NextIteration

Carly Blaney off the top of my head. I too was disappointed about JaJa since a S12 is in question. And I agree completely with you Kara regarding the full purpose of the group round, which was exhibited in Nigel's letting the whole One Love group through after their decision to stick together and not throw anyone under the bus.

Irina Dvorovenko

If there is a season 12, someone please remind me not to spoil the Top 20 for myself. It makes for a really boring show, and a very jaded look at the edit monkeys. It's somewhat hard to know when anyone got cut through the process when it wasn't a REALLY BIG DEAL. It looked like Jenna from Joffrey got cut after the first solo before any choreography? Seriously? And then they managed to hide Justine and Nick for most of the rounds until the Green Mile portion. Gah, I hate the editing of these audition episodes, so again... there are some people in the Top 20 that we hardly got to know. They are seriously looking for a ballroom winner this season - it can't just be that they all came out of the woodwork to audition this season. I'm fine with that. I could have done with two full hours of Anya and Dimitry!

It was a head scratcher to me because at that point in time, a lot of Brian's bread and butter was based in teaching "competition" dancers (he'd pretty much moved past touring with the likes of Janet Jackson and Britney) and he hadn't started doing other television shows outside of SYTYCD. And then he went and started The Pulse with Mia. I think there is a wide array of competition studios and I know that where I live there are a number of them that are heavily ballet based - yes, including the Ballet Mistress with a stick for a good 10-12 hours a week. ;) In fact, Jourdan Epstein started at one!

I haven't paid very close attention since, um, about S5, but Brian Friedman made some rather nasty remarks about "competition dancers" in S2. Most of the "contemporary" and "jazz" dancers on the show are competitive dancers. And the gymnastics? The stretching of those rules get worse and worse every year (this is outside of the acro category). Personally? It's not dance to me, it's just tricks.

That sounds right to me Rick Kitchen.

I love that dance. And it's a perfect example of how most of the tricks and extreme turn sequences go away as the girls get older and develop real artistry.

Agreed missbonnie, but it really struck me that way too many of these dances are Maddie doing solos with back-up dancers.

Boo, no Jenna, YAY! Jourdan!

Just adding that Mandy used to choreograph a lot of musical theatre, not sure if she does anymore since most of the pieces that I've seen competed locally over the last few years have been contemporary/lyrical. A lot of this year's opening group number had a musical theatre feel to them.

Eh, sometimes I'm all the WTF about music choices - but? The biggest problem I have right now is the replacement "orchestra" or however they refer to the house band.

I don't hate Derek at all, and I hope that I haven't hated on him - I just really miss the mix of choreographers for the Macy's Dances. If any of the Pros annoy me the most? It's Mark - but I don't hate him either.

Vaccinations for children can be free. For some reason I cannot get below this quote to expand on it. For public consumption, Jenny says too many too fast, and that parents should ask for the compounded vaccinations separately (MMR, DPT). She has never changed her story about how Evan "contracted" autism, and she claims that he is now recovered. Hogwash, if he's recovered, he never had it. The thing about separating the compounded vaccinations is that, that type would no longer be free to the uninsured or most likely, children on medicaid. Two of her books are about being the mother with a child with autism, one of them specifically about "healing and recovering" from it. Also, she and many of the doctors that she appeared on Oprah, CNN etc.. with, also suggest dangerous biomedical "cures"; a lot of these doctors are essentially quacks. This whole trend takes away herd immunity, which means that children and adults that cannot have vaccines due to some illnesses and immunity deficiencies along with newborns that are too young for them, are unnecessarily exposed.

I'm holding out for Jourdan and Jenna... please, please, please! ::laughs:: Incredibly annoyed that Emily made it and Justine didn't.

His parents' studio taught all forms of ballroom so I'm pretty sure that he had exposure very early on to all of it. And there were youtube clips of Lacey sucking swamp water at jazz - Benji was horrific at "contemporary". Though I agree - by this stage of the game, anyone who auditions that hasn't bothered to take classes in whatever they aren't trained in, really doesn't have "winning" as a goal. It's ALL about the ability to pick up choreography quickly and partner. This. A million times - she finished every single move perfectly. This week? I really only like Mariah. On to notVegas week and the announcement of the Top 20!

So the latest spoilers from idolforums on who's in and out of the Top 20... seems like they were informed this week: IN: Rudy Abreu Marcquet Hill Serge Onik Emilio Dosal Nick Garcia Casey Askew Ricky Udeba Tanisha Belnap Brooklyn Malene Ostergaard Carly Blaney Jessica Richens Emily James Bridgit? OUT: Alex Kessinger Kelsi Darby Jaja Vankova Justine Lutz Olivia Armen Way

::tears:: I hadn't realized that Allison was in that commercial, silly me. That was all kinds of wonderful

Pointe work generally starts between 11 and 13. But then we have superstar Misty Copeland that didn't start ballet until she was 13 and was already getting professional offers by 15. More often, it's like that with males than females, advancing quickly at a later age. (I still chuckle about one mother speaking of penis points for boys, that often beat girls in competition w/o necessarily being better). Innate ability is just that...

While not thinking a whole heck of a lot of her technique en pointe at the end of the PTP at Harlem Dance Theatre, I did enjoy Amir's (Funky Ballerina) audition from a music and feminist stand point. I am glad she went through because I'm sure she's a better dancer out of her pointe shoes than in them. Oh, and Nigel you ass? It's BOX not blocks.

Armen Way Roderick Pitts-Phifer Marcquet Hill Brandon Segovia Serge Onik Ricky Ubeda more serious Emilio Dosal Stanley Glover Alex Kessinger Justine Lutz Emily James Tanisha Belnap Serena Pav Brooklyn Fullmer Jessica Richens Olivia Cece Jaja Vankova Malene Ostergaard Carly Blaney Feel free to annotate as you please, but remember that some of these dancers we only saw glimpses of in choreo or clips of auditions of, and there is still one more episode of auditions coming. :)

So I did some reconnoitering and re-watched Vegas Week and the Green Mile from last year after reading on another forum about Justine making it to the Green Mile last year. She was barely shown in either episode, and I have no idea where she auditioned. Now I really want her to make it back to the Green Mile this year, and onto the show.

I remember feeling bad for Jenna and her inability to connect. She wasn't my favorite or anything, but I enjoyed her. My DVR failed me so I'm catching this in bits and pieces, BOO to the little kid taking up time to see others! Send him to Ellen! And YAY! For another Minnesota dancer, the back story was a little much, but Jourdan is worthy of a spot, she won at YAGP and is in Complexions, it's curious to me what compelled her to audition for this show.

"Grant's" Current Green Mile list... Armen Way Roderick Pitts-Phifer Marcquet Hill Brandon Segovia Serge Onik Ricky Ubeda Emilio Dosal Stanley Glover Justine Lutz Emily James Tanisha Belnap Serena Pav Brooklyn Fullmer Jessica Richens Olivia Cece Jaja Vankova Malene Ostergaard

I'm with you Mumbles, and ew, LoFro and Dom? oogie. Melanie and Dom, two of my very least favorite alums. Dom for too many reasons to list, but Melanie I feel bad about - everyone seemed to love her, but me!

Darnit you two Mozelle and Anothermi, sniffles, look what you did! I love The Fear You Won't Fall and the pure joy of We are the Champions.