Last night, SO YOU THINK YOU CAN DANCE did something amazing, they gave us a look at what each of the Top 20 dancers can actually do! Before throwing the Top 10 guys and Top 10 girls directly to the “random” couplings and “random” styles we were able to witness why these kids were chosen in the first place. Bravo SYTYCD!

Too bad my DVR didn’t record the frakkin’ hour! At 11pm last night when I sat down to watch the brilliance Twitter had prepped me for, I almost passed out to discover it was not there.

Thanks to the power of the interwebs (specifically http://mjsbigblog.com/), this morning I’m able to watch and comment on some of the dances and Cat’s new crop of babies.

Wade and Amanda Robson’s group number may be the best group dance this show has ever seen. I’m not kidding, it’s cramazing! When the 3rd gang, the all boy gang, hit the stage I lost my breath a little. Whomever is featured front and center on that (too digitized online to truly tell who it was) portion is my new SYTYCD Boyfriend. The way that boy moved was pure sin!

If you, like me, missed the number here it is (while YouTube keeps it posted):

Wade Robson’s Group Number - “Comanche” by The Revels:

What SYTYCD did so brilliantly was introduce the dancers in choreographed groups.

Kevin Hunte, Legacy and Russell Ferguson are our Hip-Hop boys this year. Seriously, some of the tricks those kids did in their NappyTabs routine were out of control! That Legacy kid (oy with the name) can moooooove. I’m psyched to see what Krumper Russell will bring to the competition. Honestly an amazing routine. (Watch the Performance)

The first group of Contemporary Jazz kids (Jakob Karr, Nathan Trasoras, Channing Cooke, Ariana Debos) worked it to Tyce Diorio’s “Crying” by K.D. Lang. Onstage, Channing reminded me of GLEE’s Quinn Fabray and Jakob was a dead ringer for TRUE BLOOD’s Godric - I’m just sayin’. Ariana had some killer moves and the pirouettes Nathan did were OOC! I felt at times the dancers were dancing by themselves, not as a group, but I can forgive that because it was quite fantastic. (Watch the Performance)

My friend Beth twittered “what genius decided it was a good idea to put tapdancers dressed all in b&w in front of a b&W backdrop, for god’s sake???” and I couldn’t agree more. What the hell were you thinking SYTYCD Producers? It looked ridonkulous. Phillip Atmore, Bianca Revels, Peter Sabatino and everyone related to the show need to tone down the “history in the making” comments… we get it - tap is back… (Watch the Performance)

Going into this Jazz routine by Sonya Tayeh, these girls had the biggest job of impressing me. Not only do they have the 3 most dowdy names in SYTYCD history (Ellenore Scott, Mollee Gray and Pauline Mata) that Mollee girl annoys me. I love me some Sonya but this was the most boring, un-cohesive number of the night. Pauline may have been the best? I can’t tell… I was bored. (Watch the Performance)

It should be no surprise here that the 2nd group of Contemporary dancers blew me away. It featured Billy Bell, Victor Smalley, Noelle Marsh, Kathryn McCormick dancing a Mandy Moore routine to Coldplay’s “Viva La Vida” - slamdunk! I will confess here and now that I shed a slight tear during this number. It was beautiful, masterfully danced and breathtaking to watch. That Victor is a tall hunka-hunka something on that stage, no? Excellent performances by all four dancers.

Watch Mandy Moore’s Contemporary Routine:

By now you’ve heard that Billy Bell had to leave the competition for medical reasons and is being replaced by Brandon Dumlao (Hip-Hop). It was announced yesterday afternoon and after watching this performance, it’s a HUGE loss to the show.

As I wrote on twitter after watching his cramazing performance: “It is a damn shame to lose Billy Bell from #SYTYCD because that boy brought a killer energy and brilliance to that stage.”

Sadly the statement still omits what his illness is and I guess we don’t need to know. I personally hope Billy gets better and comes to rock our worlds in Season 7!

The official statement from the Bell Family:

Billy’s family would like to thank all of the fans that came out to show their support for Billy this season. It has been an amazing experience for all of us and has really meant a lot to Billy. We feel like Billy made it through all of the tough auditions and now that the fun was beginning, he has to leave the show. We were all very disappointed when we heard the news and Billy was devastated when his doctors told the show that if he continued to dance on the show before he recovered, he could possibly die. It will take several weeks for him to recover and as a result, he will be unable to return to Juilliard as of right now. We are hoping he will be able to return in the Spring. Billy is still quite ill but was released from the hospital today. He’s feeling better but still needs to rest.

As of right now, Billy is hoping to re-audition for Season 7. He really enjoyed working with the show and had a lot of fun. Although he is sad that he will not be a part of Season 6, he hopes that the producers will allow him to return for the next season. If you would like to wish Billy a speedy recovery, I’m sure he would appreciate it. You can do so by posting on the facebook fan page or his facebook.

Thank you so much for sharing your love and support with our family.
The Bell Family

Thanks to our friends over at SYTYCDISM for originally posting the statement.

On with the dancing…

Jason Gilkison gave the Ballroom trio (Ryan and Ashleigh DiLello, Karen Hauer) some supposedly sexy sassy Samba to work introduce them to the world. Personally I was pretty bored. I think knowing that Ryan and Ashleigh are a married couple makes me not want them to do well. I’m an asshole, I know this. Something about them just rubs me the wrong way. Ryan’s suit wasn’t doing anything for me either. That white piping on that horribly round breasted jacket was a serious distraction. (Watch the Performance)

Overall I have to say that I’m more impressed with the level of dancing than I have been since Season 2. There is some unreal talent on that stage this season, I just hope it continues as these kids start getting mixed up in styles that are not their own.

Possible SYTYCD Boyfriends this season: Jakob, Nathan and Victor

Want to download the songs from last night’s episode? Check out our SO YOU THINK YOU CAN DANCE Season 6 Music Guide!

What do you guys think? Crazy good or dull as dishwater?

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 27th, 2009 at 8:54 am and is filed under Adam Shankman, Cat Deeley, Ducky Does TV, Mandy Moore, Mary Murphy, Nigel Lythgoe, So You Think You Can Dance, So You Think You Can Dance Season 6. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.