Welcome to a new season of So You Think You Can Dance! I am your substitute recapper, Lauren S, and am filling in just for tonight for Joe and Montykins, who will pick things up week. We get a montage of hopefuls trying out and talking about how this is your one chance, and how if you want to make it as a dancer you have to make it on this show. (Or on Broadway, or with a famous company... but we aren't about to get obsessed with those things for the 12 or so weeks.) Before all that, though, you need a ticket to Vegas, and that's what everyone is going for today. Cat Deeley is back, effervescent as always, and we're treated to a new montage of awesome-bodied dancers as she tells us that this will be the most competitive season yet since only ten people are making it to the finals this year. I, for one, am pretty excited about the new format, and can't wait to see how this goes.
The first stop on the audition trail is New York City. Wow, you know what song would be perfect to play at an event located in New York? "Empire State of Mind" by Alicia Keys! I'm glad this show finally used that because no one has really taken advantage of that connection yet. The judges here are Nigel Lythgoe, Adam Shankman and MIA MICHAELS! I actually have a love/hate relationship with Mia but I think having a season off has done me a world of good -- I'm thrilled to see her again. My DVR has chosen tonight to have a fit and occasionally pixilate and drop sound, but fortunately I've watched this show a couple of times so I can fill in the blanks as Cat explains that the dancers will audition and one of three things will happen: 1. They will get a ticket straight to Vegas. 2. They will be asked to do choreography later in the day to see if they can handle it, after which they will either be asked to go to Vegas or be sent home. 3. They'll be sent packing. We're "treated" to a brief montage of awfulness to show some of those dancers that will surely be dismissed off the bat. With that, we're off and running.
First up we meet Sarah, a contemporary dancer who grew up being known as "the big dancer," and who felt really self-conscious about it, so she got back in shape in order to try out for this show. She's very good but doesn't take my breath away -- I think one thing about this being the seventh season is that we've seen some really phenomenal dancers and auditions, and so people have to do a little more now to really stand out. Nigel loves her, though, especially because of her resemblance to Charlize Theron. Mia thinks she dances beyond her years, and Adam loves her self-assurance, so they are sending her straight to Vegas. up are ballroom dancers Giselle and Henry, who have already been on Broadway in the show Burn the Floor. As you would expect from dancers talented enough to be in a Broadway dance-centric show, they are totally awesome and I could watch them forever. Everyone on the judge's panel is all hot and bothered: Mia thinks they did Latin ballroom "just right," Adam is just plain turned on, and Nigel saw them in Burn the Floor and remembers them from that show, so obviously both are straight through to Vegas.
Back from commercial, Cat clarifies that these NY auditions are taking place in the Bronx, birthplace of hip-hop, and they have some appropriately awesome street dancers. But first, we have to sit through a clown named Mike, who started a "renegade dance troupe" called 1-2-3 Party because he was tired of getting kicked out of clubs because of the way he danced. He and his two buddies are in neon green tees and unfortunate shorts, and call their dance style "dancetastic furious footwork from the '80s." Why am I even typing this out and encouraging this guy? He claims most people love it, and I might, if I felt like he had a sense of humor about himself. But after his jazzercise routine is over, he stands there, stone-faced, and can't crack a joke or even show any speck of emotion, and so I feel kind of like my time has been wasted. I'm relieved when he finally runs out with his boombox (the emotion that he does show is obviously carefully rehearsed) and we move on to more of the real dancers.
up is Teddy, who auditioned last time in pants he borrowed from the Norwegian curling team, but this time he's back in simple black pants and a white shirt, and he's dying to make it to Vegas again. His dance style is incredibly quirky but his movements are really full and he's got a lot of passion -- I feel like he's a judges dream but they all look so serious during his performance (and Adam's exclamations could have been good or awful, I couldn't tell) that I have no idea what they are going to say. I needn't have worried, though, because he makes Mia cry by tapping into the pain of being the unpopular kid who was made fun of, and she finds it brilliant and adores him. Adam loves how much he put himself out there emotionally and tells Teddy he's honored to have watched the routine. Nigel rains on the parade a bit by reminding Teddy how disappointing he was in Vegas last time, but gives him a chance to redeem himself this year, and Teddy is beside himself. After he's done we see a montage of dancers including an amazing ballerina named Briana and an awesome torso, I mean... dancer... named Daniel who are both sent to Vegas.
The montage is of various hopefuls telling us what they do for their day jobs, and we meet Scott, a biohazardous remediation technician, which means he cleans up accident and murder sites, basically. It's hard for him to find a date when he tells girls what he does for a living, but dance is a way for him to get away from thinking about the brain matter he cleaned up earlier. I'm not sure how to describe his style, but I think basically it's line dancing, and I am not saying that at ALL from any sort of firsthand knowledge and recognition of some of the steps from back, say, in college when my friends and I could hypothetically have frequented a country bar, no siree, not at all. Aha! He confirms that it is in fact country line dancing. That was some brilliant guesswork on my part. The judges love him personally for his awesome attitude and crazy job, but he's not up to snuff with his dancing and he's sent home. The final dancer of the evening is a guy named Chris, a.k.a. Isolock, who is there with his mentor, Shockolock, who is basically a legend in the locking community. I'm a little creeped out by Chris' mime-like outfit of striped shirt and socks with black pants and top hat, but his moves are incredible, and when he puts his head down we see that he's got Nigel's face stuck to the top. Nigel says he's seen better isolations but not in tandem with the locking, and he and Mia both really like his style and how quirky he is, though they are both not sure what other styles he might be able to do. Adam thinks there were little glimmers of other styles in his routine, so he gets sent through to choreography. He and 33 others are there, and Courtney Galliano (season 4) and Jason Glover (season 5) are the ones teaching them their routine. Poor Chris is awful in the partner routine to "Bad Romance" and even drops his partner at the very end (though it's not very far, at least) so he's sent home, but while he seems bummed he admits he didn't have the training and so it was really hard for him. Bye, you crazy mime! Fifteen people we haven't seen yet are all totally stoked to get tickets to Vegas, and that's the end of day one.
Nigel gives the day two's group of dancers the advice to show the judges something new, and the first dancer who is going to try to do that is a horror filmmaker named Jamie. He works for Troma Entertainment, who make low-budget cult horror films (the most famous being The Toxic Avenger and who seem to have maybe sponsored a bit of this episode given all of the coverage and the interview with founder Lloyd Kaufman. But there are lots of screams and fake blood and rubber heads during the segment, so it's actually pretty fun as these random segments go. Intercut are shots of Jamie dancing around in a fruit headdress, which is what he's worn to the audition along with a black dress, pink belt, and a carrot inexplicably sticking out of his top. Oh but wait! He winds up losing the dress until he's in a tiny pink tutu with broccoli taped to his chest, and he pulls one stalk off and throws it to Mia, all while dancing to "We Don't Have To Take Our Clothes Off". Please, please, please let him be amusing in his interview, because this routine is totally amusing and goes against my usual hatred of joke auditions. Adam loves him and thanks him for sharing, Mia compliments him on his love of fruits and veggies, and basically they thank him for amusing them while obviously not inviting him on to Vegas, and Jamie has a totally fun attitude about it all. Bravo, sir.
I would describe the montage, featuring all of the people who slipped and fell, but I'm covered in sympathy bruises and it would hurt too much, so on to the dancer, Wadi. He's a free runner, which involves a lot of running over obstacles and up off of walls and anything he can find. He's a breakdancer, and his routine is interesting because he's so nonchalant about all of the moves that he makes it look almost easy and mellow and it took me a moment to realize how hard a bunch of these moves really are. They all love him and invite him back for choreography.
Back from commercial we go right into the routine of a dancer named Anthony who has amazing control and extension, and Nigel loves him. He's followed by a girl named Megan who is performing a contemporary routine to the normal female, aching, acoustic song but whose moves are just beautiful and flowing. Both are sent right to Vegas. Then we see a dancer called Edward, who tried out in season six, and he tells us that that was the first time his father ever saw him dance. He's super sweet, and as adorable as a bag of kittens! Kittens with zero body fat, that is. He's a ballerina and his movement is INSANE. This is where I am horrible at describing the movement, but basically he makes everything look effortless but he's clearly crazy strong. He manages to just exude a joy of dance while he moves. I'm not surprised to hear that he's in a pre-professional program with Alvin Ailey, and he then tells Nigel that his relationship with his dad, who never used to support him, has totally gotten better and grown since he got a chance to see him dance at the last audition. Mia tells him he's matured, and Adam adds to the love, but interestingly he just gets sent to choreography rather than straight to Vegas.
Only one dancer is left in New York, and her name is Megan, an 18-year-old dance major. She's a very curvy girl and says that she's been totally inspired by Mia Michaels since she made a career out of dance even without the typical slim little dancer body. Megan is a contemporary dancer, and her movements are beautiful -- both Mia and Adam are already crying only a few moments in to her routine. Adam congratulates her on blowing stereotypes out of the water and to his credit admits he can have those stereotypes and she totally just "schooled [him]." Mia tells her, "You make me so happy to be a woman of size." She cries as she tells Megan that she was told she'd never be a dancer because of her body, and she loves dancers for their spirit rather than their size and shape. Nigel is here to be the killjoy, and tells her that the reality is that she'll have a hard time finding jobs, but points out that Mia did too (Mia adds that she got, in fact, zero jobs) but that was what then sent her on the path to become a choreographer. They decide to send Megan to choreography to see how she fares, and she, Wadi and Edward are the three that we know who will be doing the routine -- Megan definitely struggled a little bit but I thought Wadi did quite well, and I'm surprised when both of them are dismissed. Edward, though, makes it on to Vegas (unsurprisingly) along with fifteen others that we haven't yet met.
up: Miami! Naturally this montage involves a lot of bikinis and bare torsos frolicking in the surf. We have a new panel here, as Nigel is joined by Jason Gilkison and Sonya Tayeh, who Cat reminds us is now "Emmy-nominated" choreographer Sonya Tayeh. The first guy to try out is a Czech ballroom dancer named Michael. He's been training in Germany for a competition in England but flew to Miami in order to have a chance to try out, of course. Awesomely, the reason he got into dancing was seeing Dirty Dancing when he was 11 years old, and specifically he mentions Patrick Swayze appearing half naked. Obviously, I already adore this guy. Nigel loves him for not pulling faces during his routine (though he does make a funny little fish face every so often, which is currently funny but could grate if he keeps it up), Sonya loves how precise he is, and Jason is the one who gives the most technical feedback (being the ballroom expert), that he managed to showcase his own footwork and skills while at the same time still being a really great partner. Michael is delighted and honored to hear that from Jason, and he's even more delighted when they send him straight to Vegas.
we meet Terrell, who is from Liberty City, a super-rough neighborhood on the other side of Miami. He tells us that he didn't want to sell drugs or fall into a bad life and so he turned to dance, and that even more unusually for the neighborhood he decided to do contemporary dance. We meet his dad, who wasn't too sure about it at first, but who supported him and tells us how proud he is of his son. Oh, show, you didn't need to add the piano music as you show him dancing in the street outside his house, I'm already getting kind of misty! Sheesh. And then he's dancing his routine to "Black and Gold" by Sam Sparro, so now he's my new favorite. (Yes, I'm easy. And also fickle, I know it, it's okay.) His movement and his lines are amazing and Sonya is beaming as she watches him -- all three of the judges adore him and send him right through to Vegas.
Henry is the dancer, and the poor kid is so nervous he can barely string together a coherent sentence when they interview him. He pulls it all together for his routine, though, a contemporary routine full of the flexed feet and backwards running we've come to love, but he's super sharp and manages to really make himself stand out. Sonya, never one to shy away from showing her feelings, exclaims throughout his entire routine. Nigel tells him he's brilliant for both having the technique and the performance, and Sonya tells him that his attention to detail was phenomenal. There's not much left for Jason to add other than that he loved it from start to finish, and all three agree he's the best dancer in Miami so far, and he's sent right to Vegas. Then a ballroom dancer, Daria, is trying out and her dad is there to act as her partner, which Nigel admits seems a little weird given that the routine is, well, all coupley as most ballroom routines are. Daria thinks it was something original that no one had done before but all of the judges seem a little uncomfortable and don't think it was necessarily a good kind of original, and she's dismissed. One of the last dancers of the day is a woman named Ami who has her six-year-old son with her, who is super cute and shows off the robot that she taught him. He's good! She says it's different being an older dancer who already has an established life with her family, but she also wants to do this for herself. First off I have to say she's one of the fittest people I've seen so far in this episode, and that's saying a lot given the fact that everyone is a dancer. She's clearly super strong, and as Nigel observes she's making a point to not make her routine smiley and girly, but he warns her to be careful that it doesn't cross over to looking just like exercises. He compliments her on having something that pulls the audience in, which was obvious from the standing ovation she got from a few of the other auditioning dancers. Sonya loves her and her strength, and Jason tells her that when she looked straight at the judges she drew him in amazingly. She's sent to choreography, and tells us she's excited to do the routine, and it showed -- they send her and nine others to Vegas.
Cat then greets us for the last day in Miami, and the first dancer she introduces us to is Candace, a Miami native who is in a girl group called the Velvet Angels, where she is the sexy, badass one. Her routine feels a little bit contemporary, a little bit ballroom -- but I have to be honest, I'm not entirely focused because I'm a little worried her bust is going to... well, bust out of her top. Nigel is sent into full-on dirty old man mode, and he can't seem to help himself making cracks about her giving men heart attacks when she and her group perform at nursing homes. (Also: really? Okay.) Jason tells her she's a great performer who makes bad decisions, in that she doesn't need to dance as "sensually" as she does. Sonya tells her she's got the sexual fire anyway so she doesn't have to overdo it, because it overshadows her skill, and Nigel kind of says the same thing though he's distracted when she celebrates her being sent to choreography by bouncing her girls about. Sonya advises her to just tie those puppies down so they can see what she can do later. Honestly, I'm a straight woman, and I was distracted, so I can't fully knock Nigel this time. Candace promises Cat she's putting on her sports bra for the round. up is a ballroom dancer with the best name ever: Rose Neptune. Unfortunately her dancing isn't as fabulous as her name, and she spends a lot of time trying to do tricks that are too slow and awkward -- it's one of those routines that makes me uncomfortable to watch after a while, and the judges obviously feel the same way and Nigel mercifully cuts the music. Jason is a total gentlemen, and tells her he loves how much she loves dance, and to keep it up, though he's voting no; Sonya and Nigel give her polite nos as well.
You know that things clearly got really, truly wretched when Cat's voiceover is that as the day went on, "Miami continued to suck." As we all know Cat for being the most supportive, nurturing host on television, hearing her say that packs quite a punch, as does the montage of godawful dancers. So what is going to save us? A C.S.I. Miami sketch, of course. Excuse me, C.SYTYCD.I. Miami. Nigel tells the dancer to bring power, personality and performance, and though I had hoped that this would be when we saw someone great, instead we get what I imagine it would look like if Keenan Thompson did a mock audition as part of an SNL sketch. The judges are getting madder and madder at Miami as a city, and then... we see their C.SYTYCD.I. Miami logo again. Wait, that was... what? I don't understand what happened. Shitty dancing, that's what happened. Let's move on.
The last dancer up is a b-boy named Jose, and as Cat is setting him up to possibly save the day, I'm assuming (and desperately hoping) he's going to be good. He was inspired by Legacy making it on the show last season and pays his respects but admits he thinks he's better than Legacy is as a b-boy. Now I didn't actually see Legacy's audition, so I can't compare them, but I can say that Jose is awesome. He can do all sorts of crazy holds that seem to defy gravity, and the judges all thought the routine was fantastic. Jason asks the others if they think he's better than Legacy and Jose pipes up to say that he thinks he is, and they are all kind of taken aback and point out that's a big statement, with Jason telling him that Legacy was able to do everything they threw at him and grew like crazy during the competition. Jose doesn't take anything back but does just graciously accept the compliments on his audition and the judges send him to choreography to see how he'll stack up. Candace is also dancing the choreography, and she does okay, but not great, and they don't send her through. Jose is up , and they have to point out that he didn't deliver as much as he seemed to think he would in the routine. However, it's always good to end on a positive note, and they send him to Vegas. And with that, Miami and the first episode are done!
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