SYTYCD: Dancing in the Big Easy

So You Think You Can Dance: "Auditions #5"

First New Orleans auditions in SYTYCD history.


Day 1:

• Nigel was getting his honorary doctorate. Judges are Mary, Shankers and Lil C.
• Shelby "Skip" Skipper does New Orleans Bounce. His best friend (whose nickname is Big Choo, I believe) is the founder of this dance style. Skip teaches Cat how to do New Orleans Bounce in the lobby, and she did a good job. His audition was quite a rousing performance. Lil C looked like he was just eating it up.
• Mary's looking a little rough today.
• Mary makes an off-color joke about Shanker's doing "the New Orleans Bounce last night."
• Skip gets the "you're not going to choreography...you're going to Vegas!!!!" treatment and he's taking New Orleans Bounce to Vegas.
• Jonathan Litzler did some jazz hands in the hallway. He's a really good contemporary dancer and he's also a great tumbler. Shankers says that was one of the best auditions he's ever seen. Lil C says it was "a perfect blend of weight, energy, space and time," whatever that means. Jonathan is going to Vegas, and I'm glad because he's one of the dancers I've seen so far whose prospects for this competition I'm actually intrigued by.
• Alison N. kind of looked like Annie from 90210 when she was dancing but not when they showed her up close.
• Calvin Turner Jr. gave a beautiful audition.
• I missed the name of the dude in gray spandex shorts who did a barrage of straddle jumps.
• Eric Le Blanc drank six energy drinks today and he's acting like it. He makes "funny" sounds. Oh, great, now I'm having flashbacks to the extremely annoying kid who sat behind me in 10th-grade health class who insisted on talking like Daffy Duck. Ack!
• And, son of a gun, if Eric's not dancing to Black Eyed Peas' "Boom Boom Pow" too! If you drank a Red Bull every time someone on this show danced to Black Eyed Peas, you'd be more hyped up than Eric.
• Consumed by either benevolence or a bit of insanity, Mary and Lil C send Eric through to choreo.
• Justin Kenney is a b-boy who was in a nasty car accident but has mostly recovered (he still can't do some of the moves on his head that he used to do). He's got gorgeous blue eyes but his hair needs some work. He just did Morgan Hamm's Air Flair! (I bet b-boys don't appreciate me calling it "Morgan Hamm's air flair.") Even without the head moves, he's got quite the arsenal, and I like the music he chose--it didn't seem like a typical b-boy song. Lil C explains that Justin started in the Air Flairs and "dropped right into the babies." He's through to choreo.
• Big shocker that Eric isn't going to Vegas, but he is commended for his effort.
• Lil C says the judges are going to take a "huge, huge gamble" on Justin and send him to Vegas, which I think is the right decision! His attempt at the Anya/Pasha salsa wasn't any worse than Chbeeb's tango or some of Cedric's attempts at ballroom, so it's worth a shot to see how he is in other styles.
• I think Cat said 33 dancers in total are through to Vegas, which seems like a huge one-day total.

Day 2:

• Kimalee Piedad competes in Theater Arts' ballroom division, which is kind of like ice dancing with no ice. Her partner is not trying out. They can do some spectacular lifts. I think we might need this girl in the Top 20 so we can see some awesome lifts during the competition. Adam says choreo, Mary and Lil C say Vegas, so she's going to Vegas. (She's SYTYCD's first-ever Theater Arts contestant.)
• Micah Mixon was poor and rebellious as a youth. Now he's turned his life around. I guess he's a pop and locker; I don't know the finer points of style distinctions, but it looked Chbeeb-esque. He's had no formal dance training, so what he can do is rather impressive. Micah gets a yes to choreo from both Mary and Adam and "kind of a yes" from Lil C.
• Lloyd Ballard looks like he's trying really hard to be Travis Wall and not getting anywhere close.
• Also not getting good marks were Tierney and Christo.
• Mary reads off some rules of what not to do, including "hats pulled down over your eyes," "the never-ending reach," "self-worship," and "men's booty shaking." Awesomely, Shankers demonstrates all of the no-nos.
• Jakob Karr is crazy good with the leg extensions and strengh and pirouettes and control and leaps and everything. And, conveniently, he's adorable too. He looks a little like Penn Badgley in the face.
• Diana Drexler's grandfather just passed away the day before the audition. She's a good dancer; I like her a lot. She has really soft landings from her jumps and her aerial cartwheel. Aww, she says she feels like an old lady (she's 29). Diana's a trooper. Aww! Her father said that her grandfather "left just in time to get a front-row seat" for her audition. She's through to choreo.
• I love how Anya has no qualms about wearing green short shorts and black tights.
• Micah is not going to Vegas; he's not used to doing choreo.
• Diana is going to Vegas! Yea! (How horrendous would the judges have felt if they didn't take her?)
• Diana plus 17 unnamed others are going to Vegas.

I'm more optimistic about this season's dancers after this stop in New Orleans, where we met a lot of good dancers.


Next week: final audition stop in Salt Lake City with Nigel, Mary and Mia. Then we start Vegas week. Buck up, folks, Vegas is always an emotional roller coaster.