The Power of an All Star: Sasha and tWitch Make Magic

Adding All Stars into the mix on So You Think You Can Dance is a double edged sword. The downside is that it highlights just who among the current crop of competitors is, frankly, not an all star.

The upside is that the without the weight of a mediocre partner, those who've been been held down can truly start to fly. For weeks I've been saying after every Sasha/Alex dance how much I wished she was dancing with anyone else, seriously anyone. Except any guy for this season, which makes the All Stars a godsend.

Let's see how high she can soar with a worthy partner, like tWitch.



Each week there will be different All Stars (Katee Sheen, please!), but let's hope tWitch comes back for more. He'll definitely be doing this dance in the finale.

your faithful watcher,

alice

My pick for the final All Star on SYTYCD

Let's face it, this season of So You Think You Can Dance, is just not that exciting. Next week they'll add some of the fan favorites from previous seasons, and here's hoping things get waaaay sweeter. Here's the rundown on the All Stars, with links to some of their best performance.

Melody Lacayanga – Season 1 – Comtemporary Jazz: Broadway with Nick

Allison Holker – Season 2 – Contemporary Jazz: Contemporary with Alex Wong

Pascha Kovalev – Season 3 – Ballroom: Argentine Tango with Lauren

Twitch – Season 4 – Hip Hop:  Trepak with Joshua

Comfort – Season 4 – Hip Hop:  Hip Hop with Twitch "Forever"

Chelsie Hightower – Season 4 – Latin Ballroom: Contemporary with Gev

Brandon Bryant – Season 5 – Contemporary:   Wade Robson Jazz routine with Jeannette

Kathryn McCormick – Season 6 – Contemporary: Contemporary with Jakob

Robert Rolden – Season 7 – Contemporary: Contemporary with Allison, another All Star

         One thing standing in the way of huge show improvement is that the most highly anticipated All Star, Alex Wong, has been injured, again. So he's out. And they haven't announced his replacement yet. So here's my nominee. Based soley on the fact that the among the all stars are 2 ballroom, 2 hip hop, and 5 contemporary dancers, I have chosen Evan Kasprzak, a broadway dancer. Because the last thing this show needs is more contemporary dancers dancing in their style.


Fingers crossed for the return of baby face Evan.

your faithful watcher,
alice

ps. i love that they had to bring Chelsie back because the top five guys are the shortest ever. She's great and that's a hilarious excuse.

So You Think You Can Dance: Who I'm rooting for

Usually by the end of the top 20 performance night, I have a favorite. Well this year I just am not that enthusiastic. Everybody is dancing in their style all the time and the judges love everything, espcially that idiot girl who can't do anything but smile and piss me off.

But Melanie and Marko are a bright light in the dark. He's actually a man, unlike the other nine boys. And she is a superstar, who doesn't even need hairography to win the affection of the viewers.

Here are their three prformances so far.

From the first week a Travis Wall routine to "Turn to Stone" has them as statues alive at night, falling in love.


This Jazz routine is mostly just a showcase of what a superstar Melanie is.



This weeks NappyTabs routine really solidfied them as the power couple for me.



Now if we could get them in a couple ballroom dances and they'd be unbeatable.

your faithful watcher,

alice

So You Think You Can Dance: Top 20, take 2

Let me just say, last week's performances were a letdown for me. Nobody did terrible. And some people did really well. BUT, almost every couple was dancing in their style, or the closest cousin to their style. Contemporary dancers drew jazz, the Broadway guy got a Broadway number, the quickstep went to a ballroom dancer and tap dancer. Sure they weren't all in the comfiest spot, but almost no one was lost in the sea. In other words, if they did well doing what they are supposed to do well already, why should I care?

And since the judges didn't send anyone home, you don't have to care either.

Cut to this week. A little more variety, and two couples are going home tomorrow. Voting closes too fast for me to advise you, so I'll just give you a rundown of who to try to find on YouTube. I'll add in clips once they're up.

The dance that made the judges cry was a Napoleon and Tabitha hip hop routine performed by Sasha and Alex. Set to "Coming Home" it told the story of a soldier, you guessed it, coming home and seeing his wife for the first time. Sasha was strong and Alex rode the coat tails of good choreo and a superstar partner. She'll need to lose him eventually, but this routine will be in the finale, no matter how far the pair goes. (Sidenote: Wouldn't you love to see Twitch or Joshua in Alex's place? Where have all the cowboys gone?)


My favorite dance was a Stacy Tucci contemporary piece performed by under-appreciated Clarice (megawatt smile) and Jess (flawless turns). A tale of a prince and princess finding love to the tune of one of my all time favorite songs, "Cathedrals" by Jump, Little Children. It's a simple, lovely routine. Nothing too spectacular, but they both nail it, and it's a great song. Here's hoping they stay out of the bottom three.


your faithful watcher,

alice

The Voice - Final Four choose wisely

The Voice has burst on to scene like Xtina's attention seeking cleavage (do you think she's working those mom boobs to make up for never have a boob job rumor as a teen, like every other blond popstar? I do.)

The whole show has flown by, they plan to expand the format next January when season two starts. And now each coach/judge has just one champion fighting for in their honor.

The finals are all down to America's vote. And having seen the havoc that middle America can wreak given that amount of power, I'd like to advocate for a my faves well in advance of the actual voting.

Who to vote for:

Dia Frampton - Team Blake - This girl is what it's all about. She has a really great voice. Period. End of argument. Actually, I'll keep going. She always sounds good. She starts to sing and people stop what they are doing to listen. I want to hear her on the radio every day. All her performances are highlights, but check out her piano take on Kanye's "Heartless" and see if you can stop watching. My personal fave was this past weeks "Losing My Religion." This really shows that she is ready to be a star, make a record, go on tour and add some awesomeness to the world of pop.



Javier Colon - Team Adam - I dare you to listen to this guy and think to yourself, "meh." Not going to happen. I'll go straight to the video. 

Who I beg you not to vote for: 

Beverly or Vicci. I'm not going to get mean. But allow me to remind you that this show is called the VOICE. Not the "head bobble" or the "war dance" or the "sob story."  And when you try to compare barkers Beverly and Vicci with two vocal techicians like Javier and Dia, it always comes up the same way.

Tune in for the finals next Tuesday and vote wisely, America.

your faithful watcher,

alice

Tony Awards 2011 Highlights

Even though there's a bus right to NYC, I have only been to the city three times in the past five years. And I haven't seen a show on Broadway since 7th grade. This from a person who's performed in 15 musicals and genuinely likes theater. So like most of America, the Tony Awards are the only time I see Broadway cast performances of new shows and new revivals. Otherwise it's touring companies of the biggest commercial successes and high school shows.

But since most of the people getting awards, aside from one or two Hollywood types, are not so familiar, the performances are the main attraction, rather than the speeches, though that Book of Mormon featured actress had me tearing up.

So here are my picks for the best moments:

Best Song: "I Believe" - Book of Mormon
This show cleaned up, Best Score, Best Book, Featured Actress, Best Direction, Best Orchestrations, Best Scenic Design, and unsurprisingly Best Musical. This song is a great example of why: great music, funny lyrics, earnest performance. This is a great song and an excellent performance.


Best Dance:
The word on the street was that Daniel Radcliffe, the Boy Who Lived, was snubbed for Lead Actor in a Musical. Based on this performance, I'd agree. he at least deserved a nomination. He is seriously delivering, voice and body. Even with a crew of much taller dancers, it's hard to take your eyes of the former Mr. Potter. And while some may say Anything Goes had a better dance number, it's just a matter of taste. Those tappers made it look so easy I could barely even be impressed. At the end of this performance you know Harry is huffing and puffing. And I have an unnatural hatred of Anything Goes, so sue me.


Best Performance: Hands down, Norbert Leo Butz tears up the floor at the Beacon Theater. He is a superstar of Broadway, every guy I know who wants to do theater wishes they had his voice and he somehow manages to out dance the dancers. So while a little Potter love in the form of a nomination wouldn't have been out of line, not even the boy who killed Voldemort could have defeated Butz. Tom Hanks must be proud.


Your faithful watcher,

Alice

How to get into Game of Thrones

If you've read all George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire series, you don't need this post. But if every proper noun in that past sentence was gibberish, you'll probably need a little help to get into HBO's latest epic series.

On your side is the wealth of fan created information on the internet about this beloved series of books. Some have too much information to be helpful, but others are just what you need to understand.

The most helpful site I've found is HauteSlide's Game of Thrones episodal family trees/relationship charts. This site lays it all out visiually, and gives you proper spellings of names to search for in Game of Throne's wiki. Here's the tree from episode one.

Click here to enlarge.

The tree grows as the episodes introduce new characters, showing marriages, murders, children, friendships, threats, everything, even things mentioned once in passing, during a distracting sex scene. How are people who haven't read the books supposed to keep up without these trees?

Keep these babies close by during the early episodes and all your confusion will melt away. At least any confusion brought on by character's relationships. Confusion brought on by gratuitous nudity and violence is just part of the series, and it doesn't appear to be going anywhere.

Your faithful watcher,

Alice

So You Think You Can Dance - An Introduction

First of all, let me say, I hate the name of this show as much as you do. In fact, I didn't watch the first three seasons, because I assumed, based on the title, that it would be a bunch of chumps, who can't dance, looking like fools.

Wrong. The basic premise of So You Think You Can Dance, heretofore refered to as "sytycd," is that these people can REALLY dance, in one style, but they have to dance in ALL styles. So a champion ballroom dancer gets paired up with a hip hop dancer and they have to perform a broadway style routine. The results are often amazing. Watch a street dancer completely nail a contemporary routine is breathtaking.

Check out this example from season 6. Jakob is a contemporary dancer and Ashleigh is a ballroom dancer, and they are performing a hip hop routine choreographed by Tabitha and Napoleon.




Plus it's the summer, what else are you watching on wednesday nights? And the pre-lims are done, so no more time-wasting, bad dancing, fools, just the real deal.

The show starts with 20 dancers, 10 male, 10 female. They will get paired up and unless one of them gets kicked off, they will stay in that pairing for the first 5 weeks. Each week they will "draw a style out of a hat" (however many styles are in the hat when their hand goes in, only the producers know). They will have a week to learn the routine and master the style. Then America votes and the judges pick from the lowest polling guys and girls to send one of each home.

The performance shows start this coming Wednesday, June 22 at 8 pm. The next afternoon I'll post my reviews (finally the copious notes I've been taking will be for something other than my obsession).

In the meantime, check out fox.com/dance to get to know the dancers and the judges.

your faithful watcher,

alice