Perhaps Cat’s ensembles are supposed to provoke us into viewing So You Think You Can Dance. With that faux-Pucci-vomit ensemble, how could they not? However, since you were already seen modeling her amazing suspenders, Cat, it seems you should take Coco Chanel's advice that before you leave the house, take one thing off and put it back (except you should then repeat this ritual many more times than Ms. Chanel).
Back in the non-My-Little-Pony world, the fabulous Adam Shankman (of Hairspray fame) was guest hosting. He looked like a mix between George W. "Strategery" Bush and Dewey from Malcolm in the Middle. And rightfully so -- he seems hilarious.
“Cat, you look Cat-astrophically Cat-tastic!” he yelled at her.
I'm sorry, was there another Cat in the room, because that Pucci-vomit ensemble did not deserve such praise. But oh, I suppose completely made-up words have have whatever connotation their creator desires
On the other hand, it was Nigel’s birthday last night … OR WAS IT? According to Wikipedia, Nigel birthday is actually July 9, 1949, placing him at the ripe old age of 57! Hm, so he’s passionate yet flighty, cautious and overemotional, and maybe has an issue with touching things that don’t feel pleasant. Its OK buddy, from one Cancer to another, we’ll get through this.
____________________________________________________________
Every week, cameras have been asking the dancers questions about themselves for the pre-practice vignettes. And, every week, I keep hoping 1) the producers will ask interesting questions and 2) someone will give a shocking answer. This week’s question: "What doesn’t America know about you?"
I anticipated juicy answers. “America would never know I have 15 children”, or that predictable answer, “But what I really want to do is act/sing.” Instead, we learned that Kameron skydives/annoys his Mom. This guy is so obsessed with his love/hate relationship with all females. Does any girl seriously want to sign on the dotted line for this winner? Lacey was a hair model. Yawn. She also currently has a weave. Yawn.
Speaking of those two, the pair drew the hustle. Hustle to it! Kameron was so excited to hustle he busted right into it.
“That’s a line dance, Kameron!” Lacey drawled, half-joking. She’s so obviously annoyed with him. He probably has the best entry in her Burn Book. The routine, however, was able to incorporate both Lacey’s style and Kameron’s (and by Kameron's style, we mean they let him pull a flip right out of the gate). He struggled to keep up with Lacey, but overall, the performance was fast, entertaining, and the audience wouldn’t even care enough to pick on their flaws. For one, Kameron always gets the loudest cheers out of the girls when he comes out, and Lacey has automatic popularity built in due to the older sibling complex.
Adam was so enthusiastic about the performance I actually thought I’d want to perform for the guy! Nigel even said that Lacey had better showmanship than Benji, and not that I’m automatically dismissing it off the bat, but I’m not sure it’s correct. First off, her brother already won the competition, and she’s not even her Dad’s favorite? Where, since episode two, has her Dad with the sign been? I mean she can’t even win in a competition of TWO PEOPLE. He showed up for all Benji's episodes last season. Just saying.
____________________________________________________________
And now, ladies and gentlemen, a moment of silence for The World’s Most Painful Mambo.
Cedric and Shauna have nothing to hide from America. Shauna snowboards and Cedric is … a plushy? Oh, wait, no, sorry, he was just his school’s mascot! My bad. That’s right, he did cheerleading. Didn’t see that one coming! Maybe that explains his captain’s throwdown challenge to America two weeks ago a la Kirstin Dunst in Bring It On. Hey, Cedric, you don’t need to convince the squad to go to Nationals and learn a routine in two weeks. Maybe you should've just gone ahead with the stolen routine from the Clovers.
Their choreographer, however, had the amount of faith in Cedric that I have in a stick of gum.
“Usually when I teach, I have one assistant,” said Choreographer Alex Da Silva, “But when I heard we had Cedric, I brought three.”
Oh, snap.
This is when the world’s most painful mambo occurred. Shauna looked great, but Cedric just couldn’t seem to pull it together. Sure he looked like he was trying hard, but his long limbs were just not used to moving in such a tight, restricted, moderated style. The spins were slow and looked out of practice. Granted, Mary said she noticed growth and wanted Cedric to stay, but that’s probably what she’d say to everyone at this point. Adam started out by saying, “Well, it wasn’t as bad as I thought it was going to be.” Ouch. For five and half hours of practice, the routine was as good as it could get, but I wouldn’t be surprised if these two are bottom three again. Peace out, Cedric. We’ll miss you, buddy.
____________________________________________________________
Anya and Danny have few things to reveal to America: she used to be a blonde at law school (I guess she came to America on va-cay! Let’s all go! Road trip!) and he spends more money on sunglasses than food. Danny, I hate to break it to you, but you’re a dancer – you probably spend more on toilet paper than food! Hopefully he takes the extra money he saves on food and starts donating it to a worthy cause, like The Help Anya Dress Like A Human Being Fund. After all, sponsoring a fellow dancer’s wardrobe is the new adopting from Ethiopia!
The two danced a contemporary piece to “Apologize” by One Republic, which is a really great song for a smooth routine. The performance symbolized what all other contemporary pieces with a man and woman paired seem to symbolize – a relationship ends and one person walks away. Mary picked up on this right away, begging our choreographers to have at least one relationship work out on the show! Oh yes, Mary, life should be rainbows and cupcake sprinkles all the time. My Little Pony, this is not!
Adam had some definite opinions on the piece, the pair’s skill-set not withstanding. It was one big game of Taboo, and the word was arrogance. Adam really wanted to drive the point home, and Nigel just wouldn’t let him!
Adam: “Danny, you’re a great dancer; you just dance with a great deal of arrogance--”
Nigel: “I wouldn’t say that, he just needs to find the X-factor that makes people pick up the phones…” (Translation: "America senses you have no soul, thus is unwilling to vote for you")
Adam: “It’s like you think your dancing above everyone else’s…”
Nigel: “I think you’re talking crap!”
Nigel, I know it’s your birthday, and unless you get the last word you’ll be unhappy, as clearly Danny is your favorite male in the competition. However, don’t disrespect an expert! If the only people you want to guest judge are woo-ers like Mary, you need to make that clear up front. I hear Debbie Allen of WORLD FAMOUS DANCE ACADEMY fame is available.
____________________________________________________________
Apparently, what America doesn’t know about Sara and Pasha (from Russia!) is that they L to the AME. She used to figure skate; he’s into computers. Pasha’s segment of him “assembling” computers was unintentionally hilarious. It looks like they took him to some dusty, abandoned office and told him to start putting together an old computer so they could film it. Wouldn't it be mean if Fox had actually needed someone to install that computer, and they volunteered Pasha for the task? And until he finished, he wasn't allowed to leave? That's right, no dancing! No sleep! No soup for you, Pasha!
The pair drew West Coast Swing and immediately flashed their West Side hand signs. Groan. They walked into the rehearsal room, and who else would be choreographing but Benji and Heidi? Heidi seemed very un-included, but maybe that’s because Benji couldn’t wait to ham it up for the cameras. He’s gone red and spiky and is wearing glasses …and is really freaking me out in an old-school Clay Aiken-type way. Maybe he’s hair modeling, too, who knows?
Since these two obviously needed help in the cool department, it was nice to see Benji had already thought of that and has graced us with Benji’s Three Lessons For Being Cool:
- Have Russian sex appeal (and, apparently, bad fake accent) like season 2’s Dmitry.
- Be sexy with chill thug/gangsta appeal
- Have him as your teacher (all that and he’s modest, too!)
These two are so quirky they may become my favorite couple. Pasha is such a dork, how could you not love him? And Sara is so adorable; she's like the Rachel Bilson of the competition.
The routine was very Heidi and Benji, even invoking their trademark dual-cartwheel move. But I’m going out on a limb here to say it was the most entertaining routine of the night. You could tell the dancers loved it, the judges loved it, and the audience loved it. They’re so safe, I’d even put money on it.
____________________________________________________________
Sabra and Dominic really had some skeletons … but not really. Sabra admitted she was a dancer in High School Musical … yes, THAT High School Musical. You’ve got to love a Disney Channel movie that became big using its working title. Dominic kept us guessing as he admitted he had a crush on someone on the show … until he admitted it was Cat! “Seven feet tall, English … it can’t get much better than that!” he gushed. You know, except her acting could improve. And her wardrobe. And her dancing. And her vocabularly. But other, like, then that, like, she's totally, like, very very. She didn't come off as being totally mortified, but she did take off her heels.
The pair really wanted hip-hop and that’s what they got. Sadly, Shane Sparks hoped to have another routine as good as last year's one to Ne-yo’s “Sexy Love” with the umbrellas, but that’ll do, pig, that’ll do. The one moment that stood out was when Sabra’s giant door-knocker earring flew off. It looked rough on her ears to dance in them. Frankly, I'm just relieved it was the earring flying off and not her entire ear.
Sadly, they may be bottom three.
____________________________________________________________
Got anything to hide from America, Jaimie and Hok?
Jaimie used to want to play basketball, despite her height of 5’3”, and Hok plays the violin. Total cover-up answers. When asked if she had a crush on Hok and if anything was going on between them, Jaimie giggled … a lot. Didn't this girl learn anything in middle school -- giggling and blushing is automatic guilt! “I’m not admitting to anything!” she toyed. “I’m not going to talk about it! ... Why, what’d Hok say?” So busted.
Guess we should now play our favorite game: Name this new "celebrity?" couple! Add them to the comments below -- we're excited to see the results!
Jaimie and Hok drew the waltz, or as I like to call it, fish in a barrel. The story was Hok had died; they had one beautiful dance together as though he was still living, and then she realized he’d been dead all along. Um, this just qualified as creepy but we’ll go with it for the sake of the blog. Go back to welding, Jaimster – it’s calling your name!
Their equal heights made the dance rough for Hok to lead, and the rises and falls expected of a waltzing couple weren’t exactly illustrated. When all was said and done, Adam called Jaimie "Jenny" (strike 1!), Mary didn’t woo and said it was just OK (strike 2!) and Nigel said they’d be in the bottom three (strike 3!). Even the choreographer booed Nigel, but it’s the honest truth.
____________________________________________________________
OK, it pains me to even type this, but Lauren’s secret is that she pretends to be Asian. Her secret persona even has a name -- Misha -- and she even sometimes auditions as her. Remember Beyonce’s alter ego? Do. Not. Want. Even more painful may be that Neil’s secret is he does a killer Wookie impression. This is going to be a long vignette.
The two drew jazz and burst in the rehearsal room doing jazz hands as The Robson shot them the look of death, wearing all black and holding a cane I secretly hoped he’d use to beat the living crap out of them.
“This piece is about good and evil, but I want it to be fun,” said The Robson, irony escaping him. The premise would be that Lauren would play an angelic character and Neil would play an evil character disguised as a suave man, and -- here's the kicker -- the two find they actually have a lot in common. What most impressed me were the gigantic drag steps they both took across the stage a la Who Framed Roger Rabbit. It was almost like watching a cartoon, but the music and moves were pretty similar to what Sara and Jesus performed on the first performance episode.
Neil, I must say, lots of hair product and guyliner work for you. Please do this look more often. I’m sensing they’ll be safe on multiple levels, but on the premise of eye makeup alone, they’ve got my vote.
____________________________________________________________
We can only wait in anticipation of tonight’s episode to see who will make the bottom three. But more important questions loom as well:
Will Pasha ever assemble that computer?
Did Nigel and Adam get into it after hours?
Will Jaimie and Hok just go to prom and get it over with already?!
Who do you predict will be bottom three?
____________________________________________________________
Epilogue: Good news! In the time I was gone, I took a hip-hop dance class. As I walked toward the center, my mind couldn’t believe that my legs continued moving in the correct direction – all my mind wanted was for them to run away, but they’d become possessed by some morbid curiosity and were feeding on my own fear. A real class in Times Square, at a real dance studio, with real dancers … I couldn’t even hope to blend in. At 5’3”, not only do I stick out like a sore thumb height-wise, but I’m also chubby and rarely described as graceful. The girl who checked me in looked and sounded exactly like Emily Blunt in The Devil Wears Prada, glaring at me in a “You don’t belong here” attitude. Then, what do you know; she also happened to be taking the same class as me. Small world. But an hour and a half later, I’d survived The Broadway Dance Centre. I’ll readily admit that I didn’t go in thinking it was easy, but it was so hard to pick up that a week later, I’m still practicing and still not that great. I knew it wouldn’t be easy, but it was really scary! But do I feel like a sexier, more self-actualized woman? You bet. Thus ends the saga. Happy viewing tonight!
