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Tomorrow I will talk about the horror of the Bones finale, but today I have to talk about So You Think You Can Dance because it premieres tonight and I’m determined to get everyone to try this show this year. It’s my favorite reality show and I honestly think it’s something special and you will thank me for this.
I’ve posted this before I believe, but I loved Heather Armstrong’s (Dooce) piece about the show. Some highlights:
“… the true success of the show is that it doesn’t go to great lengths to exploit a contestant’s weakness or failure. What makes this show so great is that it celebrates just how magnificently the contestants can move their bodies.
“Few reality shows, if any, have ever given me chills like this one has, and while watching “So You Think You Can Dance” this summer I have cried more than once when a street dancer has realized that his world can be so much bigger … watching these young kids who have never danced anything but hip hop pick up a slow waltz as if they have been practicing it for years has been some of the most inspiring television I have ever watched. I have discovered that I like watching people dance just as much, if not more, than I like listening to people sing …
“… every week it has put me square in the middle of a new dance routine, an exhilarating new style, as new for me as it is for the dancers, and in the relative solitude of my living room I can feel at least for a few thrilling minutes as if the rhythm is moving through my own feet.”
Please, please, please give it a try. Hang in there during the auditions part, whether you like that part or not. You need it to get to know the dancers, but the show really comes alive once the finalists are picked.
What I love as much as the dancers, which Heather alludes to at the end, is that it’s also just as much about the choreographers who really try to come up with new and exciting routines weeks after week, many of which rise to the level of art. (Actually, it’s all art but some are just, I don’t know how to describe it, high art vs low art? That’s a little bit it, but that doesn’t describe what I mean either.)
If you get into it, you will want to go to this url after the shows, it’s a blog for fans:
http://bloggingsytycd.blogspot.com/
My favorite show. We’ve been watching for the last two years and managed to get to the tour shows. #1 priority on my dvr.
So glad that you wrote me about your new book. I love your blog. First heard you on npr, “drumming with clapton” and loved Waiting for my cats to die.” Now I’ve found your blog and am loving it. Reminds me of “waiting..” I’m up to August 2007. But now I have to run home, SYTYCD in half hour.
Tom
Who is this dancer? She looks strikingly like an old friend of mine from Denver! Please let me know if you know or where you got this photo. Thank you!
Auditions are being held right now for “So You Think You Can Dance CANADA” so I am thrilled to be able to say that up here we’re going to be getting a double dose of the show (or a longer dose… you know what I mean). It will be interesting to see what the calibre of talent is in Canada, as there are fewer options for employment as a professional dancer than in the US.