Aussie Sneak Peek

In addition, So You Think You Can Dance Australia will be holding dance-offs at Westfield Shopping Centres around the country during January and February. More info here.

Some Videos

There's little news to report so let's watch some videos that friends have brought to our attention.

Loralyn recommends this video of Jaimie Goodwin performing at NYCDA Boston. The second half features a dancer named Craig Dionne. He's incredible!


Ruby La Rhumba submitted this video of the amazing Sasha Cohen. Ruby calls it "Ballroom on ice". It made her fall in love with figure skating all over again.


Jamal Weaver hypes the Status Quo Crew who we may see on Randy Jackson's upcoming MTV hiphop dance reality show.


Finally, this gaysplosion of 80s cheeziness features Cheryl Ladd and Ben Vereen performing Tropical Nights. Thanks to Beckylooo for this one.

Dance War

Just awful. Dance War: Bruno vs Carrie Ann premiered last night on ABC. It was the typical audition show. Let's hope the performance shows are better. There was way too much emphasis on bad singing and not enough on quality dancing. I wasn't familiar with either Bruno or Carrie Ann. Does Bruno always go to 11? He needs to bring it down to about a 7 or 8 IMHO.

Tamara Brooks at Zap2it recaps. Tonya at Swan Lake Samba Girl wasn't impressed. Sarah Kickler Kelber at the Baltimore Sun blog hopes for the best:

Maybe it will get more interesting once they split into teams and the Bruno vs. Carrie Ann part actually starts. Then again, it might just keep feeling derivative.

LINK


We did get to see a member of the SYTYCD family. Anthony Bryant auditioned and made it to the Hollywood round, but no further. I believe Anthony has auditioned and made it to the Las Vegas round for all 3 seasons of SYTYCD. He was even invited back for the finale of season 1.


Here's a piece Anthony choreographed and performed for his graduation from Julliard last year.


There's more at Anthony's site and at his Myspace.

SYTYCD News Roundup

Season 3 finalist Jesús Solorio has released his first recording at Myspace.

LINK


SixShot.com has a really outstanding interview with choreographer Dave Scott:

What can we expect from the upcoming project you helped choreograph, Step Up 2 The Streets?

This movie stems from Step Up. In that one it was a hip-hop kid coming to a technically trained studio and trying to bring hip-hop to the school. In this one it’s reversed—they’re trying to get street credibility coming from that school. So it tells a different story on the urban edge. The dancing got to be a lot more creative because I got a chance to use some of these technically trained dancers, on top of b-boys, on top of hip-hop, and take it to the next page on a whole hip-hop level.

LINK



Blogger Marisa Paull goes deep while recounting recent classes taken with Tyce Diorio, Sabra Johnson, and Kameron Bink.

LINK



Dance writer Nancy Wozny interviews herself and asks the most interesting questions:

And dance on TV?

Yes it's there and growing. Not all pretty. I wish they would put me in charge. And now that there's a writers strike dance on TV makes even more sense than ever.

What do you know about dance on TV?

I watched the June Taylor Dancers on The Lawrence Welk Show with my grandmother. Taylor was an early dance-on-TV pioneer.

Favorite moment on So You Think You Can Dance?

Hasn't happened yet, but it goes like this, they pick a genre out of the hat and it reads “Judson Church.”

LINK



Singer Brian Evans says So You Think You Can Dance didn't have permission to use his rendition of It Had To Be You for tour performances. He's suing for 3 million dollars.

LINK


Don't forget, Dance War: Bruno vs Carrie Ann begins it's 6 week run tonight at 8pm ET/PT.