Wednesday, July 7, 2010

SYTYCD Season 7 - Top 8


If your spirit dances your body will follow. ~ Mia Michaels

What a great statement! And, there was a lot of spirit tonight!

Poor Lauren seems to keep getting the wardrobe malfunction costumes. Did you see her fringe get caught on her heel during the Cha Cha? But she is an excellent dancer considering she didn't miss a beat and stayed sultry the entire time. She held her own to the smoldering Pasha and I would have thought that she had been trained in Latin ballroom.

Even better, she was perfectly matched with Kent for a Travis Wall contemporary performance! This is the type of choreography I love from Travis Wall. It was perfection all around ... youthful, synchronized, intimate and gorgeous. Favorite performance of the night!

Tonight Kent was channeling his inner Justin Timberlake for his hip hop routine ... and it worked! He didn't try to mask "the white boy" in the performance and was able to bring in the smooth. It was a really good balance. He was still the fun Kent, but more mature.

Jose is not the best dancer this season due to his lack of training, but his commitment shines through in every performance. I think that is what makes him such a fantastic dancer and entertaining to watch. He was a great partner in the contemporary routine, but his African performance with Billy Bell was a perfect concept for both of them in every way. I really enjoyed this performance! I thought they partnered well together too.

It was great to see Billy dance Broadway. He was phenomenal! He partnered really well with Katy, but then again there was so much independent side-by-side dancing I think that might be why it worked so well.

Once again I am not loving AdéChiké or Ashley. Both are really good dancers, but neither made me want to rewind their performances to watch again.

I wonder if AdéChiké losing a contact lens during his first performance caused him to not perform as he could have. But, then his Bollywood performance didn't really capture me until the end when the music picked up.

The dreaded quick step reared its ugly head again tonight. This is EXACTLY why Mary Murphy needs to be on the judging panel to point out the technical concept of this style so that it makes some sort of sense to me. TI wasn't really sure how to feel about the character performance mixed with this style of dance. It left me feeling confused.

All the props tonight were fantastic! Doll boxes, bar stools, hats. They add challenges to performances. Mostly I loved how Robert performed in the doll box, but once out of the box the performance seemed to stumble. There were awkward moments for me. I don't really think tonight was his night to turn the audience to his favor.

Finally, a note about Cat ... I really loved the fact that she made the note about how the judges critiqued AdéChiké's Bollywood performance vs. Jose's. To me this is what makes her a real part of the show instead of just the host.

My prediction for bottom 3 this week ... AdéChiké, Ashley and Robert.