{"id":1149,"date":"2008-05-22T23:47:33","date_gmt":"2008-05-23T04:47:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/?p=1149"},"modified":"2008-05-22T23:56:34","modified_gmt":"2008-05-23T04:56:34","slug":"so-you-think-you-can-dance-4x01-la-auditions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/2008\/05\/so-you-think-you-can-dance-4x01-la-auditions\/","title":{"rendered":"So You Think You Can Dance 4&#215;01: LA Auditions"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href='http:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/05\/dance_2.jpg'><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/05\/dance_2-202x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" title=\"dance_2\" width=\"202\" height=\"300\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-1150\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/05\/dance_2-202x300.jpg 202w, https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/05\/dance_2-86x128.jpg 86w, https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/05\/dance_2.jpg 1013w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 202px) 100vw, 202px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>I LOVE <em>SO YOU THINK YOU CAN DANCE<\/em>!!! I have missed it. You may have been able to discern a creeping apathy towards <em>American Idol<\/em> over the past few months, what with the lack of posting and all. Some of that was due to busyness, yes, but some of it was also I didn&#8217;t feel like putting up with it when it was actually on. But I feel nothing but excitement for <em>SYTYCD<\/em>. Let&#8217;s hope it keeps up. There is one note of apprehension about this season, and that is that apparently Wade Robson is no longer doing the show (perhaps he&#8217;s doing a group number, but not being a judge?), and neither is Shane Sparks. That pretty much leaves Mia Michaels as the only choreographer who consistently wows me. But we&#8217;ll see.<\/p>\n<p>Here&#8217;s a handy list I made watching tonight for why <em>SYTYCD<\/em> is better than <em>AI<\/em>. And this is just from the auditions:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The audition section isn&#8217;t a joke. Yes, they have their share of terrible and funny dancers, but the humor is not as mean as on <em>AI<\/em>. The focus is always on the audition itself rather than backstage shenanigans\/sob stories, which means you get a good sense of individual auditions rather than just a montage of clips separated by three or four longer numbers. And the ratio of good auditions to bad ones is much higher.<\/li>\n<li>Cat Deeley. She&#8217;s beautiful, she&#8217;s British, she&#8217;s genuine, and she knows how to host without hogging all the screen time. I swear, she was on-screen tonight for a total of about four minutes, in a two-hour time slot. Ryan is on-screen probably 1\/3 of the show, taking time away from the people we&#8217;re supposed to be watching.<\/li>\n<li>The human interest stories aren&#8217;t played as much for sobs and feel more sincere. One auditioner tonight was visually impaired, and while she didn&#8217;t get through, the judges all struck a sincere note of gratitude for her attempt and inspiration while being honest that she didn&#8217;t have a chance in the competition.<\/li>\n<li>I&#8217;ve said it twice: sincerity. I <em>believe<\/em> the judges, especially Mia, when they say things, or when they&#8217;re moved to tears. I do not believe Randy, Paula, and Simon anymore. They aren&#8217;t sincere anymore.<\/li>\n<li>Relatedly, the judges care about this, and they&#8217;re having fun with it, too. Especially this year, the <em>AI <\/em>judges don&#8217;t seem to be having fun anymore. If you look back at earlier <em>AI <\/em>seasons, even Simon seemed to be enjoying many of the auditions, good and bad. Now he&#8217;s just bored and frustrated most of the time. I love Simon, I really do, but something&#8217;s gone wrong&#8230;maybe just time for a judge switch or something. (Interestingly, he seems to have far more fun on the British version, <em>The X-Factor<\/em>, than he does on <em>AI<\/em>.)<\/li>\n<li>The judges are critical without being mean. Most of the time. They can be mean, and were more so a couple of years ago, but generally they&#8217;re good at actually giving constructive criticism.<\/li>\n<li>Continuity with previous seasons. Of the auditioners featured tonight, five of them had auditioned previous years, and I remembered all but one of them. And the judges brought up the criticisms and encouragements they&#8217;d made in previous years and noted how the dancer had improved or not in those areas. These repeat auditioners (with notable exceptions) are serious about improving their dancing to get on the show, which says a lot both about them and about the show &#8211; it&#8217;s seen as a place to test yourself, to try new things and learn to become a better dancer rather than as only a showcase for your existing talent. This year <em>American Idol<\/em> tried to emphasize the singers&#8217; growth and treat it as an avenue to better performing, but it&#8217;s not that (<em>Australian Idol<\/em> is to a greater degree, just sayin&#8217;).<\/li>\n<li>Continuity with previous seasons, part 2. Not only are the auditioners repeats, but former contestants show back up. Travis Wall, runner-up in Season Two, was running the choreography segments tonight. Last year&#8217;s b-boys Dominic and Hok were in attendance, checking out the auditions from the side boxes. Last year, Season Two winner Benji choreographed one of the best routines of the season, and Season Three contestant Lauren had worked as an assistant on the show earlier. Where <em>American Idol<\/em> relies on outside celebrity talent as guest coaches and performers, <em>So You Think You Can Dance<\/em> relies on internal talent and thus is much more meaningful to repeat viewers. It has to, to some degree, because dance is a less celebrity-driven profession than singing, but it makes the show feel much more homey and familiar.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Is it next week yet?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I LOVE SO YOU THINK YOU CAN DANCE!!! I have missed it. You may have been able to discern a creeping apathy towards American Idol over the past few months, what with the lack of posting and all. Some of that was due to busyness, yes, but some of it was also I didn&#8217;t feel [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[8],"tags":[46],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":546,"url":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/2007\/07\/allison-and-ivan-the-umbrella-dance\/","url_meta":{"origin":1149,"position":0},"title":"Allison and Ivan &#8211; The Umbrella Dance","author":"Jandy","date":"July 20, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"I just started using a new (to me) statistics tracker (Pmetrics from Performancing, which I highly recommend based on the week I've been using it), and I've noticed several hits from people looking for Allison and Ivan's umbrella dance from last year, which Nigel mentioned a week or two ago\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Television&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Television","link":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/category\/television\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":421,"url":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/2007\/05\/summer-tv\/","url_meta":{"origin":1149,"position":1},"title":"Summer TV","author":"Jandy","date":"May 25, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"So, American Idol is over (congratulations, Jordin!!), and so are almost all the other shows for the 2006-2007 season. (I have a season finale recap post ready to go up as soon as House airs...oh, and as soon as I actually watch the Lost finale.) What are we going to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Television&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Television","link":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/category\/television\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":505,"url":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/2007\/07\/no-new-sytycd-so-the-matrix-instead\/","url_meta":{"origin":1149,"position":2},"title":"No new SYTYCD!!  So, The Matrix instead&#8230;","author":"Jandy","date":"July 4, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"There's no So You Think You Can Dance this week! I'm totally bummed. I've been looking forward to it all week. Wah. I guess they figured they wouldn't get anyone watching on the fourth of July. Oh, yeah, Happy Independence Day, everybody! Still. I don't like when my TV is\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Film&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Film","link":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/category\/film\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":518,"url":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/2007\/07\/so-you-think-you-can-dance-top-14\/","url_meta":{"origin":1149,"position":3},"title":"So You Think You Can Dance Top 14","author":"Jandy","date":"July 11, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Yay, new SYTYCD! I'm inordinately excited! But also somewhat subdued because I went to see Harry Potter 5 at midnight last night, and then got up for class at seven, and am now sort of in a daze. Still, I'm quite excited enough to make it through SYTYCD with no\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Television&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Television","link":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/category\/television\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":45,"url":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/2006\/07\/randomosity\/","url_meta":{"origin":1149,"position":4},"title":"Randomosity","author":"Jandy","date":"July 3, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Warning: This post is going to be random. I feel like writing, because I haven't for a while, but I really don't have anything substantial to say. End of disclaimer. Back from Florida. And I didn't get a sunburn this year! Maybe the first time ever. My coworker has been\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Personal&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Personal","link":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/category\/personal\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":544,"url":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/2007\/07\/so-you-think-you-can-dance-top-12\/","url_meta":{"origin":1149,"position":5},"title":"So You Think You Can Dance Top 12","author":"Jandy","date":"July 18, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"I almost forgot to watch SYTYCD tonight, since I was enjoying my personal Firefly marathon a little too much. I nearly decided to just let the DVR catch SYTYCD and continue with Captain Mal and the crew, but I've been doing that for a few days now, and the DVR\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Television&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Television","link":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/category\/television\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1149"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1149"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1149\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1149"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1149"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1149"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}