It's About Dominic

The Roseville Press-Tribune checks in with Dominic Sandoval:

Sandoval (whose middle name is Kyle, shh!) said La-La Land has grown on him and he is planning to move there with fellow SYTYCD contestant Hokuto "Hok" Konishi, a long time b-boying and break dancing friend. Hok inspired Sandoval to try out for the third season of SYTYCD. Sandoval, who has performed for the Kings and Monarchs as well as been featured in a SureWest commercial, certainly made his presence known during the final weeks in this year's show: sneaking kisses during routines with some partners and even receiving a short kiss from tall, glamorous host Cat Deely. His instructor and close friend "Miss" Lucy McLemore - owner of Dance Gallery 2 Studio on Baseline Road in Roseville - wasn't a fan of the FOX show until one of her favorite students found his way to the big stage in Los Angeles. "He is Mr. Personality," McLemore said. "He was the ham of the dance class and now he is the ham of 'So You Think You Can Dance.'"

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Video Of The Day

A Lacey Fanvid created by buffmetube.


Another Lacey montage, this time with some guy. Another FarAwayPolaris creation.

"Dance" vs Idol

Brünnheather:

It was just a matter of time before I figured out why “So You Think You Can Dance” made me giddy in my shoes while “American Idol” made me want to throw things at the television.

CONTINUED

Video Of The Day

Okay, so 9pm is still part of the day.

If, like me, you didn't watch season 1, you may have heard people rave about Blake McGrath and wondered what the deal was. Here's his audition. I have no idea who those people are who are with Nigel.


Loralyn submitted this solo, Body Language.


His dance reel.


Blake's choreography.


From Dancelife.

Interview With Danny

The BuddyTV interview with Danny Tidwell is up.

A lot of the judges had an opinion of you early on and you felt like you were misunderstood. Having thought about it now, can you think of why they maybe thought that you were so arrogant or standoffish? Because as the season went on, you became a lot more open and I don’t know if you were taking the judges’ criticisms to heart and trying to show more of yourself. I was just wondering how that whole thing affected you being on the show.

Well, when you dance on TV, you’re in a studio, so you’re in the same place every time and the camera’s there with different people each time, but not a lot of people so it was hard for me…I think they were trying to come across good to America.. I was very used to dancing on a stage in front of people theatrically, but I’m not used to pushing it to four different cameras and talking and getting my personality across as well.

So it was a challenge for me to take what my choreographer’s vision was, and to not only do that because then it’s also to present myself as Danny Tidwell to America in a competition. I’m just so used to surrendering all that I am to the work and the dance and not thinking about myself as much, so this competition I learned a lot about just how to get what I really think across and what I really feel across.

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Lacey Interview

BuddyTV's exclusive interview with Lacey Schwimmer has been posted.

On dancing in Mia's tribute to her father:

I think that week, it was just… You know, that piece was just so beautiful, and I think anybody who would have gotten that piece would’ve been so lucky to have it. I’m just so relieved that it was a different feeling, like walking into the room and seeing Mia just crying all the time, it was really humbling.

And I felt how it really has to be one of my favorite moments on the show as well, it was just beautiful, like the whole experience of it. It was only a minute-and-a-half routine, but that minute-and-a-half is just amazing. So yeah, that would have to be one of my highlights as well.

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The Non-Danny Video Of The Day

Interviews with 2 choreographers.

Tyce Diorio


Brian Friedman


Thanks to Patriot542 for uploading.

The Danny Video Of The Day

Danny fans are certainly loyal, prolific, and talented. Here's another Danny montage, this one more on the light-hearted side, created by FarAwayPolaris.

No, I am not changing the name of the blog to Blogging Danny.

Around The Web

Maria at A Time To Dance has the celebrity roster for the next Dancing With The Stars Celebrities, though she makes it clear which network dance show she prefers.

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Ducky shares the sentiment.

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So You Think You Can Dance season 3 has begun airing in Australia. Let's hope the press there doesn't spend too much time on Dancing Derrick and Dave "Sex" Soller.

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SYTYCD choreographers Hunter and Maria Johnson will be defending their titles at the upcoming Embassy Ball DanceSport Championships in OC.

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Tonya (Swan Lake Samba Girl) highly recommends PBS's Great Performances program tonight, Nureyev: The Russian Years.

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Interview With Neil Haskell

Apparently, BuddyTV didn't have access to Neil until he returned to begin preparing for the tour. Here's the interview. Neil, on the rehearsals:

Yeah, well, we started yesterday, I think we went from 10-6:30ish yesterday. The schedule’s about to get almost as grueling as the show except for we’ll actually have a day off now. I think everybody’s definitely ready to be back in this, ready to start working hard again.

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Wish List

I don't think I need to present credentials as a fan of So You Think You Can Dance. There's a lot to love, but plenty of areas to improve. Here's my wish list for next season.

• Give us more time to get to know the contestants before making us eliminate 2. Maybe there could be an exhibition week.


• For the official dancer photos, please find a photographer who doesn't do romance novel covers as their primary job. Let the photos actually look like the contestants. Oh yeah, and don't do the photoshoot on top of a Las Vegas hotel at noon.


• Hire Tim Gunn and give him full veto power over Cat's wardrobe and the dancer's costumes.


• Let's go back to having Mary choreograph once in a while.


• Bring in some new choreographers. Rob Marshall has been suggested by at least one reader. I'd like to see Luam get a shot, and I'm sure there are plenty of other worthy talents out there.


• Let's cut out the minor pop star lip-syncing exhibitions. Give us more dance. Thanks for bringing on Jason Samuels Smith and Titus Fotso. More like that, pleeeeeeeze? Bring back some of our favorites from past seasons too.


• We watch the show to see what the dancers can do, not what the camera operators and directors can do. Please re-think the camera direction strategy from the ground up.


• Bring the show's website into the current millenium. The last video listed there right now is Cedric and Shauna's departure. How long ago was that??? There should be updates at least weekly. There should be judge's blogs. There should be choreographer's blogs. Look at Project Runway's website if you need an example of how it should be done.


• Let us celebrate with our winner. Don't make it an afterthought.
  

Anything to add? Did I miss something?

Video Of The Day

Several people have recommended this great Danny montage by EmbracingTheLight, who writes:

*Sigh*

I don't know exactly to say about this guy. I have this horrible penchant for writing way too much, so bear with me.

Danny Tidwell pretty much owned my summer - week after week, I tuned into SYTYCD, anxiously waiting for him to light up my screen...and he never failed to captivate me.

He's an inspiration and everything a dancer should aspire to be. He's like poetry and liquid in motion on any stage, and I find something wonderfully captivating about how he breathes, molds, and blends with the music. Watching him gave me a whole new appreciation for dance.

I won't even go into how bitter and ANGRY I am about that dumb "arrogant" edit (the producers can go dig a hole and die in it for that one), but I'm amazed by far he came. I expected him to leave weeks ago (despite the insane amount of voting I did), and seeing him in the final two really made me incredibly, amazingly happy.

Nonetheless seeing Danny and Sabra up there as the Final Two was bittersweet for me because I love Sabra too.

Although I was rooting for Danny more, I'm not about to be bitter or mean about the loss, because I truly do believe Danny has "won" in different ways (yeah I know how corny that sounds).

His last solo was a magnificent, quasi-spiritual celebration of his love for dance - he was bursting with joy. It was a moment, HIS moment and breakthrough.

So this montage is about his "journey" and how being on this show helped to reignite his passion for dancing.

His love for dance is back in full force, and the mere idea puts a huge smile on my face.

He's going to blow us all away.

Song: "Goodbye Apathy" by OneRepublic

Whew. Okay, I'll shut up now. :)

Interviews And Favorites

BuddyTV says they'll finally have their interviews with Danny, Neil, and Lacey up this week.

SOURCE

USA Swing Net lists their favorites from season three.

LINK fixed.

Oh No!

Loralyn drank the JibJab Kool-Aid.

Video Of The Day

A Lauren Gottlieb montage by DiamondBackCutter.

Sabra Goes Home

Season 3 winner Sabra Johnson returns home to Utah. Fox 13 has 3 video segments.

Her old studio and high school.
LINK

2 interview segments on Good Day Utah.
Part 1 and Part 2

Cat Disses UK Audiences

From The Sun:

The blonde telly babe who has made it big in the US, blasted Brits, saying: “You can barely get them to get out of their chairs. It’s as much as you can do to get them to clap. But the Americans go mad. They’re brilliant They scream and go wild.”

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Video Of The Day

Finally, a Sabra video montage. Thanks to Diamondbackcutter for creating and Loralyn for finding.

Around The Web

Lacey and Benji will appear at the Laguna Dance Festival Oct. 6th. But wait, shouldn't Lacey be in Atlantic City that night? What am I missing?

SOURCE


Here's a quick(time) video at Reuters Blogs of Cat Deeley, asked about bad auditions.

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Someone listed their favorite music from So You Think You Can Dance, with videos.

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Dance Reading

Salt Lake City dance instructor Janet Gray is profiled in this Ellen Fagg article in The Salt Lake Tribune:

Against the backdrop of a black T-shirt, Janet Gray's motto is spelled out in rhinestones: "I yell because I care."
The legendary Salt Lake dance instructor, whose ambition and business sense have kept her studio thriving for 30 years, knows she has a reputation. There's the spirit revealed on that T-shirt, after all, plus what's known around the studio as the "Janet Gray voice."
The shirt is just one of Gray's most obvious psychological teaching tools, drawn from her undergraduate training at the University of Utah, where she later returned to teach dance for 16 years. "When I have that on, and I'm giving it to them, students think I care," Gray says. "If I take that prop away and just have a plain shirt on and I yell, sometimes a little tear will come out."

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New York tango culture is explored in this Beckylooo-recommended Times article by Glenn Collins:

It was a sultry 6 p.m. in Central Park, and over by the 1872 Shakespeare statue at Literary Walk, melancholy rhythms spilled from two speakers propped up on park benches.

Courtenay Nugent rose. He asked Fran Beaumont to dance. There they were: the two it took to tango.

They moved sensually across the asphalt pavers, counterclockwise around the monument, under a coquettish breeze and what was to become a limitless starry sky and an oblong moon. As dozens of onlookers watched over the next three hours, about 50 couples swayed to the steps of the dance that has been called a three-minute love affair.

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Ballet partnering is the subject of this post at Neo-Neocon:

You might say that ballet is feminist, in a way, because it gives a prominent—perhaps even a more-than-equal—role to women. You might say it’s retro, in a way, in that the role it gives tends to revolve around traditional ideas of beauty, grace, and supposed fragility masking strength.

But men and women are different, and ballet not only doesn’t ignore that difference, it celebrates it. Partnering in ballet usually involves emphasizing the difference, and as the French say (French, after all, is the language of ballet), “Vive la différence!”

Thanks NTADKaylin!

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Video Of The Day

Season finale dance from The Wade Robson Project