“So You Think You Can Dance”: The tryouts continue in Charleston and DC

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Aside from the art they produce onstage, the dancers on ‘So You Think You Can Dance’ tend to be an enjoyable lot to watch on TV. While the Snuggle ‘Happy Dance’ feature of the audition episodes is pretty cheesy, it highlights what makes the dancers so watchable. They’re real performers, trained to use their entire bodies to convey messages to their audience. Nigel Lythgoe isn’t just being a typical guy when he praises a comely performer’s face: He’s complimenting her for using her whole self in her performance. That’s why the judges got on Marcus Shield’s case for dancing beautifully but keeping a morose expression. It’s just genuine fun to watch the dancers goof around before the auditions or explode with joy after an intense performance. It could be considered hammy if it didn’t seem so real.

One interesting point that Nigel raised on last night’s episode was on the subject of flamboyancy. Someone named Jason Looney tried out in a wig, women’s clothes and ‘Whatever Happened to Baby Jane’ makeup to a Paula Abdul song and insisted on being called ‘Betty Wallace.’ Like on Wednesday night’s episode, the judges raked him over the coals. Guest judge Tice Diorio called him ‘disrespectful’ while Mary Murphy uncharacteristically cursed him out. Nigel took the time however to inform Looney that he was part of the reason why fathers are uncomfortable when their sons go into dancing: because Looney conveyed the type of embarrassing camp that convinces closed-minded people that performance art is a weakness, and not a calling.

‘So You Think You Can Dance’ rarely conveys big messages and doesn’t always do them gracefully (like with the heavyhanded peace dance to the John Mayer tune last season) but Lythgoe brought up a good point last night that hopefully made a few people think.

--Claire Zulkey