Hey MGK readers, it’s occasional guestblogger Karen here to recap SYTYCD Canada for you because Mr. Bird is too busy liveblogging the final presidential election to weigh in on dance.

How are my qualifications as a dance critic? Not great, actually. The MGK has watched every season of every regional variation on SYTYCD since its inception, whereas I have not. However, I have one thing working in my favour: a vag. I was subjected to the requisite six-year-old girl jazz classes, Strictly Ballroom is one of my all-time favourites, and I’m semi-immune to boobs ’cause I get to look at them every day. But I’m not going to pretend to be a technical expert.

Let’s do this anyway.

Okay, it’s the Top 18, Kevin and Bre left last week. Leah Miller is actually growing on me—she had some fairly quippy ad-libs tonight. They introduced some hilarious corporate sponsorship: the Cloverleaf Energy Room where live-audience members can dance and the footage gets posted online. And they’re all like, “Wooo, we’re having a canned tuna party up in this place!” With this and their “Rip-n-Ready” pouches , Cloverleaf is, like, the hippest canned tuna out there!!

Before the show gets underway, Tre gets really serious and says that someone has been criticizing Jean-Marc’s English, and challenges them to get up on stage and do his job in French. Who is she talking about? At first I’m like, “One of the dancers? Someone in the audience?” Someone in the media would make more sense. Anyone know anything about this?

Also, wardrobe check: Tre and Leah look like they went shopping together for the CTV staff Christmas party.

Allie and Danny: “New York-style” mambo. “I like my mambo like I like my cheesecake: New York-style”? Ehh, maybe not. Allie is dancing in a sparkly bikini (as they do in New York) but this mambo is PG13. Danny does some good mambo, but nobody really cares because the cute little ballerina danced the mambo in a bikini and was still cute. Allie has obviously got the technical skills; if she can keep the cute and work in a little spice, she will go far.

Vincent and Lisa: Hip Hop. They dress up as Raggedy Ann and Andy with a little “clowning” flavour and the result is NIGHTMARES FOREVER. Choreography is kind of balls, but their moves are very tight.

Arassay and Nico: Theatre. Dramatic routine about a girl who prays for her dark, sexy guardian angel. Pretty decent! Bonus points for some wierd Christian imagery, and super bonus points for Nico giving new meaning to girl boners. Nico is like the French Canadian King of Girl Boners with his smokin’ bod and mohawk thing and gorgeous accent and eyebrow ring and tattoos somewhere probably. And he’s looks like he’d be all like, “Hey, I’m just going to stay here in my industrial-garage-turned-loft in Montreal and pull an all-nighter editing my documentary with nothing to keep me company but a pack of smokes and some vegan chili—–oh, and then I’m going to go on TV and be an AMAZING DANCER.” Frig, I love Quebec. Quebec’s greatest provincial export is boners.

Francis and Natalli: Pasa Doble. A knockout performance by Natalli. Blake tells Natalie, “You’re making all the girls in this competition look like babies” (and he’s clearly talking about Allie). I am not so sold on Francis in this, because the Paso Doble is dependent on sheer fucking testosterone and he’s just not delivering it. They judges say he was channelling alpha male, but I don’t think they get to see much alpha male on this show.

Izaak and Kaitlyn: Dancehall. First dancehall evarrrrr! Whitest dancehall evarrrrrr! Izaac is sweet, because he’s such a virgin, but it’s killing his ability to perform a believable dancehall number. Kaitlyn did what she could. They dress up like  Olivia Newton-John and John Travolta in Grease as some kind of wierd uberwhiteness-meets-Jamaica cultural mashup, but its not adorable in a Cool Runnings sort of way. Again, the judges allude to Izaak needing to “be real” and again I have no idea what the hell that means.

Lara and Miles: Viennese Waltz. Where is the waltz? Waltz is abandoned for lots of spinning and another crowd-pleasing kiss. The judges say nothing bad and praise their unique “connection.” Who even cares that they barely danced, I actually love this pair. Not for the kissing, but for Miles (who is a popping instructor at Street Dance Academy in Toronto, by the way). On what he doesn’t like about Lara: “The worst thing about Lara is that she doesn’t like pie. If it’s in a crust, she doesn’t like it. I don’t get it.” Adorable.

Caroline and Jesse: Hip Hop. Do they consult about routines before the show? Here we have another hip hop number featuring retro toys: this time they’re toy soldiers. It’s pretty bad, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see Jesse go.

Tamina and Joey: Contemporary. EPIC FAIL!!!! Concept: prisoner in jail cell daydreams about his first love to the sound of “Crocodile Rock” by Elton John. The jugdes could barely keep a straight face. Luther said, “[I’m laughing] because it was the happiest jail dance I’ve ever seen in my entire life. And then it ended with a gunshot. So…” I think Jean-Marc said, “You were jumping on the beds, it looked like a sleepover!” The dancers both politely blamed the choreography, and when the camera panned to the choreographer he looked devastated. Then Tamina’s boob fell out of her top. If they get voted off tomorrow (very possible), this number will go down in history for the epic failness.

Dario and Romina: Jazz Pop. I love both of these dancers, but they’re so different and it’s hurting them. Romina, as usual, steals the show as she “dances for her life” but if you have the option of replaying this, watch it again and keep your eyes on Dario. It’s just beautiful. This is why the judges are fighting so hard to keep Dario on the show, but he can’t compete with the showiness of Romina. This couple will only excel once they’re been separated. I hope Dario can hang in there.

Nothing super standouty this week. Will Tamina and Joey sail home on the failboat?

I’ll let MGK make his predictions.

It is Canadian Thanksgiving (AKA “the better version of American Thanksgiving”), so I am busy eating turkey and stuffing and potatoes and sweet potatoes and gravy and rolls and cranberry sauce and, somewhat reluctantly, cooked carrots. Hence why the blog has been inactive this weekend.

That having been said, I wrote this week’s Televisualist column in advance, specifically because I would be busy!

Normal service resumes tomorrow.

Quite a nice start to the show, overall. The judges are excellent – even the previously kind of iffy Luther was good, and Tre, Jean-Marc and Blake all offered excellent, detailed critiques of every piece.

On the downside, Leah Miller is absolutely horrible – I mean, it’s not just that she isn’t Cat Deeley, it’s that she isn’t anything. She is terrible. Absolutely terrible. She is worse than Ben Mulroney on Canadian Idol, and that is hard to do. Furthermore, the editing on the show is awkward at best; not for the numbers, but the editing of the judges’ comments is very blatant and visible, which is exactly what editing is not supposed to be.

Anyhow.

Arrasay and Nico: salsa. (I see the former Nicolas has chopped off part of his name. Such is life.) This was a very strong salsa routine, far more street salsa than performance salsa (I approve heartily of that choice) with a couple of quite difficult tricks which the two of them pulled off quite nicely. Nico needed to stiffen up his upper frame a bit, but that’s a very minor criticism of an otherwise excellent performance. Arrasay was predictably fantastic. This looks to be a strong partnership.

Natalli and Kevin: hip-hop. This was moderately eh. (And what the hell: “The Way I Are?” Come on, it’s not a year and a half ago.) Natalli was off and Kevin was severely whiteboy, especially in the second half. The judges tried to play nice by pointing out that Kevin was on time and Natalli had charisma, but it fell apart halfway through and was not very good. The first half was actually decent, but the second was ugly. I think they’ll squeak by this week, but they need to shape up. That having been said, I think they’ve got the capacity to do that.

Bre and Francis: smooth waltz. (Didn’t Bre spell it “Bree” in tryouts? Well, whatever.) This was not very good, and that’s mostly on Bre – Francis clearly knew what he was doing and did his best to cover up her problems, but her footwork was bad – not just weak but actively at points unsteady, I mean, you can actually pick out where she was correcting herself through the piece – and it’s clear the choreographer was trying to cover for it by giving her those contemporary-ish short running bits that, you know, really shouldn’t be in a smooth waltz. Smooth waltzes that are not smooth just irritate the shit out of me, because I sit in front of my TV yelling “BE DREAMLIKE YOU FUCKERS” and I do not need that kind of stress.

Allie and young Hugh Jackman – no, wait, Danny: jive. The judges gave this one a bit of a tonguebath, and I’m not saying it was undeserved because the routine was fun and they’ve got good chemistry together. That having been said, the extension on the kicks was occasionally lacking (particularly on Allie’s part, which should not be unexpected because good extension on jive kicks is tricky for a relative newcomer) and that big lift did get bobbled a bit (but not unforgiveably so). But on the whole this was good dancing, and worked out quite well.

Kaitlyn and Izaak: “theater” (which means “Broadway” outside of the United States). This was perfectly okay, as Broadway – excuse me, “theater” – numbers go, and the judges went to town on it, mostly because I think Izaak was playing his part more for laughs than anything else, mugging his way through his highlight parts of the routine. Kaitlyn was perfectly decent if not remarkable. Very middle-of-the-road, which for a first performance is all right.

Lisa and Vincent: contemporary. (Vincent-Olivier has also caught the name-contraction bug, I see. By week six, he will simply be “V.”) This was crazy good. Not much of a story beyond your standard contemporary boy-and-girl-dancing-through-pain-and-love thing, sure, but my god, the extreme difficulty of this piece was obvious and the two of them just fucking nailed every single moment of it. I’m not kidding – this was intensely fantastic. Seek it out on Youtube or wherever if you missed it – it was that good. This was the best routine of the entire night; nothing else even came close.

Lara and Miles: disco. Well, more of a contemporary-ish disco-themed piece as opposed to a standard disco, but whatever, I’m just going to be thankful that I didn’t have to sit through yet another Doriana Sanchez “let’s have seven thousand lifts” disco. I think the much-ballyhooed kiss was designed by the pair of them for a cheap audience pop, but the thing is that they really did dance better afterwards, so maybe the pop gave them some confidence? Anyway, technique not quite there entirely, but the charisma was and it was fun enough for me to give it a thumbs up.

Romina and Daario: hip-hop. Firstly: obligatory Can-con music geekout! Kardinal Offishal! Awesome. (Although if this show sets a piece to a Barney Bentall song, I will not be pleased.) Secondly: the judges all told Daario he wasn’t dancing at Romina’s level, which is true, but Romina was seriously off the hook tonight and Daario was merely quite good, which normally is no great sin but when Romina kills it like that, etc. The routine was great fun, not showy with big tricks but very tight on the floor. I liked this.

Tamina and Joey: tango. Oh god was this bad. Joey was a bit better than Tamina, this was bad on multiple levels. Absolutely zero chemistry between the two of them, for starters (they don’t even seem to like each other all that much). No sense of pacing in the steps, no build to the big dramatic moments that makes a good tango. No real technique, and although I don’t expect a hip-hop dancer and a contemporary dancer to have perfect tango technique, I do expect at least a rudimentary display of it, and there wasn’t even that. Worst routine of the night by a mile and a half.

Caroline and Jesse: jazz. Ersatz comedy piece with giant Afros = fail. Not on the part of Caroline and Jesse, who danced the routine acceptably well if not superbly, and at least got to show off their individual tricks – but damn, this was a stupid routine, pure and simple. Clowning took up much of the time that should have been spent dancing. The double flip was really nice, and the two of them covered up their mistakes (and there were more than a couple) well enough that they should get by. But, yeah – stupid routine.

I’m voting for: Lisa and Vincent; Arrasay and Nico; Allie and Danny.
Bottom three predictions: Tamina and Joey, Bre and Francis, Natalli and Kevin.
Going home: Tamina and Joey.

My weekly TV column is up at Torontoist.

I saw a lot of my favorites go (Ferdinand, TK, Justin Johnson, several ballroom girls, Francesca), but if honesty prevails I am forced to admit that on the whole the top 20 looks extremely promising in terms of dancer strength – they cut out a lot of the more personality-based dancers with weaker technique while still keeping a final set with some real characters. It’s too early to tell yet, and we’ll have a better idea of how they compare after the first round of competition, but on the whole I’m very optimistic about the talent level for the first Canadian season of So You Think You Can Dance – it was especially notable how all the dancers kept saying how long they’d been waiting for this chance, emphasizing how much the show has impacted the dance community worldwide and especially in countries like Canada where the dance community is both extremely talent-rich and extremely under-recognized.

Also, I hope that when I am in my mid-40s I can still move like Jean-Marc Genereux.

Also also, I am so happy that Emmanuel Sandhu got cut. Go triple axel into a shark’s mouth, Emmanuel.

My weekly TV column is up at Torontoist.

Now I have to decide whether I will be liveblogging the Canadian federal election debate or the US vice-presidential debate, as they are on at the same time. Decisions, decisions!

My weekly TV column is up at Torontoist.

– 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.

(SCENE: a nondescript hotel room, covered with paper, the television tuned to CNN. JOSH, TOBY, SAM, DONNA, and CJ are sitting around the room in various states of concentration.)

SAM: (reading aloud) “This election is important, not because it is about change but because it is about choice. As a politician, I choose to present you with facts. My opponent chooses to lie to you. Your job is to choose as well – but the other guy doesn’t want your job to be easy.”
TOBY: Shift from formal speech to informal conversation. Wait, did I say informal? I meant “folksy.”
SAM: Folksy?
TOBY: From my lips to L’il Abner’s ears, yes.
SAM: What’s wrong with folksy? People like folksy.
TOBY: How about he’s not folksy? How about it comes across as inauthentic? Like he’s trying to get people to like him?
CJ: But we are trying to get people to like him.
TOBY: There’s a fine line between charismatic and pathetic. You are jumping, you are vaulting over that line.
SAM: I’ll rewrite it.

Silence. Then:

JOSH: When did people stop doing math?
DONNA: For me, that would be grade eleven.
JOSH: I don’t mean – look. He’s promising to increase military spending and cut taxes, and his entire plan for not making the country go broke is cutting earmarks. That’s like you trying to pay off your credit card by saving your change when you buy gum.
DONNA: I don’t have that much on my credit card.
JOSH: Yes you do.
(Pause.)
DONNA: There was a sale on widescreen televisions.
JOSH: You watch the news and “Grey’s Anatomy.”
DONNA: And I can see every last one of their pores in glorious high definition.
JOSH: But you watch the news. Donna, how is the fiscal outlook of the United States right now?
DONNA: Are you asking me or are you asking the campaign’s press secretary?
JOSH: I’m asking you.
DONNA: Then it’s pretty bad.
JOSH: Then why does he think he can just yell out “tax cuts” and everything will work?
CJ: Because both parties spent years convincing the American electorate that we were on the wrong side of the Laffer curve and we needed to cut taxes in order to make the government more efficient and put more money in voters’ pockets.
JOSH: I know, but wouldn’t you think they’d have figured out we were all full of crap yet?
CJ: You’d think.

Silence for a while, then:

TOBY: I can’t take this any more!
JOSH: (checking watch) Who had eight-thirty to nine o’clock in the pool?
SAM and DONNA and CJ: (in unison) Charlie.
JOSH: Why do I ever let that kid gamble?
TOBY: How do I do this job? He just lies and lies and lies and nobody gives a damn!
JOSH: We do.
TOBY: You don’t count.
SAM: Black voters do. Hispanics do. Younger –
TOBY: Yes, Sam, thank you, I needed a description of the Democratic Party’s traditional base, now how about independent voters? You know, the stupid ones? I mean, I knew they were stupid, we spend most of every other year catering to their stupidity, but I thought until now they were just dense and uninterested, not actively handicapped!
JOSH: Look, we knew we’d have to grind this one out.
TOBY: This isn’t “grinding it out,” Josh. Every day they lie. Phyllis Schafly’s hot daughter is on the campaign trail every day lying – not shading the truth, not trying to make a bad thing look better, she’s just lying every time she opens her goddamn mouth about things that are in the public record for anybody to see!
CJ: Toby, the press –
TOBY: The press! The press! The press is useless, CJ! Worse than useless! Never mind that this year the choice comes down to a gifted young leader and the Cryptkeeper and they want “balance” – you know what they call them? “Distortions.” Not lies. “Distortions.”
DONNA: “Distortions” doesn’t sound that good.
TOBY: It sounds better than “lies” and that’s all that matters. People who don’t follow politics know what “distortions” are – they’re what you get when a politician tries to make something average sound good. But this – I don’t know to fight this. We call them lies, everybody will get caught up in a big round of “everybody does it” and nobody cares. Worse, we destroy what we’ve got – a guy who people think doesn’t like it because he doesn’t like it. We’re walking a razor here and I’m out of ideas.
(Pause.)
JOSH: I vote for beer.
TOBY: Is that your answer to this?
JOSH: It’s my answer to needing beer. Come on, Toby, let’s go get a drink and then come back and tackle it fresh.
(All rise and proceed to exit. From out in the hallway…)
SAM: You know, he jumps from formal speech to folksy all the time when he writes his own stuff.
TOBY: Great. Let’s get him a straw hat and have him hum the tune to “Hee Haw.” I bet that puts Alabama in play.

My weekly TV column is up at Torontoist.