Thursday, July 10, 2008

Confessions of a dance junkie

I love watching So You Think You Can Dance. There. I've admitted it. I not only love watching it, I think I'm more than a tad addicted.

These past few weeks, I've planned my Wednesday and Thursday evenings around the airing of both the performance and results show. Not only do I watch the original broadcast, but I watch the numerous re-runs throughout the week. If that weren't enough, I go onto YouTube and search for videos of my favourite performances. Once I find them, I replay them over and over.

It's all rather pathetic, I know.

I've been watching So You Think You Can Dance (SYTYCD to the diehards) since the first season (it is now season four).

In past seasons, during the early rounds, I enjoyed watching the dancers adapting to different styles and choreographers; seeing who improved; who didn't. It would usually take me awhile to decide on any real favourites . However, this year, I picked out Katee Shean and Joshua Allen as my favourites from the first Top 20 show.

There are other very good dancers on the show, but what sets Katee and Joshua apart, for me (as Nigel would say), is their total commitment and passion to each and every piece of choreography they are given. They have this fearlessness and ferocity that the others don't quite have. That's not to say they have no fears -- because they do express trepidation of new pieces in their pre-dance interviews – but they seem able to put those fears aside and perform each new piece in a way that is thrilling to watch.

Well, I've gushed on long enough.

Here are a few of their dances:

Their first performance together – Top 20 (hip hop)


Top 14 performance (contemporary)


Top 12 performance (Bollywood)



The couples are split up when they get to the Top 10 (next week), so it will be interesting to see how they look with other partners.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

This is my first season to watch it. Do you know how they match the partners at the beginning? That will be interesting to see them dance with different partners beginning next week.

My favorites are Katee & Josh and Courtney & Gev. I'm looking forward to the rest of this one.

You might be a tad addicted, but it could be much worse!

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Anonymous said...

I love Dancing with the Stars. I wish I could do that stuff!!

Anonymous said...

Being rather unenamoured with celebrities, but really liking dancing, I've been enjoying watching a program series on our Public Television Stations of some USA professional ballroom dancing competitions. Couples doing the tango, salsa, and many more styles -- really spectacular moves. The competitions have been held in Columbus, Ohio. I think winners go to world competitions, but have never seen any televised shows of those programs.

Anonymous said...

I've seen that Joared and really like it. Some of the professionals on DWTS have been on it but mostly are in the one in L.A. A friend and I went to the one in Nashville and enjoyed it. We're going again later this month.

Anonymous said...

This is my first season of watching it too.
Katee and Josh just blow the others out of the water completely. Now that I have said that they'll probably fail horrendously at the next stage.

Anonymous said...

Joared, I enjoy watching the ballroom competitions too; they're usually on PBS programming.

One of the reasons I like SYTYCD so much is that these are young dancers, exploring and just developing their craft.

It will be interesting to see how Katee and Josh do with new partners. I'd love to see Katee paired with Will or Mark.

Anonymous said...

Delighted to find another fan.I didn't get caught up by some of the other reality competitions so much but got really grabbed by this and America's Got Talent.i found my week so crammed with all these competitions and keeping up with the blog recaps, I started waning. Joy's blog almost gave me permission to ease up and miss a few or start mid season and just get finalists. Thanks to You tube I can even miss Kate and Josh and catch up with them next day.