If I Ruled The SYTYCD Universe…

…I would watch only the contemporary couples.

For a blog I do elsewhere, I put myself in the place of one of the judges this year determining which performances would be reprised in the finale. I definitely agreed with including Will & Katee’s Pas de Deux, Mark & Courtney’s Jazz by Sonya Tayeh, and Katee & Josh’s Bollywood routines. Find out what I might’ve replaced the rest with, after the jump.

Good TV is NOT an Oxymoron

Finally, my SYTYCD Finale Recap!

The SYTYCD Finale was damn good TV, and that says a lot coming from a person who considers “good TV” to be an oxymoron.

Like the great talent and entertainment shows of the 60s and 70s–Ed Sullivan and Johnny Carson to name just two–SYTYCD is bringing new talent, and a whole new artform, to the TV-viewing audience. An audience that has been dumbed down to the point of catatonia by writers’ strikes; the short-term expediency of inexpensively-made reality TV; and the spineless ass-kissing of Hollywood TV execs who capitulate to advertisers and sponsors and lack the patience and vision to invest in a show as it builds momentum.

The SYTYCD Finale was remarkably entertaining: a spectacle for the eyes, the mind and the heart. And, it was highly respectful of its audience, offering up the best moments of the season as picked by judges so committed to the quality of dance-as-entertainment and to the nurturing of dance talent, that two of them actually got up to perform. Rather than this coming across as shameless self-aggrandizement or an opportunistic tactic to prove or revive their fading credibility (hear that, Randy Jackson? Or you, Paula Abdul?), it was instead a demonstration of their love for dance and their support of this under-rated and under-supported art form.

Some of the most successful elements of the Finale show, plus a continuation of my rant against AI, and my five favourite SYTYCD moments of the Season Four Finale, after the jump.

Current Mood: Civic

Happy Holiday Monday!

The holiday that occurs on the first Monday in August throughout most of Canada is a complete and utter farce. A non-holiday. We are celebrating absolutely nothing–but, like the good Canadians we are, we must overlay some kind of veneer of respectability on top of it, to overcome the WASP guilt of actually–gasp!–taking the day off. So, in various places, it’s named after the province (British Columbia Day, Saskatchewan Day, New Brunswick Day) and in Ontario, it changes by municipality to honour some local, long-dead colonist of wig-and-breeches vintage.

Being in Toronto, my non-celebration revolves around: Lord John Graves Simcoe, the first Lieutenant-Governor of Upper Canada. I dunno what the hell he really did for us, but I think he was in the British Navy, and possibly repelled some Yanks from the northern shores of Lake Ontario. Oh, wait … it says here that he introduced “institutions such as the courts, trial by jury, English common law, freehold land tenure and [abolished] slavery in Upper Canada long before it was abolished in the British Empire as a whole.” (source: Wikipedia — where else?)

Well, then … my hat’s off to ya’, Johnny! In your honour, I’ve:

• updated the Mindgames page with a new jigsaw puzzle and a new brainteaser. Try the jigsaw puzzle, they’re much easier on a holiday Monday;
• added a new widget from goodreads.com — this is a fabulous site for readers that I found just last night. You can click on the little pictures of book covers over there to the right in “On My Nightstand”, and you’ll be taken to plot summaries, readers’ reviews and rankings. You can engage in discussion groups about what appears to be a vast number of topics. And so far, it looks like there is something for every kind of reader, and in particular me. Meaning, the entire thing is NOT dominated by people whose only experience with literature is Harry Potter. What a relief. (I’ve never read it. I’m never going to read it, nor am I ever going to see any of the movies. Ever. I could, and perhaps sometime will, write an entire rant about Harry Potter and how it has contributed to the denigration of critical thinking among today’s youth. Later. It’s a holiday, for goodness sakes. I’m celebrating Johnny.)

My first eccentric musing of the day, in which I take you on a trip from Joshua Allen to Leonard Cohen, with stops at goodreads and Johnny Depp along the way, after the jump.

On The Mark

Tonya Plank, a blogger on the Huffington Post, does the best technical reviews of SYTYCD that I have seen/read. About Mark Kanemura, she has said:

…even though he doesn’t do any athletically astounding acrobatics or flashy moves during his solos, Mark is a true original. He is insanely creative. I think, even if he doesn’t go all the way to the end in this competition, he’ll make a name for himself, perhaps as a choreographer. It’s hard to tell from seconds-long solos what he is capable of, but if he has a sustaining vision … with all his pent-up weird energy that could be genius.

Top 8, and Desmond Richardson, Tonya Plank, HuffPo

This week, on Mark’s departure, she predicts he’ll have a huge future in dance, possibly as a dancer or choreographer with a company such as NYC’s Misnomer, which led me to this extraordinary video:

BTW, that’s a Leonard Cohen song they are dancing to: Hey, That’s No Way To Say Goodbye. Brilliance. Back later with more commentary on this dance and the lyric accompanying it, possibly. But right now, I must get out in the summer sunshine.

SYTYCD Top 6: They Are All Winners

We’re down to So You Think You Can Dance Season Four Finale–what a whirlwind of a season. Tried to get tickets to the SYTYCD tour coming to Toronto on Oct 26, but no luck. They sold out in 25 minutes. As an aside, what is with these online ticket (re)sellers who now have them … and are selling $56 tickets for $350? I see a centre floor ticket for $1,500. Isn’t this illegal?

Ah well, tilting at windmills is not on the agenda until later in the day. For now, let’s look back at Top 6 week, and say a fond farewell to Chelsie and Mark. They came in to the show together, so it was only fitting (if a little surprising) that they leave together.

Mark and Chelsie became one of my favourite couples starting at their “Tim Burton’s Wedding” performance in Top 20. That a ballroom dancer could do–so well!–the contemporary and hip hop routines she was given is truly a testament to her skill and versatility. Chelsie’s magnetic personality and energy shone so brightly in any Latin or ballroom routine she was given, that she never failed to upstage her partner. She was charisma personified.

Mark’s quirky musicality grew on me each week, and when Gev left, he became the dancer I most looked forward to just to see what he would do with the choreography and the character he was given. His warmth and charm showed through in each routine. His final pairing with Courtney was almost as magical as when he was with Chelsie–in fact, can you imagine if Mark/Courtney had been together from the start, what we would have seen from them?!?

Well, we would have seen stuff like this (after the jump):

What’s Up On Hump Day!

Mid-Week Highlights!

It’s SYTYCD tonight–Top 6! Mark and Courtney are likely in trouble, but let’s see if there’s another upset this week. They will all need to be in top form tonight, and the choreography will make or break them. I hope we get Mandy Moore back. Can’t wait … I’ll try to get my review up quickly this week, but I’m in post-vacation mode at work, and so quite busy. So check in again here frequently (bookmark the site or subscribe to my feed–look up and to the right; it’s the orange box that says “posts”).

I’ve added a daily quotation to the page, and I’m keeping these on a static sub-page called “WoW” (Words of Wisdom) Archive. I’m pulling these from some of my own personal faves that I’ve been collecting for years. You will see lots of Oscar Wilde and Mark Twain, some snark, and many that are inspirational to me about art, culture and the flaws and foibles of human nature. Many of them have a double, or triple, meaning. I like things that can be interpreted multiple ways. Ambiguity. Random juxtaposition. These things, in and of themselves, inspire creativity and lateral thinking.

What I’m reading right now: Blindness, José Saramago. It’s a bit harrowing, but I trust the reviews I’ve read (and the fact that it won a Nobel Prize for Literature). It feels to me very much like Cormac McCarthy’s The Road. Possibly even bleaker. It has been made into a movie (another one that will be premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival) starring one of my favourite actresses, Julianne Moore, Mark Ruffalo and Gael Garcia Bernal. I will be doing my darndest to get to see this one and The Secret Life of Bees, also premiering here in September. Ideally, I will have a review of the novel up sometime on the weekend.

And now, for something truly uplifting: After the jump.

SYTYCD Top 8: Props To The Dancers Without Props

Okay, this is going to be a shotgun review for a couple of reasons. The first, I’ve been away. The second, I don’t much have the heart to watch last Thursday’s show–did I miss anything other than the glaringly obvious most important thing, i.e. Will’s elimination? No? I didn’t think so.

As for Wednesday, I was left feeling a little so-so about the whole thing, and it’s probably worthwhile to explore why. Certainly there were some competent performances. But, thinking about the show as a whole, nothing stood out as a dramatic “moment” although I thought there were a couple of instructive misfires, most of which had to do with the improper use of props. Let us begin…