Friday, October 5, 2007

Around The Web

I have heard from reliable sources that Danny Tidwell's back injury is minor, and that the Two Princes routine was dropped as a preventative measure. We get word from commentors here that Lacey twisted a knee last night in Manchester, N.H. The tour takes tonight off before appearing in Atlantic City on Saturday night.

Let's hope the day off does some bodies good.


Justin Burton felt a little out of place at last Saturday's East Rutherford show, but he still had a good time. His report is worth a read.

LINK


There will be a Lythgoe judging the upcoming Australian version of So You Think You Can Dance, but it won't be Nigel. His ex, Bonnie, will be joined by Sydney choreographer Jason Coleman, and dancer Matt Lee as the three permanent judges. Bonnie Lythgoe served as both a judge and producer during the first 2 seasons of the US version of the show.

Bonnie, Jason and Matt head to Adelaide on Sunday 7 October, to kick off the auditions. Dancers skilled in every genre from the 'street' styles of hip hop, to the best of ballroom, salsa, quickstep, jive and more are invited to come along. Auditions will then continue around the country.


SOURCE


Thursday, October 4, 2007

DWTS Pros

Professionals Tony Dovolani and Anna Trebunskaya dance to Queen Latifah/Dana Owens' cover of California Dreaming. The video goes on to some performance recaps and hype.


More Tour Coverage

Courtesy of Quackersoup

Flickr user Quackersoup has a great set of photos from the Boston show.

LINK

Some fan boards are reporting that the Two Princes routine, performed by Danny Tidwell and Neil Haskell, has been cut from the program for the time being due to a back injury suffered by Danny. Apparently he is still performing all of his other routines. Kameron and Sabra's Tyce Diorio-choreographed contemporary routine is temporarily replacing the Two Princes.


Dancewatcher has a scan of the 3-page TVGuide spread from the tour.

LINK

Tour Coverage

Courtesy of TixGirl

TixGirl has a great write-up from the East Rutherford show at her journal, and some of the best show photos I've seen anywhere at her Flickr photostream.


Loralyn's Show Report

It's not everyday that you meet your idols, your inspirations, the people for whom you hold an immeasurable amount of admiration and love. However, Saturday, September 29, was one of those days. Danny Tidwell and Jaimie Goodwin are not only amazing dancers, but they are also gorgeous people inside and out. I'd give anything to be able to watch them dance and meet them again.

I'm not even kidding when I say that it was the greatest day of my entire life.
Sorry if I get really fangirly in this report. I can’t help it. This show and these dancers just make me so giddy.

I woke up at 9am on Saturday morning since I had to finish writing my letters for all the dancers and get everything ready. For those of you who don’t know, I won two tickets and two meet and greet passes through the sytycd myspace contest. The tickets I won were worse than the tickets I bought, so my parents ended up sitting in the bad seats while my best friend and I enjoyed a fabulous view.

Contest rules said we had to meet at the box office at 3:45 to pick up the passes so we left the house at 2:30 and got to Continental at 3. When we got there, no one knew anything. We just kinda stood there for a few minutes until someone who worked for the tour came over to us. He told us that the m&g was actually moved until after the show. We picked up our passes and were suddenly 5 hours early.

We drove around Secaucus for a while hoping to randomly see the dancers out shopping or something like that. No luck lolz.

At 6 we drove back to the venue and...

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...lined up outside the doors, which opened at 7. People behind me in line admired my fanshirt, actually getting up close and pointing at the picture on the back. When the doors opened, we ran to the merch table and my friend Dos and I both bought programs and t-shirts. We made our way to our seats, marveled at the amazing view we had, and waited. At 8, it all began.

Watching these dances live was insane. The sheer intensity in the room, the excitement of the audience, the passion you felt with each dancer’s every move – it surpassed every expectation I had. And I can say that having been to the tour last year. Although my seats last year were less than stellar, but anyway…

The show began with a group routine with the top 10, highlighting the styles of each contestant. It was a great opening number. Lots of fun. It really set the tone for the rest of the night – ridiculous dancing performed with a lot of love. The dancers were truly giving it their all for their dedicated fans.

Fav routines: Danya Foxtrot, Dancey Samba, Dancey Waltz, Daneil Contemp [wow Danny bias much], Kamcey Contemp, D-Bra Contemp, Homie Jazz. I loved how they handled the Laceil contemp. In all seriousness, I loved every dance. Most of my favorites from the season were performed and I was ecstatic with the ones they picked. Each showcased the growth each dancer underwent during the show. All the original dances were amazing as well. Jaimie held her own in the jive, and I love her for it. I would have liked it if she had replaced Anya in Apologize or in a new contemp routine all together, but beggars can’t be choosers. The Shameron Broadway was great to watch. And we finally got to see Pasha and Anya dance together and they sure didn’t disappoint. I was upset to see that the breaker routine was taken out due to Hok’s back injury. I hope everything is ok with him though.

All the group routines were so much fun. I was mad during The Moment I Said It because people got back late from intermission so the people in front of me had to stand up to let them through, but once they sat down and my eyes focused back on Danny, everything was a-ok. I loved everyone’s solos too. Each wonderfully demonstrated why they deserved to be on the stage, dancing for everyone.
Love. That’s all I can say. Utter and complete love. For this show. For these dancers. For their passion and talent and inspiring nature.

After the tour we were sent up to a bar/lounge for the m&g. Dos and I stood and waited for maybe a half an hour. At one point she and I were having a conversation when I look up at see Tyce Diorio walk past us. Insane.

Dos and I decided to sit at a table in the lounge and wait. And one by one the dancers filtered into the room, everyone erupting in cheers and applause. The first person to come over to us was Jesus. He was so cute. He gave us both hugs and thanked us for coming to the show. I had written letters for each dancer and a poem that I gave a copy of to each of them too. He actually stood there are read it in front of me. I think Pasha and Anya came next. They had both been near us for a while talking to other people, so when Pasha walked by we called him over and he autographed stuff. When we were looking around to who we should go up to next, Anya’s letter had been sitting out on the table and she saw it. So she picked it up confused and I was all “Oh my god, yea, that’s for you.” Then Hok and Kam came over and I gave them my gifts and they autographed my shirt.

Then the love of my life walked over. Danny came over to our area so in a high pitched voice I’m all “Dannyyyyyy” and just put my arms around him. No asking for a hug or anything. So he’s all “hiiiii” and just laughs. I give him my gifts, as I’m like shaking. And stupid me gets uber quiet around famous people because I’m just so star-struck and tongue-tied. I manage to get out an “OMG I think you’re amazing.” We take a picture and I’m sooooo happy.

After that Jaimie comes over and I tell her that I have gifts for her so she excitedly jumps up and down. I ask her to sign my shirt and she says, “Where did you get the picture from [magic mountain group pic]? I haven’t even seen this yet.” Lolz yay obsessed fans

Then Dom pops up behind me, sees the picture too, and then goes into a story about how he has a picture from that day of him humping Daffy Duck and that he should post it on his myspace for everyone to see haha. I give him my gifts and Dos starts taking pictures of him reading it. When he sees the camera, he goes into photo shoot mode and starts doing different poses. Hilarious.

We notice that the crowd has definitely gone down so we figure that the dancers will be leaving soon. We go over into the main area and take a quick picture with Sabra. Then the dancers were rushed past us so that they could sign autographs out by the buses. I ended up meeting 9 out of the 14 dancers. I would’ve liked to have met them all, but meeting Danny and Jaimie was my absolute dream.

Best day ever. Plain and simple.
Pictures here
Videos here
[I still have 11 more videos that I have to post.]

Wednesday, October 3, 2007

Another Dispatch From Lauren

Lauren Gottleib continues to keep us updated on the tour through her Myspace bulletins. Here's the latest:

Oct 1, 2007 1:55 AM

Subject: Tour update Cities 4-8

OOOOOk so I'm gonna have to start taking notes because I'm forgetting all of the little funny things that happen throughout the day if I don't write them down.

4. Reading, Pa---Took a while to get over the fact that its not pronounced like...reading a book. All these years of playing monopoly and saying the reading railroad wrong!! wow! Anywho, we got to the venue early and...

CLICK TO CONTINUE

had a few hours to walk around. Why I didn't bring my camera I DONT KNOW!!! We ended up going into a hip hop store that had a little back alley way. The walls were covered with graffiti so the 7 of us did a little photo shoot. I keep looking online for the pics but I don't think anyones posted them yet. The show was actually our smallest show yet. Didn't matter at all though because the crowd was so hyped.

5. Wilkes Barre, Pa--This is one that I cant remember too many little details about :( I really do need to start taking notes. I do know that there was a target right next door to the venue and I got myself a tamagotchi and a new game for my nintendo DS :) :) :) Kameron put on a one piece nighty with spaceships all over it i think hahaha. I'll have to post the pic! HILARIOUS!

6. Rochester, Ny--Sara and I checked out of our room and went across the street to get a smoothie. I don't know how this happened but it took 35 minutes for them to make our smoothie haha the bus almost left us!!! not cute! When we got to the venue the devil trio me, sara, and kameron went exploring around the city for a few hours. We took a few pics with some cool buildings, statues, and the river. Also, at one point in the day it was POURING RAIN!!!!!!!!!!!!! soooo basically I'm from the desert and am always out of town for the monsoon season. I haven't seen rain in 2 years!!!! AMAZING!! I dont know how it happened buuuuuuut we all came to the decision that Rochester's audience murdered Boston's!! Boston was incredible but Rochester went off!! Everyone came off stage cracking up because someone in the audience had said something funny. Just gooooood times! Lauren's funny moment for the night. Neil and I are on stage introducing the next number, Neil says give it up for Lacey and I say Danny. Something happened with my voice and half way through Danny my voice went wayyy up and cracked! Now you all know how much I want to be asian......it was totally an asian moment!!!!!!! The best part about it was I couldn't help but to laugh at myself hahaha....neil gave me the funniest look and i ran off stage (still in the spotlight where everyone could see it) cracking up! Was even better when we got off stage and everyone told me how asian I looked and sounded hahaha.

Day off in NYC---- So fun!! I spent till early afternoon making a few videos and trying my hardest to be computer smart and put them online for a little girl who's in the hospital. Its an extremely sad story but I cant get into it now or Ill get emotional once again. After that, Shauna and I spent the whole day together shopping. Another great moment for me (mischa chan;), I get stopped on the street by an asian woman saying "take pictcha" (picture ;), I asked what for and she said....kid you not,,,,,quote, unquote "my asian magazine" WHHHHAT!!!!! lauren=happiest girl in the world!

7. E. Rutherford---We had a completely packed house!!!!!!!!! 8 thousand people I think! OMG greatest feeling in the world! I don't think I've ever danced that hard in my life. Plus, Tyce Diorio and my x-boyfriend (awkward haha) were there so I of course had to dance even harder for them haha. Bad part of the night....story time.....so my swamp outfit has a built in bra. It some how broke before I went onstage so our wardrobe chica decided to safety pin it. I freaked out because every time they put safety pins in my costumes they always come undone and stab me. She assured me that it would not happen and then she wrapped some tape around it. Me still scared, gets on stage and as were pulling the net off of us, who's costume do you think gets stuck to the net.....OH YEA THATS ME!!! I missed probably the whole first 8 count of choreography where ooooh yea Im in the front/center very much in plain eyesight. ooooh but dont worry neil also missed the first 8 count because he was behind me playing tug of war with me and the net. I wish i could have seen him because he was yanking that net off of me....ended up ripping a huge hole in my costume buuuut whatever he got it off haha. So much was going through my head.....what if he couldn't get it off of me. There was absolutely no way I could have danced with that huge net attached to my back. I would have had to stay in the back of the stage improving with the net pretending I was in a swamp hahahahahahahaha would have been the funniest moment of tour. It was our producers last night with us. Now he's been there every second of the way through this year long experience. Doesn't feel right now that he's gone! We said our goodbyes and it took us over an hour to get outside to sign autographs so we didn't think anyone would still be around. We were soooo wrong! Ive never signed so many autographs in my life!!!!! I was super hyper that night and I had on my favorite outfit of all time! (I went to nyc and I came back with all these ghetto accessories hahaha). Unforgettable night!

8. Syracuse, Ny- First show without our producer!! Sad!! There were a few of my hard core fans in the audience so I was really looking forward to the show. Funny thing was, without ever seeing even a picture of them, I knew exactly which ones they were hahaha. Probably because they were the loudest and had a huge lauren sign (my first sign :) :) Felt like a great show, however I don't think I had as much energy as the night before. HORRIBLE moment in the night. Im onstage dancing my favorite routine (angel/devil) and there's a part where I turn into neil and drop my head down looking and my shoe and neil turns into me and whips his cane towards my shoe, its supposed to surprise me and its our first time really coming in contact with eachother. For the first time ever, he doesn't hit the cane on the floor next to my shoe, instead he hit me right above my eye!!!! The very next second Im supposed to look up at him all surprised. I did that alright haha!! but didnt REALLY look at him because my eye wouldn't open!!!!!!! Everything had happened so fast that I didnt even know why my head was pounding and i only had half of my eyesight. But with the look in Neils face I knew something had happened to me. If it weren't for him looking so concerned and wispering to me are you ok and over and over again saying sorry throughout the dance I think I would have started crying. We got though it and I almost passed out backstage but the show must go on. NUTTY!!!!!!!!! shit happens...gotta deal with it :)


wow! I dont think I have enough energy to re read what I wrote and fix mistakes haha. sad...but sorry! forgive me!

xoxoxo
lauren



Christopher Walken In Fatboy Slim Music Video

Fatboy Slim's Weapon Of Choice, featuring Christopher Walken. Not SYTYCD related, but I think you'll find it entertaining.



Tuesday, October 2, 2007

Donyelle Jones Video Blog

Season 2 favorite Donyelle Jones has a new, and rather long video blog up on her Myspace page. She's got big news, personally and professionally. Even though we didn't see her, she says she assisted on all but 2 shows during season 3, mostly for Tyce Diorio.

LINK


Ducky's full report from backstage after Saturday night's show is up. It's chock full o' goodness. Go.

LINK

Revolution Update

We've talked previously about Revolution, the rock & roll and dance mashup that opened recently at the Joyce Theater in New York. I heard from fellow blogger Kongye, that Time Out New York had given the show a less than optimistic listing:

The silly Revolution continues. Cocreators Michael Schulster and Joel Hanna are trying to cash in on the aesthetic of So You Think You Can Dance. Performers include Allison Holker, Mike Warshaw, Krista Montrone and Jimmy Guasto.


I then found this piece by Eva Yaa Asantewaa at InfiniteBody that offered some hope:
The richly-produced, rollicking show looks pitched at Broadway, and indeed the older, Broadway-type audience at the Joyce seemed to warm to it after the initial shock of bright rock-show lights in their eyes and the first blast of drums in their ears. (Speaking of drums--why the elaborate Plexiglas shield around the drum kit? Protection from dancer sweat?) The program notes actually refer to Revolution's intended market as "the much sought-after 18-35 bracket." Yes, you read that right: crass marketing strategy right there in your face. But that's not who was sitting there last night and, to all appearances, loving it.

MORE

Now we have reviews from Tonya at Swan Lake Samba Girl and Alistair MacAuley at the New York Times. One (sort of) giveth and one (kind of) taketh away. Fortunately, we have one more source to call upon. Kongye wrote:
I'm going to the Humanities Series performance on Wednesday night where the cast and choreographers hold a Q&A after the show to further the understanding of dance (http://joyce.org/education_adult_ed.html#humanities). I'd be happy to pass along my experience with that. I'd also possibly be open to asking something if you or your readers really wanted to pass a question along.


So chime in if you have any questions, and we'll look forward to hearing Kongye's thoughts after the show.


Hok Injury Confirmation

Listen closely and you'll hear Hok mention that he hurt his back.

Thanks to DANCEinsidethexS0ng.

Tour Coverage

See what happened when Ducky went backstage at the East Rutherford show.

LINK

Nick writes:

These videos were posted over at the SYTYCD Livejournal community. The quality is incredible. Very clear and close to the stage. They are the best I have seen. So much better than the Youtube ones.

The Mia Michael's group dance is especially beautiful. Danny Tidwell and Jaimie Goodwin are amazing. You can even see the definition of Danny's muscles in the video.



Here's one for our friend Leee.


LINK to the rest. Our thanks to lightgrenade for sharing these Quicktime videos.


This Is The Anthem Of Cat Deeley


Performed by Ant & Dec, uploaded by eeonline.

Cat in black leather pants.

Courtesy of philip1512.

Monday, October 1, 2007

Syracuse Report

LJ blogger operatingsystem posted a review of last night's show in Syracuse.

LINK


East Rutherford Report

Loralyn attended the show Saturday night in East Rutherford, N.J. She will try to give us a written report as time allows, but for now she gives us a couple of videos.

Danny & Jaimie performing the Girlfriend Jive, originally performed by Danny & Anya.


Danny & Lacey's waltz.

More at Loralyn's Youtube page. She posted a bunch of photos here. Thanks Loralyn!

We have several reports that the Dominic/Sara/Hok breaking routine was not performed in East Rutherford. Some are saying that Hok is injured, though he still performed the Hummingbird routine with Jaimie.


Our buddy Ducky also attended the show and provides a preliminary report. We expect more from him later today.

Sunday, September 30, 2007

Hatchet Job

The Star-Ledger's Robert Johnson can't abide anything about SYTYCD, on TV or in live performance:

"So You Think You Can Dance," the hard-hitting Fox reality series, arrived at the Continental Airlines Arena in East Rutherford Saturday, replete with shouting and frenzy. Whether there's anything authentic about the dance contests reenacted here is quite beside the point. Reality is whichever lie the producers at Fox want you to swallow.

Perhaps the show's title should be "So You Think This Is Dance" But then viewers, not contestants, would have to do the thinking, and that's the last thing the broadcaster wants. The show, now in its third season on television and making a graceless transit from the small screen to the stage, is utterly without merit. Showcasing acrobatic stunts and the intensity of the dancers' muscular contractions, it delivers jolts of electricity relentlessly like 2 1/2 hours of shock therapy.


LINK

Tour Video

Lacey and Danny's Samba from the Boston show, courtesy of stuntedcat.


Pasha & Anya from opening night in Albany. Thanks to ChigzSYTYCD. They ARE a hot couple.


Aussie SYTYCD Production Update

Our own Uncle Nigel may be a guest judge on the Australian version of So You Think You Can Dance:

The Sun Herald today reported that Nigel Lythgoe may be a guest judge on Australia's version So You Think You Can Dance. Apparently he has grandkids on the Gold Coast and is a semi-regular visitor.

MORE


The early favorite for hosting duties was Megan Gale. She has dropped out due to other commitments. The current favorite is Natalie Bassingthwaighte. Natalie may turn out to be an excellent host, but I don't wish to type the name Bassingthwaighte any more than absolutely necessary.

SOURCE


Blast From The Past

Here's one I'll bet you haven't seen in a while. Travis and Heidi performing a Wade Robson Afro-pop routine.


Thanks to redheaven22 for posting.