemporary. Killed it, again – which is not surprising because these two have danced contemporary, jazz, one tango and now back to contemporary. I’d really like them to do anything else at this point, but I can’t say this wasn’t good.
Ivy and Robbie: paso doble. Okay, Robbie needs to have facial hair pretty much forever, because it ages him about five years. Actually, since he normally looks about fifteen, maybe ten years. Anyway, Jason Gilkison is brilliant, but even with Gilkison I was skeptical that a prop cape would fly. But it did, because he’s brilliant. This is Ivy’s second paso (I can’t remember the last time one dancer danced paso twice in a single season) and the improvement was massive; Robbie finally danced well enough to convince me that he’s not just a great soloist. That double développé was fucking insane. Fantastic work.
Carly and Kieran: contemporary. Other than Calry maybe overemoting a bit in a couple of sequences, there’s nothing to say other than: yes, another excellent contemporary performance. See, this is the problem with recapping this show: so much of it is just good and there’s nothing for me to say except banana monkey hamburgers and pretend that it is meaningful.
Jessie Contemporary and Matt: jazz. Clever concept with a ton of character and danced excellently by both of them. I’d really like to point out that Jessie’s leaping split into the catch by Matt was a total moment of trust on her part, which says a lot about this partnership. (I know that this is a very SYTYCD Judge thing to say, but I’m not saying it about a basic lift but instead about a pretty difficult stunt. I don’t think, as Bonnie did, that Jessie outshined Matt; she had the showier role but Matt danced just as well as she did.
Renee and Phillipe: Viennese waltz. This started out with such pleasant chemistry, and indeed the chemistry was ridiculously good throughout: the looks on Renee’s and especially Phillipe’s faces were so amazingly genuine. In terms of character quality this was probably the best waltz SYTYCD has seen since Mark and Courtney’s in season four of the US show. Unfortunately, the dancing was clunky and clumsy and just plain bad, which was a massive disappointment; if it had been on par with the chemistry this would have been an incredible tour de force.
Jess H. Hip-Hop and Nick: hip-hop. My love for Tiana Canterbury knows no bounds, and especially for choreographing 90s-style hip-hop, which any hip-hop dancer who’s tried it can tell you is insanely difficult, and there were a few stretches in this routine where Nick especially was just falling behind and even Jess was clearly struggling to keep up. This isn’t to say that the routine wasn’t fun and danced relatively well, but in a field this strong it’s unfortunately second-class.
Top seven girls: Broadway. I would like to put “Cell Block Tango” on my list of Music I Never Want To Hear On This Show Ever Fucking Again. That is all.
Probable bottom three: Issi and Don, Jess and Nick, Renee and Phillipe.
Should go home: Issi and Don.
Will go home: Jess and Nick.
Related Articles
6 users responded in this post
Ivy and Robbie are surprising the hell out of me, I have to admit. I think they’re my new favorite couple.
I loved that Paso and I wasn’t expecting to at all. There was a touch of flamenco about it that really worked.
I’m looking forward to seeing Robbie & Ivy do Bollywood next week. I thin Robbie in particular has a sharpness to his movement that will work well in that style. I hope.
I’m hoping we’re past the train wreck stage after this week’s eliminations.
I’m really looking forward to seeing Heath and Jessica do Broadway and hip-hop next week, myself. While you can’t really blame anything in particular for their run of lyrically choreographed numbers, I feel for a lot of these dancers getting voted out for lack of variety.
Seeing a bit of lyrical for Matt/Jessie (without gimmicks) and a bit of hard, high-impact for Heath/Jessica, not to mention that Nick hopefully gets a non-wacky theme? All will be very welcome.
The eliminations were welcome this week. Admittedly, I’ve wanted Don gone from the beginning; he can carry the steps of anything, but not the style. And as for Issy? I know injury and poor partnering’s kept her out of real form, but she hasn’t exactly impressed, either.
Really looking forwards to next week, now. Thanks, MGK.
I’ve only been able to watch the first half of the show, so i have yet to see the last three couple perform, but I was especially impressed with the paso, not just because the dancers were so fully committed and really brought off the posture so necessary to the dance, but because Jason G. used non-traditional paso music that really worked, for once.Usually I have no tolerance for pop paso mash-ups, but this one was brilliant.
This is the only version of SYTYCD where I actually learn something about dance and evaluating performance from the judges feedback to the dancers.
The results night group dance was far better than either of the gender ones, what was that? And yeah, I wish there had been a little more style variety for some of these couples before we got this close to the Top 10.
That said, while I’m willing to be convinced otherwise, I definitely have favorite girls. The guys are harder. And I’m really excited for next week — I think we got rid of the last of the dancers who just weren’t on the same level as the others, the new double dose of genres will either showcase or expose certain people (I have my hopes and suspicions on both sides), and now it’s up to everyone to step up and get it done.
Not sure if we’re meant to tell you who actually go voted out, but I think you’ll be happy!
I, too, am looking forward to Robbie and Ivy doing some Bollywood. I think we’ve seen in past shows that it can be completely amazing. I remember the 5 girls performing Bollywood in US season 5 and I just loved it to pieces.