Music Blogs

So You Think You Can Dance Canada promises to be one of the hottest dramas on television this fall.  The montage of clips that kicked off the first “official” show was intense to say the least!  Apparently to be a good dancer you have to be able to throw down on and off stage. 

The city auditions are over, the talent have made their way to Toronto and it’s time for the final audition, which was really more like four days of auditions.  Did someone say RedBull?  (Yahoo! Music Canada is not endorsed by nor endorses the consumption of RedBull.  It does however agree that it seems to give you wings.)

190 of Canada’s best dancers were set to bring it and dance for their life to earn a spot as one of the Top 20.  For the record, that means that when all is said and done, there will be 170 broken hearts and shattered dreams.  That’s a lot of crushing if you ask me!  All I can say is thankfully it won’t be me crying on stage!  Let the search for the Top 20 begin!!

Each day the hopefuls were going to be taken through different styles with different choreographers, with each pushing them to the limit.  Talk about bootcamp!    

Day One was led by Luther Brown.  This judge and professional choreographer offered this gem of advice to the dancers; “If you normally dance inside, dance outside”.  I wonder what Janet (Ms. Jackson if you’re nasty!) would say to Mr. Brown if he said this to her when teaching her choreography.  Probably the same thing I said to my TV, “easy there Nietzsche!”  What was serious was when Luther got down to business.  For a big dude, Luther can work it yo!  His moves divided the JT’s from the KFed’s for sure!  Once the allotted time was up, the hopefuls broke into smaller performance groups for the judges and a quarter of them were sent home.  That’s almost 50 people if you’re running a countdown.  Turns out there’s a lot more to being able to pop, lock and drop it than those three words suggest. 

The first round cuts may have been made, but the worst was far from over.  In fact, things were just getting started! 

Day Two required a complete change in style and even era.  Turns out dancer and judge Tré Armstrong is a dancing Queen and had every intention of breaking out her Saturday Night Fever styles and seeing who could point that finger to the sky and rise to the challenge.  The result of this test; Disco died because it was too damn complicated!

It seems that John Travolta’s disco moves in Saturday Night Fever, or Ryan Phillippe’s in Studio 54 seem to have alluded many of us into thinking that Disco is fun, easy and a style that anyone can master.  Truth is, it’s hard!  Tré’s choreography seemed to leave many tripping over their feet, especially once the group performances started.  Thankfully however, some of the dancers caught disco fever and made it through to the next phase of the auditions.  Of course there were those that were sent hustling all the way home

After this round of cuts, it seemed as though reality was really beginning to set in for the dancers.  The excitement over making it to Toronto was beginning to wear off and anxiety seemed to be growing as many realized that the numbers were quickly dwindling.   

Instead of earning an opportunity to chill out, stretch or decompress, it was time to break into couples and do some ballroom. 

I may as well share with you this little known fact; I was one of those girls who took dance classes when growing up.  Not for very long, because I preferred skateboarding and road hockey to a pas de bourrée, and apparently bruised knees don’t look cute under a too-too.  I do remember this though, that picking up choreography is difficult.  Picking up choreography in a style that you are completely unfamiliar with is brutal.  Third, dancing with a partner can be one of the most uncomfortable experiences of your life when you combine the first two issues I mentioned. 

With that said, it was time for the couples!

You know how sometimes you see couples walk down the street and they look so awkward together?  Well there was lots of that and obviously those pairs were sent home.  In some situations, the dead weight got cut and the partner that carried them continued on victorious.  Learning: you can’t fake chemistry…or dance skill. 

At this point, some hopefuls were forced to say goodbye to friends, dance partners from home and hello to yet another challenge.  Host Leah Miller announced to the much smaller group of hopefuls that sleep was not going to be on the agenda for the evening.  Dance however, was.  The dancers sucked it up and worked though the night, defying gravity, alternating a step ball change with a chassé and juggling clashing opinions and personalities.  Turns out creating your own choreography can become a real mission when sleep deprived, dehydrated and working with three sets of new routines stuck in your head. 

At this point I’m pretty sure I’d tap out.  The human body can only go so hard for so long and I’m pretty sure the new 90210 was on when they were dancing!  Fortunately for many of the dancers, they proved to be driven, in top notch condition and were able to power through the night, yes, the night! 

I honestly didn’t find any of these performances to be truly stellar.  Then again, the fact that none of the dancers passed out was impressive.  There was one performance that stood out from the others though and that was when the group impersonated the judges.  What was hilarious about that wasn’t just the performance but the Diva reaction that it earned from Jean Marc.

Tré, Blake and Luther thought the performance was entertaining and creative.  It seemed as though there was going to be unanimous praise from the judges, that was until Jean Marc spoke up and shared how utterly offended he was. 

“There are four judges on the panel, not three”, he reminded the group.  Oh Snap!  Yup, he was offended for not being included in their faux judging panel. The dancers apologized profusely and were clearly mortified, horrified and sure that they were going to be punished and sent home.  The whole thing was very tense and awkward, but eventually, Jean Marc revealed he was “acting”.  I for the record do not believe that he was acting.  I think he did however realize mid way into his Diva moment that he was acting like a child and chose to cover it by telling the dancers that, "you've got to be a good actor if you're going to be a good dancer".  Yea, ok Jean!

What a way to start the day eh?  This group made it through thankfully! 

To finish it all off, the gruelling trial known as “Blake Bootcamp”.  You may recognize Blake from another reality TV dance show, Dance Life.  Or, more recently, the Janet Jackson video for Rock With U (yup, I spotted him!)

Becoming increasingly obvious is that Blake knows he is an amazing dancer and intends to demonstrate that the hopefuls have a long way to go before they will match him.  After announcing to the group, “half of you are going to be cut after this”, Blake broke into his choreography, offering no counts to follow or broken down moves!

*gulp*  Blake is a dance drill sergeant (f.y.i that is a much nicer term than what I was thinking in my head).  As promised, half of the remaining hopefuls were sent home after Blake broke them.    

The reactions from some of the Top 20 were absolutely amazing and rightfully so.  What they endured had to be seen to be believed and we only saw the final edits.  Yowza!

How they could have any energy after a week of killer auditions to jump and cheer and celebrate was beyond me.  I would have peaced out to bed! 

 

Still standing and ready to battle it out and prove that they can indeed dance are;

Allie, Arassay, Breanne, Caroline, Danny, Dario, Francis, Izaak, Jesse, Joey, Kaitlyn, Kevin, Lara, Lisa, Miles, Natalli, Nico, Romina, Tamina and Vincent. 

My personal fave’s:

Izaak, Lisa, Nico, Vincent and Natalli.  Now, let’s see if my fave’s really can dance.

In case you were inspired to get your groove on, may I offer this week’s music to dance to:

Gwen Stefani “What Are You Waiting For?”

Serena Ryder “Weak In The Knees”

Sia “Breathe Me”

Run D.M.C. “It’s Like That”

And of course Jamiroquai “Canned Heat”