Are Professional Dancers Masquerading as Hip Hop, Pop and Break Dancers on So You Think You Can Dance?

Maybe it's just me, but the "street" dancers are having a much better time of it this year on SYTYCD. You may recall questions about Joshua's dance background after he auditioned as a hip hop dancer.



Joshua's bio now reads:

Q: Do you have any formal dance training?
A: Yes.
Q: If you had to categorize your dance style, what would it be?
A: Performer.

Still, it doesn't change the fact that Joshua "auditioned" as a hip hopper.

There are three other non-formal dance specialists:

Gev, who seems remarkably at home no matter what style of dance he's performing, answers, "Not Really," to the question of whether he's had any formal dance training, and consistent with his audition he describes himself as a "Break dancer." Yet during his hip hop routine with partner Courtney, it was Courtney (the "contemporary" dancer) who delivered the hard hits, leaving Gev looking a bit like he was out of his element.



Comfort, who took the female "hip hop dancer, popper" spot in the top 20 explains, "I do have formal dance training because I attend Booker T Washington High School of Performing Arts for 2 and a half years." Yet like Gev, when choreographed in her own genre of dance, her performance fell flat.



Contrast those with Twitch--who we met last season and know, despite getting formal training over the past year, was a "freestyle" dancer first--and how he delivers when asked to krump:



What does it look like to you? Suspicious at all? Fans of the show know that there are a certain number of spots reserved for non-professional dancers in the top 20, just as there are spots for the various styles of professional dance. But which category is the more competitive? Would a ballroom dancer be better off learning a hip hop routine to audition with? Are professional dancers doing the same as Twitch, except they're learning to pop and break, and in the process discovering that professional discipline applied to the non-professional dance styles leads to relatively impressive results. Meaning, are hip hop, breaking, popping and the like not really that hard after all, at least not for a serious dancer with professional training? Leaving the contemporary dancer who learns hip hop the option of passing on head to head competition with the other, professional, contemporary dancers, and instead competing against the fewer in number and one dimensional hip hop dancers.

Remember the pop locker Robert Murraine? Is it possible that he was the only "true" "amateur" in Las Vegas this year?

SYTYCD Doesn't Make You Feel Dirty

Ted over at BSYTYCD doesn’t want SYTYCD being treated like some sordid little reality show you’re embarrassed to tell your friends about. He thinks you ought to be “proud that you enjoy watching dedicated, talented young artists grow under the tutelage of respected professionals.”

I agree. SYTYCD is not your average reality tv show. Unlike other shows where humiliation of the contestants is a big part of the entertainment, SYTYCD is all about the dancing. It’s a classy reality tv show.

Though he calls it a guilty pleasure, Myles McNutt at Cultural Learnings also notes the show’s qualities, comparing SYTYCD to “Dancing with the Stars”, which is more about celebrities looking foolish than it is about dancing, and unlike the contestants on “American Idol”, Miles says, the dancers on SYTYCD are forced to expand their range and perform new styles. 

HuffPo culture writers Jodi Lipper and Cerina Vincent report that they “enjoy watching trashy reality shows as much as the next girls”, though they admit that it’s sorta-kinda bad for people. Their piece “Five People Reality Shows Hurt Most” is tongue-in-cheek, and yet I often find myself comparing SYTYCD to other shows by the level of human pain on display.

SYTYCD just isn’t about the nasty, and for that, I love it. Sure, the judges can be harsh, but it’s more about honest, constructive feedback than it is about humiliation. The dancers are treated like technicians and artists whose medium happens to be their bodies, and the guys’ bodies are subject to as much attention as the women’s.

So what’s the worst reality tv show ever? Average Joe is a world of shame. “Family Jewels” is better than it has a right to be (damn you, Gene Simmons), and “Family Business”? Let’s not even go there. “Flavor of Love” is the bottom of the barrel for me. I confess to being glued to it once or twice, watching most of an episode while cringing in fascinated disgust.

The real test: I don’t feel the need to take a shower after I watch SYTYCD.