Alexia/Hailee/Marissa/Brian Friedman/Jazz/New Dorp.New York – SBTRKT feat. Ezra Koenig - Hailee is already on my nerves just with the spelling of the name BUT girl can dance. Also, this dance was labeled as jazz but it was awfully pop, like Beyonce tour dancers pop. And once you add in the stilettos, it actually stops being jazz and becomes more like burlesque. All that said, I adored this dance and I want to learn it and do it every day. Fierce! I was a snapping, “Werk” shouting mess on my couch when this dance was done. I have danced in heels that high before with choreo that is a millionth of a millionth of a millionth as difficult as what those ladies were given and it is an ass kicker. The fact that nobody fell or broke an ankle is a goddamn miracle. But beyond that, they were turning it out. Just that opening chair work was tough. And I really was blown away by the opening maybe 3-4 eight counts when they were still wearing the coats. Those sharp, little movements are so hard to execute with that much precision and timing. When you are in stilettos like that, your whole center of gravity is thrown off, so something as small as a quick shoulder shrug to a head roll can topple you completely over but those girls were over their toes in a really great way. It’s almost like dancing en pointe. And once the overcoats came off, it went down. Marissa was a beast here, which is why I assume she got center when Hailee had started out in center. Her stance was wider and more secure. In the kip up, when she came out of it, she didn’t stop. There was a body roll and a head whip that came right after that. I was like, “Slay, mama.” Poor Alexia was super wobbly and Hailee just kind of came up, but Marissa was giving it to the people. But overall, I thought all 3 girls killed it dead. I doubt they dance like that normally and they worked.

That was super difficult choreography. I didn’t think it was overly sexual, or at least, I felt like the ladies had the sex level dialed to appropriate, so the judges were full of baloney on that one. Jason thought there weren’t a lot of steps in that routine. He’s an idiot. Just those hair tosses are steps and if he had to do them in heels, he’d bust his ass 10 out of 10 times, so he can just bite me.

Jim-Darion/Benoit/Ballet/Blood and Stone - Audiomachine - Umm, all the yes. These two make me so happy. I cannot even put into words…I don’t have the words. These two are so gorgeous and that routine was a killer. They definitely lost steam towards the end (both of them) but that’s understandable. The routine did not stop from the moment they stepped on stage until the last lift into a double turn (on Darion’s part) it was go-go-go. I think that Jim has the better technique of the two, meaning that it’s more classical; the lines are a little bit cleaner. He stretches more through his point. But Darion has more power; his leaps are higher and he’s faster into and out of his turns. Both of them are lovely and amazing. I don’t want to talk about the judging because Nigel’s comments had me so hot. Just like, no. Me and Misty Copeland would like to tell you to take those retrograde thoughts about Darion’s body type and it’s rightness for ballet and stick them right up your ass. Also, Paula, those costumes are par for the course in many ballet and/or modern companies. There was nothing wrong with them, as I’m sure she knows. I just, that whole judgery, I can’t. These boys were spectacular. The routine was gorgeous. That’s all.

KAT!!

My favorite of the itchy (ETA: wtf, iPad? This was probably "night") was, notgonnalie, that "sexy" high heel thing. Miss pixie cut is on fire, and even the brunette had a kind of earthy / sexy charisma.

I hate to say it: I think this stage vs street thing might be...fun? Honestly, the hip hop choreo has always been more entertaining than pretty much anything. Less tortured ballroom, contemporary, and the rest is for the good. I've been enjoying this season a lot more. It is mind blowing how much they are overflowing with lady hip hop goodness while there's been exactly one female hip hop all star in the previous nine seasons. And a gay lady! Will wonders never cease!

Yorelis-Virgil-Ariana/Pharside and Phoenix/Hip Hop/Locked out of Heaven- Bruno Mars - Are these two supposed to be the new NappyTab, because I really didn’t want to continue with the old ones, so I’mma pass. I mean, this wasn’t a bad routine, but it also wasn’t a great routine. I mean, you have three real, honest to goodness, hip hop dancers who can go hard and you give them a story, hip hop light piece to Bruno Mars? Why come? Just felt kind of like a wasted opportunity. There was a lot of basic movement here, for all the talk of intricate movement. If I can get up off my couch and do it (which I did at one point!) then it’s too easy, even though it was fun. Also, the arm circle was not on point. It wasn’t even cute. All that said, I thought all three of this crew brought personality and fun to the dance. Virgil is a great performer. He pulled the eye even with two sexy, cute girls on stage. Yorelis as the devil had the flashier part and she brought the cute sass to it. Ariana kept up, but There were a couple of times where I felt like she kind of got lost.

Judgery: Paula was dropping that science on these kids. “In those breathing moments, you’ve got to make something happen.” Preach, Paula! She was on point with her critique. It was kind of a nothing routine and in order to take it from kinda cute to great, these kids needed to bring more to the performance than was brought.

Edson-Kate/Travis Wall/Contemporary/Shaped Like a Gun - Tailor – I think this is where my over-obsessive interest in all things SYTYCD gets the better of me. I was not feeling this routine from the jump because there was a big flashing warning sign in my head spelling out “Favoritism”. In real life, Kate has known and worked with Travis for a number of years and has danced many, many times with his company, Shaping Sound. I just found it highly inappropriate that he would choreograph her week one dance. She knows him as a choreographer. She knows his style. She knows his movement vocabulary. There are shortcuts that they would be able to take together that no one dancing for a choreographer for the first time would be able to take. And I’m sure he set a piece on her that he thought would play to her particular strengths as a dancer because he knows her and he knows what those strengths are. It just did not sit right with me. So from the beginning, I was pre-disposed to be critical of this dance. Now that that’s all out of the way, I didn’t care for the dance. I agreed with the judges that it felt like a very SYTYCD dance. All angsty and reach out here, and push him away/now pull him closer, but there was no real meat on those bones. I’m also not sold on Kate as a dancer. She is just light for me in a way I can’t quite put my finger on. Technically, she’s very sound, but there’s not heft to her. She’s all technique and no feeling. I didn’t feel like she brought any real emotion to the dance. And during the performance, I felt like she and Edson were dancing two totally different pieces. She was so smiley in the beginning and he was giving me super intense face. And then she was giving devilish grin, I like being evil, but it came off as a fake and it again didn’t match the emotion that he was giving which was kind of smiley-I-love-you but then I’m sad and I hate you. And then she got super angsty even though she’d just been all happy, I step on your head and he just kept the same pitch and intensity in his face that he’d had throughout. And by the end she was all sad don’t leave me and I was just…confused. The dancing was fine though, so there was that. They had one difficult lift very early on where Edson got a little wobbly when he set her down, but other than that, they were lovely. Nice lines, nice extensions. They both have good centers and great feet. But I had to agree with Nigel (and I hate that) that there was something missing emotionally.

FLOTUS loves Gravity which is one of my favorite dances ever on SYTYCD so that just reconfirms for me that FLOTUS is unimaginably awesome.

Not even for the All Stars would I sit through a Jason DeRulo performance. FF.

Team Stage/Warren Carlyle/Broadway/Body Language - Queen - Hey, Tasty is not here doing Broadway so that’s already a win. Sadly, it’s yet another choreographer “inspired by” Bob Fosse. Look, I have nothing against Bob Fosse or inspiration. In fact, I quite like both. It’s just that most of the time “inspired by Bob Fosse” just turns out to be “copying moves directly from Fosse choreography” which if that’s the case, I’d rather just watch Fosse’s choreography. But let’s see what this dude can do, shall we? And ahhhhh, song choice is love! This song was the soundtrack to one of my most favorite SYTYCD solos ever (Blake, S1. If you’ve never seen it, go here right now and watch it and get your whole entire life and you can thank me later: [link] so I am already about 80% on board. The costuming was also super on point and got me feeling the Fosse moment, so well done wardrobe hos. Right from the start, these little ones were giving me everything I wanted. That little walk those boys did with the pelvis forward, hats and shoulders back just swinging around the girls with the canes in the middle was a) so hard and b) so stylized and c) so right. Everything. I died! Moises and Gaby’s tap break? Yes! (Even though Moises did fall out of his turn. Yes, I saw it and must note it even though the rest was fierce and the turn was super tricky) Hailee and Marissa were giving it from the walks in on the girls’ foursome and Alexia and Kate were…there. They are just not that exciting. I can’t imagine they won’t be the first to go of the stage girls. Jim, Edson and Moises all showed solid partnering skills during that chair sequence for the girls although I felt Moises had the best feel for the Fosse style. I was surprised that Darion didn’t do the partnering section as I imagine he’s done a lot of partnering in ballet which makes me think that maybe he didn’t pick up the Fosse style as well as some of the other boys. As Jim noted in the rehearsal footage, it’s very different from ballet. Much more grounded and down into the floor, not so pulled up, with lots of hip action and lots of flexed foot, flexed hands. Maybe it just didn’t sit well on him? They all were doing really well with the prop work until Alexia dropped her cane. Aww, poor boo boo. I bet she felt awful as she was the only one that dropped. But she recovered quickly. Overall, it was a fun routine. I felt like really only Moises, Marissa and Hailee got the Fosse movement vocabulary right. Gaby had her moments, but in the initial duo work with the cane that she did with Alexia, neither one of them was really giving me the broken down, Gwen Verdon style movement that was required. They were both still way too pulled up. And Jim tried, bless him, but I think he might have come out of the womb in turned out fifth position. Still, good showing for Team Stage. And a fun routine that was reminiscent of Fosse but not a total rip off. I liked it.

Team Street/NappyTab/Hip Hop/Ready or Not Here I come – District 78 feat. Cheesa - Sigh. I guess. You know, in rehearsal, the choreo looked…really good. But like, really good. I was shocked. It was shocking. I got excited about the performance. I forgot that when they are not doing contempo-hop, they are actually really good choreographers. Asaf wanting to tap out on the choreo? Yeah, right back out of my good graces. Whatever little bit of grace he’d earned by being so sweet to his group members was gone in the blink of an eye. tWitch was extremely gracious but I’m sure he wanted to whoop ass, let security carry ‘em out, all Luda style. That shit just cannot fly and it’s only week one! And onto the performance. I don’t totally understand how this song is not a Fugees song, but whatever. Let’s go. I also didn’t like tWitch being on stage with his team. It’s not about you right now, Boo Boo. OK, now really, let’s go. The girls were murdering this choreo. JaJa put Neptune in his grave during their very brief pairing. And then Ariana, Lily and JJ came out with the whacking section and it was on and cracking. These hip hop girls are so serious. That front line of ladies plus Virgil once the whole group started? Hitting so hard I felt it in my living room. Say it with your chest, kids! I was living for this routine right up until they really did just take Asaf and Burim off stage while the other kids did choreography. What type of tomfoolery is this? I can’t. It’s bad enough that none of these kids have had to dance outside of their pre-determined boxes yet, but now you are telling me that two of your street dancers can’t even dance in their own style? Over it. On a good note, the rest of the kids killed it. JaJa was so grimy here. She hits harder than any dude, y’all. For real. I was also really enjoying Megz and Lily. They are my top three hip hop girls. But the other ladies are also serious. And all of them are better than Neptune, who’s not terrible but not memorable either. Virgil is the cutest. And at least Burim came back at the end with some solid breaking whereas Asaf? Did we just never see him again until the ending pose? Yeah, no. But Team Street came with it. I’m not gonna lie. They were better than Team Stage.

Didn’t Cat say that they were going to be revealing what styles the kids would be taking on next week and then that just didn’t happen. I didn’t hallucinate that, right?

OK, so Top 20 is in the can! My favorites, irrespective of teams:

Girls
JaJa
Lily
Megz
JJ
Marissa
Gaby
Hailee
Yorelis
Alexia
Ariana
Kate

It’s super tight within the first five or six because all of those girls really made an impression on me tonight. And I love that four of my top 5 are hip hop girls. We’ll have to see how they work outside of their own styles now.

Boys
Virgil
Jim
Moises
Darion
Edson
Burim
Derek
Neptune
Asaf

My top four are my top four by quite a ways. There’s a big drop for me between Darion and Edson. The hip hop boys are substantially weaker than the hip hop girls.

I’m not quite sure how voting off will work this year. Will we get B2 or B3 from each team and then dances for your life and then one from each team gets booted? I just…I’m confused, family. So I’ll just say that from Team Stage, I could easily loose Kate or Alexia from the girls or Edson or Derek from the boys. From Team Street, I wouldn’t want to let go of any of the girls, but if I had to, I guess I’d let go of Ariana. I could lose Asaf or Neptune from the boys and not even really feel it.

Much better first show than I was expecting!

Oh my word, y'all! The last seventy-leven billion posts are just me musing about SYTYCD. Just like old times!

I don't blog it anymore because I don't feel sufficiently inspired but I'm glad to be able to always share my random thoughts here with you lovely peeps.

We love you sharing your thoughts!! So much! I almost feel inspired to re-watch, with your critiques!

Very interesting about the one dancer who danced in Shaping Sound. Huh. And I too am very confused about how all this is going to work with eliminations and stuff. And I totally noticed the break dancers just leaving the stage in that one number. So pathetic--but then, I've pretty much never been a fan of breaking on this show, and definitely think there are some boys out there who are hating on Asaf bigtime right now and with good reason. There's got to have been better boys.

JFC, Nigel going on about the bringing of two worlds together, like that isn't the EXACT THING THIS SHOW HAS ALWAYS BEEN ABOUT. And going on about a ballet boy doing hip hop?? It's like he never saw Alex Wong and Twitch!

Especially when that piece was so fucking weak! I mean, it was nice, but not the fucking second coming.

Fuck these people.

Not sure why I'm so angry.

I actually liked the piece quite a bit, until Nigel started talking