So You Think You Can Dance Australia
We started watching the Australian version of So You Think You Can Dance (SYTYCD) a few weeks ago. I’d really enjoyed the American version so I was interested to see what the Australians could do.
Half the fun for me in these reality tv shows is the audition process and overall the audition process for this was much much kinder than the one for Australian Idol. Mind you, there are lots of people out there who have been told they can sing and really can’t, compared to the amount of people who’ve been told they can dance and are not very good at it. Or perhaps the Dance show’s producers are much kinder than Idol’s producers. I’m not sure, and I’d be interested to hear others’ opinions.
The types of judges are different on the two shows too, as there is no Kyle equivalent on SYTYCD - thank goodness. While some of his comments are constructive, a lot are not. But I’m not going to mention Idol any more in this post as that’s over for this year and hopefully for good.
An interesting programming decision happened with SYTYCD being scheduled right next to The Biggest Loser. One minute we’re seeing grossly obese people about to begin a journey to lose weight and get over the being fat mindset compared to very fit, slim people hoping to break into the dance world. But I digress.
As with all reality television shows, there are bloggers who blog about them. I have been guilty of this in the past with Big Brother - ahem - moving right on. I think people blog about reality tv because it is somewhat addictive to watch, the competition gets us interested, some of the people are just unbelievably good bad or bitchy and you just have to share. Some of the reality tv blog posts are as entertaining as the show itself and if you have missed out on an episode, they are a good place to catch up with what happened and get other viewpoints.
Mr Melodicus is blogging SYTYCD Australia and also the US version. He has a good wrapup of the Australian audition, talks about the very emotional pruning process, and the top 20 dancers.
Defamer Australia has the usual snarky (where deserved), but informative summaries, and the comments are interesting too.
TV Tonight also keeps us informed.
Personal blog wrapups are usually a lot more entertaining than the official show’s blog, but then the dancers are pretty busy learning their next dance in the hope they won’t be eliminated this week.
Who do you think will win?
[…] second post on the Aussie bloggers blog is now up. It’s about So You Think You Can Dance - the Australian version with a bit about reality tv thrown in. Those who regularly read this blog might know that I’m […]
The American one was much more… erm, professional. Some of the Australian dancers are good and all, but the host and judges are not quite as good as their overseas counterparts. Sometimes they are just embarassing.
It’s good to watch though.
I believe that some of the choreographers are the real weakness in the Australian SYTYCD. Instead of concentrating on teaching the dancers a certain genre of dance eg contemporary they decide to mix it up with some other form of dance and then end up with the martial arts demonstration that poor Henry and Vanessa had to do instead of being able to show Australia how well they could have danced considering how enthusiastic they both were when they picked contemporary. On the other hand you have someone like Jason Gilkison who totally does the right thing by the dancers and you end up with a beautiful ballroom routine. It must be hard enough for the dancers to dance in a genre that they are not familiar with and sometimes with a different partner so I think the choreographers should do the right thing by these young dancers the show and themselves because they would have to reap the benefits of a great well recieved performance.
Sometimes I feel the Australian version is comparing itself too much to its American counterpart, at times trying to out-do it. A good example of this is Kelly Abby’s routine dedicated to her friend who passed away, which significantly parallels Mia Michael’s routine from the third American series. As a result of this, the Australian version loses its unique value and is outclassed in many ways by the American shows.
I think that Cheorgraphy really can make the dancers or break the dancers.
Jason G is a perfect example of making the dancers, every dance he has done he has made them look amazing. His show is even more amazing, i think it is comming to Australia soon, ive seen it last time it was here and ive never been so moved and exited to dance.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hOQuX4SV8EE - some of it is here its called BURN the Floor and im going to go as far as saying its the new kind of dance revolution.