‘So You Think You Can Dance’: Chatting with Melissa Sandvig and Ade Obayomi

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After being eliminated last week on ‘So You Think You Can Dance,’ Melissa Sandvig and Ade Obayomi chatted with journalists on a conference call about their experience on the show and what lies ahead.

Melissa on the top two girls:
Gosh, they’re both so young and have so much ahead of them. But they move totally different.
Kayla [Radomski] is very long and flowing with her movement, and Jeanine [Mason] is just a little powerhouse and has a crazy personality. So yes, it will be interesting to see who America chooses between them and the boys. But the three of us girls were so different that it was great working with them.

On the benefits of ballet over other genres:
I think ballet requires the most discipline, every movement is so precise, there’s not a lot
of interpretation. So learning how to do ballet, and having that discipline can take you into other styles of dance, because you know what you’re doing with your body. So working on
posture, flexibility and technique in general can help with all the other styles of dance.

Ade on his hobby of DJ’ing:
I started DJ’ing in high school, and it has just been kind of like a passion of mine. I love music, so anything to deal with that, I’m all about. I looked into sound engineering, and I kind of want to be sound engineer for television shows or a tour, just anything musical. It’s just always been kind of like my backup passion. [Sometimes I throw in Tom Jones’] ‘It’s Not Unusual,’ for that funny call out to the ‘Fresh Prince of Bel-Air’ dance. It kills me, because I love that move.

His dance mentors:
Desmond Richardson is up there, just because he’s probably the most incredible male dancer out there right now. His presence and technique, his execution and everything is on fire. And Travis Wall is another one, just because he’s inspirational. He’s so young and he’s already killing and he came from the show, so it’s just anything is possible and he’s one of them that kind of inspires me to dance a little harder and a little more. I love creating and choreographing, and Travis is definitely a prime example of that. He danced on the show and then he went on to choreography, and he’s successful and everyone is loving him right now. I would definitely love to follow that path and get into that, because it’s something I like to do.

-- Claire Zulkey