In The Mind of A Thirtysomething Mom

SYTYCD Top 12 in 8 Points

Last week's elimination was expected.  I'm still waiting for Ryan to go home.  She's killing me every week and all the judges do is continue to sing her praises.  I'm over her.

Onto the show!

Each pair is dancing twice tonight.  This will be their last time to dance with these partners as they're splitting up next week.  No more Melanie and Marko together?  Boo Hoo!

A link to a video of each dance is within the bullet.  Just scroll down on the page to get to the video.  Thanks Rickey and Fox.com! (I'm waiting for the dances to be uploaded on Fox.  When they are, I'll update with links)

• Jesse who? 

• Look, it's Sonya!  I'm excited to hear what she has to say.

• Dance 1: That Paso Doble wasn't powerful enough for me.  Sasha was fierce, but Alexander wasn't.////Dance 2: Doing Broadway just isn't Alexander's thing either.  He did do better in this dance than I've seen him before though

• Dance 1: Yea!  I love it when Travis choreographs.  This dance was really intense.  I liked it!  Jordan has some serious extensions.  Tadd reminds me of Dominic.////Dance 2: This Jazz dance wasn't as good as their first dance.  It was pretty boring

• Dance 1: I was completely bored watching Ryan and Ricky's Broadway dance.////Dance 2: Oh look, Ryan's distracting hair and awkward facials are back.  Goodie!  And they wonder why these two aren't connecting with the audience.  That wasn't a good Cha-Cha

• Dance 1: Message aside, this is what happens when people don't normally dance hip hop.  They can learn the moves, but they still look like they're just doing the motions.////Dance 2: Yea, another Travis dance!  This was a hot little number.  Caitlynn & Mitchell did really well this time

• Dance 1: Melanie and Marko Tango.  Interesting.  It wasn't my favorite by them at all.////Dance 2: Contemporary, yea!  This was wonderful to watch!

• Dance 1: The Lyrical Hip Hop with Clarice and Jess was really good.  Jess pulled off some good moves for a Broadway dancer.////Dance 2: I thought Jess did better during this Jive than Clarice did.

Feel free to post your opinions in the comments.  I'd love to read what you think.  See you next week!

SYTYCD Top 14 in 10 Points

I have nothing to say about last week's elimination except for that I agreed completely!  Now I don't have to sit and wonder what everyone sees in her every week. 

Onto the show!

A link to a video of each dance is within the bullet.  Just scroll down on the page to get to the video.  (Thanks Rickey and Fox.com!)

• Travis Wall as a guest judge?  Squee!  That almost makes up for having to listen to Carmen Electra as the other guest judge.  Almost, but not quite

• The Boys group dance was well done!  Chris was behind a little at the beginning, but got back in quickly.  I think I could watch Marko dance all day

• Melanie and Marko started the show with a bang!  These two are so good both separately and together.  Right now, Melanie is my pick for the top

• Sasha and Alexander's hip hop was not fun to watch.  She did great, he didn't.  There's not much more to say there

• The story behind the waltz was interesting.  I think Jordan did much better than Tadd did.  I HATE what they did with his hair, though

• I didn't like the choreography but I thought they danced it well.  I think Jess is getting better as he goes

• Holy cow there was so much choreography they had to learn for that dance!  I agree that fire was missing both between them and in the execution of the dance in general.  This isn't a Salsa that I'm used to

• Instead of her smiling too much, this week Ryan's hair ws so distracting.  This was an interesting Jazz dance.  It appeared that Ryan fell out of the side-by-side pirouettes at the end yet no one commented on it

• The last dance was a really, really good Contemporary dance.  Everything just worked together perfectly between Mitchell and Caitlynn

• The Girls group dance was a sexy little number that the girls really rocked

 

Feel free to post your opinions in the comments.  I'd love to read what you think.  See you next week!

SYTYCD Top 16 in 10 Points

Thank goodness for DVR.  I didn't get to watch the show live as I was at the Orioles game working a concession stand to make money for M's newest dancing endeavour.  The things we do for our children.

Before I start comments on the top 16, let me just say that a great injustice was done last week with who was sent home.  Ryan and Ricky should have gone home before Nick and Iveta.  Ryan looks horrible when she dances.  Her face is so out of control.  She smiles when she shouldn't and doesn't shut it off when she needs to.  I can't stand to watch her dance anymore.

So, on with the bullet points!

A link to a video of each dance is within the bullet.  Just scroll down on the page to get to the video.  (Thanks Rickey!)

 

• Kristen Chenowith?  Get that babbling fool off the show, please

• Group Dance 1: not a bad group routine, at least Ryan didn't smile throughout it.  Group Dance 2: I didn't feel the music went with the conceptual idea that well

• hated the piano number; hated it

• I thought the Samba number was lacking something

• I just don't get the fascination with Miranda.  She's a good dancer, but lacks pizazz

• I still can't stand lyrical hip hop, but Melanie and Marko did a great job.  The kiss during the dance fit.  The kissfest afterwards was ridiculous

• Chris said he wouldn't worry about the technical aspect, and it showed.  Blech.  Ashey has great extensions and points, though

• Zzzzzzzzzzzzzz...   Oh, sorry that was a Foxtrot

• Ryan was quite subdued during the dance, thankfully

• Jordan and Tadd had a good hip hop dance.  Tadd is cute, but I don't think that's enough to win

 

Feel free to post your opinions in the comments.  I'd love to read what you think.  See you next week!

SYTYCD Top 20 - 10 points or less

So You Think You Can Dance is my and M's favorite summer show.  If you've been reading here for long, you know I tend to critique the show each week - in great detail.  I'm changing that this year.  I'll be doing bullet points about each show, but no more than ten total.

Since the top 20 debuted last week but no one was sent home, they did a second week of 20 dancers.  Here's what I thought of both weeks in 10 bullets points or less.

Top 20, Week 1

• Melanie and Marko were AWESOME
• Travis Wall is still my favorite...still
• there are an extraordinately large number of girls with names that start with M.  It's hard to keep them all straight
• so not just one, but a bunch of the dancers got to dance their own genre AND you've got the reigning ballroom champion dancing the Quickstep
• Sonya Tayeh still does different choreography but with that popping movement, you automatically know it's her every time

You can watch the episode from last week here.

Top 20, Week 2

• Melanie and Marko were good again, but not as good as they were last week
• these hip hop guys are really doing great at the different genres!
• I'm not any more impressed with Debbie Reynolds as a judge this week than I was with Megan Mullally last week
• woodpeckers, really?  That was just bizarre
• I'm not a fan of Miranda, at all

I'll be back next week with another opinion.  :)

Dance, Dance, Dance

Well dance season is finally over for the summer.  We have been tragically busy for the last two months working on the end of season show.  That was back on the 4th and it was great!  The girls and their peers did wonderfully.

Earlier this week, they did a few dances for another end of season show that was a much smaller production than the one on the 4th.  Mr. Frog was able to capture 3 dances on video while he was there (I was at a baseball game with B).  I thought I'd share them with you since they're short and sweet.

One of K's dances from this year.  She's on the right.

Here's one of M's dances.  She's the little one in green.  At the end, she's a little late getting to the middle due to another dancer being out of place.

Another of M's dances.  She's the small one on the left.  She comes in about the 45 second mark, leaves, comes back at the 1:30 mark, leaves again and comes back for good at the 3:30 mark - that time from the right side.  She ends on the front left.

Thanks for indulging this proud dance mom.