Multiple Personality

I love how they do the taped intro of the Top Six, and then only five people come out with opening dancelets. This week’s gimp is Bbbbb-billy Bell! And he looked so oddly happy in the audience, one has to suspect that he’s ready to make like a banana and split from this competish…especially when Toothy announced that the doctors said he could dance, but then they asked him, “So you think you can dance?” and he said, “Nuh-uh, I no think so.” This season has gotten weird. Cat has apparently dyed a Hefty bag red in honor of fallen dancers, and slapped it on her body tonight.

Everybody is dancing three times tonight, and we’re apparently going to meet everybody’s families and inspirations and zzzzzzzzzzzzz. What this really means is, it’s time for this show to have tapered down to 60 or 90 minutes, but Fox doesn’t have any other crap to throw on the air, so we’re gonna be more padded than Krystle Carrington’s shoulders (’80s TV reference, anyone?).

First up is Lauren and Twitch doing Nappy-Tabby-Hippy-Hoppy. The dance wasn’t up to Nab’s usual standards — a little one-note and unexciting — but Lauren really pulled it out, hiphop-wise. And I found myself not watching Twitch at all, cuz she was really holding the camera…or the stage, however you want to say it. Since Twitch is a pretty large-scale hambone, I’d say the girl has good charisma to be able to totally upstage him that way.

Okay…Sonya is a wonderful choreographer, Allison is an unbelievable dancer, and…it’s time for Jose to leave. Yeah, he’s adorable, yeah he works really hard, yeah I like him. But imagine how great that Sonya number would have been with a different boy dancing with Allison? That’s all. I know Billy will probably go home tomorrow, but really, it’s time for Jose to nobly walk off. The big question I have is, when they do the audience shots on Sonya, who’s that HOT GUY in the row behind her?

Robert and All-Star Lauren doing Tyce Jazz. When I heard Tyce say in the taped lead-in that this dance had no story I got worried…Tyce can be a problem when he doesn’t have a story. BUT — Holy crap, is it hot in here?! That was freakin’ fanTAStic! I lovedlovedloved everything about that number, from the costumes to the choreography to everything that Lauren and Rawrrbert did to each other. Damn, that was fine dancing. And so freaking sexy! I am transferring that number onto my hard drive, cuz I got some things to learn from it. Tyce actually contributed to the dance vocabulary in there, and I’ve got to break down what he was having them do. Holy crap, that was great!

Adecheeky is doing his solo. Even though I haven’t made a secret that I’m not really a fan, I have to say that this was an outstanding solo. It’s not easy to really make an impact in a short dance, all alone on a big stage. But he really did, and the movement was GORgeous. So okay…I won’t write him off completely, at this point.

Kent is doing Sonya Jazz with the woman I love, Kathryn. I am looking forward to this. My God — who lit a FIRE under this show?! All of a sudden, everything is fab! Rawrrbert/Lauren number is still my fave, but this was quite swell. Actually, it wasn’t spectacular as a dance-as-a-whole, but it had one brilliant bit after another, all the way through. And that was some ridiculously hard dancing, mostly because it was so fast, and Sonya didn’t allow them leisurely set-ups for anything of that really cool stuff. That number made my pulse quicken…in a different part of my body than the Tyce number, but that’s okay. Now there are two numbers to put on the hard drive.

Robert’s solo was strong….maybe a little less through-line than Adechike’s, and the movement was more fluid than “strong,” but definitely a worthy entry. I really want this competition to come down to Robert, Lauren, and Kent.

Lauren’s solo was pretty amazing. That jete at the beginning, and all the floorwork — wow. And it was very musical too, using a song that didn’t have a lot of traditional accent spots. That was really impressive, girl.

Adechike and Comfort do NappyTabby “Lyrical Hip Hop.” I have to say, isn’t it remarkable what Tabitha and Napoleon bring to this show…really, to the state of contemporary dance in general? I think they can be just brilliant, and this dance was part of it. I am also fascinated by Comfort, especially when she has to do a piece with emotional work in it. And that all adds up to leave Adechike a little bit out in the cold, unfortunately. He was completely upstaged by Comfort. Not that he did anything wrong — it was all there technically. But it just didn’t make me watch him. And I couldn’t take her eyes off  her. And that number was so interesting…did you notice how they boosted the percussion accents in the bass line of the Alicia Keys song, and did all the Hip Hop accents to those beats? I’m not sure it’s kosher to remix the balance that way, but it was very interesting.

Jose’s solo started off slow, but then started defying gravity in some pretty crazy ways. It was, as usual, impressive but not technically impressive.

Kent’s solo, on the other hand, was technically brilliant, and passionate, and pretty complete. We got ourselves a horse race.

Now everybody dances with everybody…except Gimpy (or Lazy) Billy. Lauren and Rawwwrbert are doing a Samba choreographed by Dmitry. During the taped lead-in, Dmitry is giving a tutorial: “The Samba has to be definitely flirtatious.” I love you Dmitry, you’re such a freak. Robert is one sexy dancer…and he has NO trouble doing Samba hips. Yow. Lauren was wonderful too. (God, am I gay, or what?) I enjoyed this dance a lot, mostly the Samba steps. There was something really off about all the lifts; Dmitry made it look like Lauren weight a ton and Robert was too weak to lift her. Which, of course, is far from true. So that kinda sucked. But I remember the last time we saw that white tank top on a SYTYCD boy dancer. I liked it then, and I liked it now. Rawrr. (SO gay I am…)

Dmitry has choreographed a man-on-man Paso Doble (!) for Adechike and Jose. Now, a premise like that sounds pretty interesting, so It’s rather baffling how the thing turned out soooo boring. Yawn. From the wasted 30 seconds of cape work at the beginning, to all that posing and strutting, and semi-feeble stomping…just yawn. Even the costumes were boring. And Jose is really not standing up technically. All of a sudden, the show is back to being just a’ight. Can you see why these two aren’t in my top dream finalists?

The last number is Stepping..which I’m pretty damn ignorant about. But I have to say how much I love the taped piece, with whitest-boys-in-the-world Billy and Kent being taught this very African-American dance style by the brothers. And Chuck Maldonada has a very jaunty hat. Since Billy is, ahem, injured (am I the only one who has had the passing thought that Billy got “injured” cuz he didn’t want to embarrass himself doing this style badly?), Kent will be dancing with Twitch. I have to say, I really enjoyed that. And I thought Kent pulled himself through it admirably. And, let’s face it, it was kinda adorable watching him take it down. I was definitely watching him more than Twitch.

So…Billy is probably outta here tomorrow. If not him, then perhaps Jose (though you can never tell what America will do, when it comes to cuteness). As long as I still have my Kent-Robert-Lauren, I’m good.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 21st, 2010 at 11:18 pm and is filed under So You Think You Can Dance. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.