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“So You Think You Can Dance”: Bringing it in Beantown

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It seems that Phoenix was just a fluke week, as the potentially great dancers of Season 6 showed up en masse for the ‘So You Think You Can Dance’ auditions in Boston. So many promising dancers! At the end of last season we saw a glimpse of Teddy Tedholm, who somehow managed to dance like an awkward dork and make it look amazing. If we didn’t already know he would make it through, he would have seemed like a weirdo with his goofy personality and loud pants -- but he got a standing ovation from the others who were auditioning.

It would be great if this season could represent more hip-hop dancers, and we saw a few tonight, including Jean Lloret, who did a ‘Matrix’-like slow-motion move, on his hands, and elicited two slow-motion replays and three tickets to Vegas without a word from the judges I also liked Russell Ferguson, the krumper -- I liked his moves and he just generally cut a cool figure onstage.

Though I wouldn’t say I have a bias against pretty, fresh-faced blond jazz/contemporary dancers, I wouldn’t say they’re my favorite type -- with Kherington Payne, Chelsie Hightower Caitlin Kinney and Randi Evans, we’ve had plenty on the show. But ice-cream scooper Channing Cook had so much personality and used her athletic body so well I couldn’t help but root for her.

Even some of the more unusual dancers were better tonight, like Ryan Casey, who didn’t look as if he could pack a lot of grace into a 6-foot-8 figure but tap danced well enough to earn Nigel Lythgoe’s respect. Fabrizio ‘Breeze’ Jenkins, who looked like a cross between Artie Lange and John Belushi, also didn’t look as if he would bring much to the audition, but he actually had some hip-hop moves, including moving his gut up and down his body. No surprisingly though, neither moved past (or, in Breeze’s case, through) choreography. The biggest surprise was Gene Bersten, who seemed like too much of a character -- think Pasha Kovalev mixed with the ‘Night at the Roxbury’ guys -- to actually be a very good dancer. Still, despite his waggling eyebrows, he made it through to Vegas.

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My only complaint is that apparently the performance episodes don’t start until late October. I want to see these dancers hit the floor!
-- Claire Zulkey

(art: FOX)

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