Finally Season 8 is out! It's been a while since I was really into any TV shows these days. Season 7 was slightly wonky because of the change in format, and the stage was somewhat too big for TV, so I didn't really have a lot of good things to remember about it, except that Elastic Girl Lauren Froderman won, and Freakshow Kent Boyd came in second. Anyway, Season 8 for me has been exciting thus far. Early stand-outs like Jordan and Melanie, who are now in the top 20, blew me away. Right from the get-go I found the girls more beastly than the guys. The top 10 boys routine didn't really do it for me, especially after the whoop-ass intro video, I thought the routine would be as so. It looked slightly under-rehearsed, probably because it was a mixer of numerous different styles, and not all the boys were trained to dance a la LXD, they didn't really look like they danced together. Then again, who can blame them? It was the first time that they danced together ever.
The girls routine was fantastic. Probably the best one of the night? It was a style that almost all of them (except may be Iveta) were trained in, and Sonya is really a nut-job with a lot of flavours to bring to the table. The eleven of them together translated into one combustible reaction, and burn the stage they did. The world champion (and this season's only) Russian ballroom bombshell Iveta was a beast dancing with Pasha that night. The whole routine was entertaining from start to finish, kudos to Ausi-born Jason Gilkinson who made use of the cape splendidly. I would say he was the best ballroom choreographer they'd had on the show, or perhaps he would be neck-to-neck with Jean Marc and his wife, France. Alex da Silva was brilliant, but he was then indicted for some sexual assault, so there goes his career on the show. The same happened to Shane Sparks. Sigh. Anyway, it was refreshing to hear Nigel thanking Iveta for, in his words, humbling herself to join SYTYCD. I think he did that because effectively she would end up giving free crash-course ballroom lessons to whomever she would partner on the show. Can you imagine the first time you get those leather shoes on and you have to partner a world champion? And she held the title for all ten genres. Gotta be hard to wear the pants in that partnership.
The hiphop number was a snooze for me, not necessarily because of bad dancing or bad choreography, but again it felt like the guys didn't dance together as a group. There were these sporadic energies on stage that didn't synergise to elevate the routine to the next level. OMG I sounded like Lil' C. Another bugger, he should stop talking. He ruined it for me big time. I literally had to skip his comments because it was too painful to hear. Someone please get him an English dictionary, not a thesaurus.
My favorite routine of the night was Stacie Tookey's routine to In This Shirt by The Irrepressibles. Melanie was a stand-out. This girl was something special. Watching her during the auditions, I really thought she would be one of those vanilla dancers-- technicians with little performance quality, kind of like the dancers in Season 6 and may be 7? But in this routine she was some-heavenly-infant creature that was just stunning. She definitely ticked all the boxes on the list, my list. Speaking of good dancing and good technique, the choreographers needed to find another freak-show stunts for their routines, anything other than the ponche thing that the girls had been doing the entire night. Jordan did it once in the Sonya's Jazz routine (assisted by Marko), some did it in the Geisha routine, Miranda in Stacie Tookey's, and some others in the Little Bird routine. That's a whole lot of ponches in one night, and the same one at that.
Anyhoo like I said, this season has been exciting, and I've got the feeling that this season will give birth to more Katie-and-Joshuas or Twitchingtons. One thought that keeps bugging me: Ryan was a ham-- don't know why, just gotta say it. Congrats to Mary for the successful surgery she had had before the show kicked off (it was her throat I think), and for now not being the one with the highest Botox-content on the judging panel. Anyway, cheers to a start of a great two months of a lot of beastly dancing!
The girls routine was fantastic. Probably the best one of the night? It was a style that almost all of them (except may be Iveta) were trained in, and Sonya is really a nut-job with a lot of flavours to bring to the table. The eleven of them together translated into one combustible reaction, and burn the stage they did. The world champion (and this season's only) Russian ballroom bombshell Iveta was a beast dancing with Pasha that night. The whole routine was entertaining from start to finish, kudos to Ausi-born Jason Gilkinson who made use of the cape splendidly. I would say he was the best ballroom choreographer they'd had on the show, or perhaps he would be neck-to-neck with Jean Marc and his wife, France. Alex da Silva was brilliant, but he was then indicted for some sexual assault, so there goes his career on the show. The same happened to Shane Sparks. Sigh. Anyway, it was refreshing to hear Nigel thanking Iveta for, in his words, humbling herself to join SYTYCD. I think he did that because effectively she would end up giving free crash-course ballroom lessons to whomever she would partner on the show. Can you imagine the first time you get those leather shoes on and you have to partner a world champion? And she held the title for all ten genres. Gotta be hard to wear the pants in that partnership.
The hiphop number was a snooze for me, not necessarily because of bad dancing or bad choreography, but again it felt like the guys didn't dance together as a group. There were these sporadic energies on stage that didn't synergise to elevate the routine to the next level. OMG I sounded like Lil' C. Another bugger, he should stop talking. He ruined it for me big time. I literally had to skip his comments because it was too painful to hear. Someone please get him an English dictionary, not a thesaurus.
My favorite routine of the night was Stacie Tookey's routine to In This Shirt by The Irrepressibles. Melanie was a stand-out. This girl was something special. Watching her during the auditions, I really thought she would be one of those vanilla dancers-- technicians with little performance quality, kind of like the dancers in Season 6 and may be 7? But in this routine she was some-heavenly-infant creature that was just stunning. She definitely ticked all the boxes on the list, my list. Speaking of good dancing and good technique, the choreographers needed to find another freak-show stunts for their routines, anything other than the ponche thing that the girls had been doing the entire night. Jordan did it once in the Sonya's Jazz routine (assisted by Marko), some did it in the Geisha routine, Miranda in Stacie Tookey's, and some others in the Little Bird routine. That's a whole lot of ponches in one night, and the same one at that.
Anyhoo like I said, this season has been exciting, and I've got the feeling that this season will give birth to more Katie-and-Joshuas or Twitchingtons. One thought that keeps bugging me: Ryan was a ham-- don't know why, just gotta say it. Congrats to Mary for the successful surgery she had had before the show kicked off (it was her throat I think), and for now not being the one with the highest Botox-content on the judging panel. Anyway, cheers to a start of a great two months of a lot of beastly dancing!
