So You Think You Can Dance Results Show 07/26/07

All I really want to talk about this post is the opening number. Wow.



I really really enjoyed this piece. I think I've got a thing for Mia Michaels. I think this marked the first time I've honestly enjoyed watching Danny dance. I'm glad he was highlighted here because I feel like he really put himself into this dance emotionally.

Here were some of my favorite moments from this dance:

Danny's entire intro. He just seemed to be putting his entire heart and soul into it. He looked really professional, but still gave out so much emotion. I was just thinking, it's a shame he never got a contemporary piece, but upon looking it up I recalled his and Anya's Tyce DiOrio piece to "Apologize." I'd need to go back and watch that one again to remember much about it. My apathy might have been due to the fact that I didn't really have any interest in him at that point in the competition, but I think if he'd been given a piece like this Mia Michaels' one, I would've taken notice.

Whoever was doing that crazy handstand in the back. Can anyone tell who that was? I'm guessing Dominic. I loved the kicks, and then going up onto one hand, it was all just cool.

The lift. When all of the guys lifted the girls with their legs pointing straight up, and the lights came on in the back. I thought it was very powerful.

When everyone fell back across the edge of the stage. This was definitely my very favorite moment. It was so dramatic, and I loved the fact that I wasn't expecting it. I loved just the shape of it, with everyone's bodies laying backwards, arms spread out, making the arc around the stage. Then when the lights came down to just yellow floodlights on the dancers, I feel like it made the mood sooo intimate. The lighting went from cool to hot, the dancers were right there with the audience, everything in the background went pitch black. Awesome. The sound of the drum beat and their bodies hitting the stage was like a heartbeat. I really really love how nobody involved with this show is afraid of using every single part of the stage.

The ending. Everything got quiet, sort of suspended... The guys sort of hovering around Danny, kind of twitching like they've still got the electricity of the past few minutes of dance running through them, but they've hit a barrier. And then that last tone, as Danny strikes such a stoic, statuesque pose, and they all fall around him. He reminded me so much of the way statues of gods look in Asian culture, and the effect his movements had on the other dancers just emphasized that.


While I loved seeing everyone up close, this is a dance I would've really liked to have seen from a distance, to see what everyone was doing and how it all connected. It looks like after the girls ran and jumped into the guys' arms, after the singer sings "Don't," that the guys lower them each at a different beat, but it's hard to tell and impossible to appreciate at the camera angle that happened to be showing. I think this dance more than any other so far has made me want to see the tour, just in case they do something like this. (Does anyone know what the tours are like?) I'm not very familiar with the world of dance, or dance shows, but I hope that shows exist where there are lots of just interesting group dance routines like the ones they do for results shows on SYTYCD. That way when I'm rich and living in some big artsy city someday I can go enjoy them.

When I watched this routine on TV, and the dancers were leaving the stage, I saw Neil (in his awkwardly stretched-looking shirt) and realized I hadn't really noticed him the whole dance. After watching it online a few times I decided he was visible several times, it was just that he had on the same black hat thing (? what were those..) as everyone else, and you couldn't see his blonde hair as well. Hmm.. that sounds familiar. I'm extremely pleased that Mia didn't take to heart any of the hat and goggles anti-sentiment from last week. I really like the routines where all the dancers look the same or similar. Anything where it can take you a bit away from being able to tell who is who. I think the black eyes and forehead looked so cool on everyone and made a really mysterious feel for the whole dance. I watch a dance like this and wonder, was there really a story in this dance either? There was more raw emotion in this routine than Neil and Lauren's last week, but you still couldn't really see the dancers' eyes, and they were all producing a pretty stoic looking expression. I think last week the judges were just afraid somehow of the strangeness and almost complete lack of definable, human emotion in the routine.

All in all this has definitely been one of my favorite, if not my very favorite, group dance of the season! Nice going, Mia.