S12.E01: Auditions #1: Memphis And Dallas

[Tara Ariano]

The 12th season begins with the first round of auditions in Memphis and Dallas. Also: an interview with First Lady Michelle Obama.

[dustoffmom]

Why? Why is she involved? Not everyone is enamoured and it may be enough to set some off the episode.  It's a dance competition and I don't recall any connection to dancing there.   They're trying too hard to attract new viewers.

[WelcomeStranger]

Her "Let's Move" campaign. All-Stars Travis, TWitch, Robert, Kathryn, Jasmine, Marco, etc. were invited to dance on the White House Lawn for this past Easter Egg Roll. But frankly she should have gotten involved with SYTYCD years ago. Prez. Obama himself said Michele and the girls were fans as early as 2009. Her involvement now feels like too little too late, like an afterthought.

[Puffaroo]

She's also danced with Ellen on her show, has she not?  Plus, frankly, I suspect more people will be put off by Paula Abdul. 

 

I sure hope partisan politics doesn't make its sneaky way into this forum.

[panthergirl13]

Nigel looks like he's had his eyes done or something, no?

[Andie1]

I guess the whole street vs stage is to get a street dancer the win this year.  I will still watch for the great stage dancers, but they are clearly going to be thrown under the bus.  

[luvthepros]

Just an observation but.....no one was sent to choreography. In previous seasons, plenty of the dancers were not put straight through to the next audition. I think several of these auditioners should have been put through a choreography round.

[kechara]

It wasn't as bad as I feared.  Not sure of the point of Jason Derullo . He seems like a nice enough guy.  On the other hand, Pauler was a lot better than I  expected.

[Diablo]

Just an observation but.....no one was sent to choreography. In previous seasons, plenty of the dancers were not put straight through to the next audition. I think several of these auditioners should have been put through a choreography round.

From what I gather, there is actually no choreography round at the individual auditions this year. It's part of the revamped format. Choreography happens during Vegas week.

 

Call me crazy, but I thought Paula was actually a very good judge. Was not expecting that...

Edited June 2, 2015 by Diablo

[Andie1]

Just an observation but.....no one was sent to choreography. In previous seasons, plenty of the dancers were not put straight through to the next audition. I think several of these auditioners should have been put through a choreography round.

Yeah Nigel said there would be not choreo rounds this season. http://guardianlv.com/2015/06/so-you-think-you-can-dance-enters-12th-season-with-abdul-and-derulo/

 

ETA: Sorry I saw your post late, Diablo.   

Edited June 2, 2015 by Andie1

[Irlandesa]

Just an observation but.....no one was sent to choreography. In previous seasons, plenty of the dancers were not put straight through to the next audition. I think several of these auditioners should have been put through a choreography round.

From what I have read, all the dancers used to go to choreography round, even those that appeared to be sent straight through to Vegas.

 

I was bored.  I already suspected I'd be out for the live shows but I may not survive the auditions if they're mostly going to be "street" and "contemporary."  Those are my two least favorite styles.  The bar is so high for me to enjoy them.  Every once in a while they hit that mark but I would have rather they showcased some other styles that only existed in the quick montages.

[crowceilidh]

Paula mostly sounded exactly like "serious Mary" (except NO ONE start a drinking game for every time she calls someone "special" because you will be in hospital with alcohol poisoning within 23 minutes).

 

I see Jason is going to take on the role of disapproval of men dancing femininely. It's a nice change for it not to be Nigel, but I'd like to see some real (not faked for the camera) evidence that it's not homophobic.

 

Nigel's hair looked really awful in a couple of those audition days.  I am very interested in some of the inevitably-new formatting.  Are they going to have couples or not?  Are they going to mix up who dances what and how are they going to do that? 

Edited June 2, 2015 by crowceilidh

[Quickbeam]

I know I am a dolt about dance but every contemporary routine looks the same to me. And every street dancer seems to have created their own genre. I miss ball room and tap and the ballet dancers.

[Athena5217]

I did not like the new judge Jason Derulo. His discomfort with every non-masculine guy dancer was obvious. I guess SYTYCD was trying to get more young viewers with him?

Every year there has been less coverage of the choreography rounds and now they are gone for good, perhaps so to will go my interest in the show. Perhaps if they spend less time on coverage of power outages and famewhores, there would be time for more dancing.

Edited June 2, 2015 by Athena5217

[PhD-Purgatory15]

Count me in on the missing ballroom and tappers train. We got a grand total of maybe 20 seconds of two ballroom auditions (sans partners which I guess is going to be a thing this year). The guy in all black was objectively good, the girl w/ purple hair I was less sure of. Tap got even more shafted....one girl got through in a montage, unsure about the male clogger.

Really enjoyed Andre Rucker coming back, the very first stage teamer (Payton iirc), and the jookin girl...she was a pleasant surprise.

I think I'm just giving everyone a pass on their reasoning to why street (more real or reality seems a popular rationale) is better than stage or vice versa....they can't really fight against the theme...it's already old and repetitive one episode in which isn't great start though...

Edited June 2, 2015 by PhD-Purgatory15

[Andie1]

Seems like it's going to be an uphill battle for the "Stage" dancers,  Travis says the "Street" have the 'personality' .... yeah, nothing like just letting the dancing speak for itself. http://www.myfoxla.com/clip/11556068/travis-wall-sytycd

[crowceilidh]

 

Perhaps if they spend less time on coverage of power outages and famewhores, there would be time for more dancing.

NFK.

 

However, with the new set-up, it would become even more obvious that the only people going to choreo were the street people and that's not exactly playing the party line about this manufactured street/stage division.  Are they going to pair street dancers with stage dancers?  Are they going to make stage dancers dance street and vice versa all the time or any of the time?  Are they going to have group street and stage dances?

[Misslindsey]

 

I was bored.  I already suspected I'd be out for the live shows but I may not survive the auditions if they're mostly going to be "street" and "contemporary."  Those are my two least favorite styles.  The bar is so high for me to enjoy them.  Every once in a while they hit that mark but I would have rather they showcased some other styles that only existed in the quick montages.

I was bored too. Like you "street" and "contemporary" are my least favorite styles on SYTYCD. I would love to see more tap, ballet, ballroom or really anything to break up the monotony of the never-ending parade of hiphop and contemporary. I would like street and contemporary styles more if I did not have to see pretty much the same thing from each person auditioning. I used to like both styles a lot on this show, but when there is such a lack of variety in other styles of dance I grew tired of both. Outside of this show I do enjoy both contemporary and street styles. I do not know if I will make it through the auditions let alone the live shows. 

 

An unpopular opinion but I am so over Travis and Twitch. They are great dancers and seem like nice people, but SYTYCD takes a good thing and runs it into the ground.

[cali1981]

Been watching the show and so far, I haven't found it to be very interesting.  The emphasis on "street" dancers is a mistake to me and could cost the show many of its core audience at the end of the day.  Paula has actually been good but Jason, not so much.  Letting Mary go may prove to another mistake. 

Edited June 2, 2015 by cali1981

[Commando Cody]

I wondered years ago why Paula was on American Idol when SYTYCD was a much better fit for her.  She never was much of a singer, but I knew she could do choreography.  

 

I was kind of bored.  The dancing was technically good, but none seemed to have that "spark" that I need to see when people dance.  I think they in showbiz call it "It".

 

I did kind of like that Ballroom dancer Hip Hop guy.  I think telling him Hip Hop Ballroom wouldn't get him very far was kind of lame.  Unless he has to dance that way through the whole competition, but I think if that's there reasoning, he had a leg up on all those guys who just lock and pop or whatever you call it.  My problem with that kind of dancing is that it's so localized that they don't use much of the stage.  The barely move around at all.  I assume they still hire people to do choreography and everybody is going to have to stretch themselves a bit.

 

I don't know what Jason is doing there.  What happened to Mary?

Edited June 2, 2015 by CommanderCody

[Pallida]

I was cautiously optimistic about Paula Abdul.  As long as she stays sober, I trust her to actually provide decent feedback.

 

Unlike other posters, I do enjoy seeing the diversity of street dancers (and they do not all look the same to me).  I find that most of the good street dancers have really great musicality, and that's what I enjoy seeing in dance.  Or maybe that's just what I like seeing in street!  I don't really mind that it's constrained to a small part of the stage either.  I'm hoping we'll get to see more female street dancers because of this format.  It seems like in the past we could have 8 contemporary females, but only 1 street female.

 

If you couldn't already tell, I do agree that there is far too much contemporary.  While I enjoy some contemporary, and have really liked some group contemporary  numbers, I want to see a spectrum.   

[LJonEarth]

After one episode, I'm going to give Jason the benefit of the doubt that his distaste with the flamboyant male dancers was more about them taking up the time of the dancers who really have a shot. But, yeah right.

 

I know Jason is a dancer, but you wouldn't know if by the two (three?) time he took to the stage or by any of the critiques that he made.

 

Likewise, if everyone is special, no one is special, Paula. If she's not going to be crazy Paula, I need her to be useful Paula.

[Rick Kitchen]

Damn, Ladia was great! Guillermo was really good, too.

Courtney Barnes is quite the entertainer.  :)

Y'know, I don't mind contemporary, even though a lot of it seems repetitious, but GET UP OFF THE FLOOR!

 

"It's a tough battle to be on the Street Team."  Really, Nigel, considering there hadn't been a single Street dancer put through from Dallas up to that point, according to Cat's narration?

 

Jason DeRulo needs to get his own show, I'm not here to see him perform all the time. It's also interesting that he didn't even mention SYTYCD on Twitter.  And he's getting called out for his homophobic vibe all over Twitter.

[phoenix780]

I couldn't get past the first two auditions.  Guy #1 seemed to me to be off beat almost the entire time.  Guy #2 bounced during Vegas week a couple years back by choice from what I remember. I have to think there's someone else worthy of a shot, maybe another crew.  But if that's the standard...meh.

 

Still, I'll be in at least to get all my questions about format answered (I hope they're dropping couples, not sure you could do it mathematically anyway if the teams don't mix).  I'm also in it to see if there are any misclassified dancers- how much training, exactly, pushes you out of the street category...and what if you trained in a street style?  And, I'm curious how this will all fall out in terms of race/ethnicity/class because it seems like their setup could get super awkward a few weeks down the road.

 

Plus last year auditions were awesome, imho, then the choreo on the main show was repetitive, so I have hope this will work out, be the reverse of that maybe.

[muffkins]

Guillermo and Edson are my eye candy for the season.  I hope they make it to the competition rounds.

[Evangeline]

I really liked Paula. 

 

I don't like the new format, but I just keep reminding myself that this is probably the only way they got to come back for another season, so I'll deal with it. 

[RetailTherapy]

Wait.  What?  Jason Derullo isn't just one of those guest judge folks?  He's going to be slouched over there, mumbling all season?  No.  Just, no.  Paula is actually a dancer, so she gets a pass. 

 

While I like the show, I'm also very over contemporary and that weird style where they seem to pop out their joints.

[kechara]

re:"street" 

I would rather watch ABDC I think.

 

eta - did anyone else thing that one girl, whose parents were on their honeymoon, lookes a ton like Willow from Buffy?

Edited June 2, 2015 by kechara

[LadyMustang65]

I'm glad to see I wasn't the only one who was kind of bored and who didn't have any real "wow" moments - at least not that I can recall, so if they were there, it wasn't that memorable.  I was so surprised they put that very first dancer through - I didn't think he was that good at all.  Some of them were highly entertaining, although I'm not sure they'd go far in Vegas.  Overall, though, it was kind of a 'meh' start.  I'm hoping we see some real standouts further along in the auditions.  And I'm hoping they just haven't had many ballroom dancers or tappers audition yet, and that's why we haven't seen much of them.  I like the 'street' dancers, although this group seemed to be all fairly similar.  Contemporary solos always want to make me roll my eyes at all the angsty expressions, grabbing at their chests and rolling on the floor.  Was it my imagination or did it seem like we didn't have that many that even jumped much?  I know in past seasons we've had some contemporary dancers who could make these spectacular leaps.  I can only recall one guy who even seemed to come close to that.

 

But I have to admit I'm in for the duration just to see how this all shakes out.  I could be wrong but I'm kind of expecting each team to be made up of half men and half women, but if they're cutting out ballroom, maybe it doesn't matter.  You can easily do contemporary, jazz, hip hop, etc. with 2 dancers of the same sex.

[Primetimer]

SYTYCD's twelfth season is here. Stage vs. street! Dancers vs. darkness! Jason Derulo vs. memorable songs! Shirts vs. skins! Don't believe me? Just watch!

Read the story

[Wootini]

Add me to the list of underwhelmed viewers. There were some good dancers here, but nobody really WOWED me yet. Still, it's early days yet.

 

I'm also still willing to give this new format a try, even if it sounds sketchy, simply because I want to watch talented dancers show off their abilities on my television every week. Where else can you ge that? I just wish they'd explain the new format a little better. It sounds like the street dancers will dance street styles and the stage dancers will dance stage styles every week. So where's the challenge? Hopefully when they get to the top 10 they'll start mixing them together because I want the delight of seeing a hip hop dancer nailing a contemporary routine. Or a ballroom dancer suprising everyone with their krumping!

 

Paula is a fine replacement for Mary (though I will miss Mary), because she can do the fun goofy stuff, but as a trained dancer and choreographer, can interject those ACTUAL comments and criticisms where appropriate. So far Jason Derulo is a complete waste of space. (And borderline offensive taking over the homophobic role from Nigel) What, was Li'l C not available? I liked him.

 

The jury's still out right now. We'll see what happens when they get to Vegas. Are they still going to make everyone go through the boot camp and prove they can dance all the styles? Or because of this new format will everyone just do solos until they've whittled them down?

 

I'm nervous. Hold me!

[JennB]

I'm Team Bored, too. No one really wowed me a ton, except Vishonda and Ladia. Maybe the best thing to come out of the new format is more female "street" dancers.

"I've seen a lot of jookin'." Sure you have, Nigel. Suuuuuuuuuure you have.

[Mertseger]

Welcome to So You Think You Can Dance, Angst v Joy edition.

 

I'm a contemporary contemporary in the style of contemporary fan-boy, but when I saw Ladia's audition I thought: "Well: we may have a female winner this year."

 

I must say that in all the Paula years on AI, I never heard her delightful cackle while acting like a twelve-year old boy. That was unexpected, but good. She really established a quick sniggering chemistry with Jason in the back of the car while Nigel became the Dad (Papa Pervy?): "Don't make me turn this car around."

 

I'll give Jason a couple of weeks to get his feet under him. The audition critiques are less important anyway, and Mary was not that great when she was first in the judge-rotations of the early years,

 

I know that many of us would like to see no dead grandma stories at all, but it felt like there were fewer background segments, and no cavalcade of suck at all. The only less adept performers shown were those that had something else entertaining to offer. I liked the removal of the fictitious choreography rounds. But for the power failure, we're getting closer to the ideal audition round: back-to-back 90-second performances by the best dancers.

 

Oh, and every episode should feature Cat doing her best In a World ... narration (nothing to do with dancing, but an unexpectedly good film worth watching particularly if it's still streaming on Netflix: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2294677/?ref_=nv_sr_1).

[Biosynth]

Street and Animation being my favorites to watch along with Ballroom and Tap, I'm pretty happy.  Contemporary is my ultimate least favorite dance form.  I agree with someone up thread, I just don't get it, all the contemp dance routines seem the same to me. 

 

I'm hoping for more ball room some day.  Ah well.

 

I'm willing to give Jason and Paula a chance.  I used to like Mary Murphy before she did nothing but scream.  So I hope that this will be a little more seriously about dance rather than screeching.

 

And as usual, Cat Deeley is adorable.

[Sharpie66]

I had to leave for work before I finished watching the episode (I only got through about 1:10 of the two hours), but so far, I really have high hopes for Guillermo, the valet guy from Miami. For someone with only three years of training, he definitely has some chops, and if he gets onto the show, I look forward to seeing how much he learns and progresses when the choreographers push him week after week.

 

The big surprise for me was Courtney--he has a lot more talent than I remember from last year, and once I got past his schtick and saw him actually dancing, I saw some moves that demonstrated a potential for ballroom (he can definitely move his hips much better than most of the more trained non-ballroom dancers that make the Top 20 do) and his flexibility is impressive. I don't think he'll make Top 20, but I hope he gets at least a few rounds into Vegas before being cut.

[scowl]

Street and Animation being my favorites to watch along with Ballroom and Tap, I'm pretty happy.  Contemporary is my ultimate least favorite dance form.  I agree with someone up thread, I just don't get it, all the contemp dance routines seem the same to me. 

 

What bothers me about them (with some exceptions) is that they're bursts of furious activity separated by periods of little motion. They have little to do with the music which is what dance is about, right? Apparently not because the critiques end up noting this move and that move or their lines or their feet. I haven't heard the words "musicality" or "interpretation" used in critiquing a contemporary routine. I can't even remember a truly interpretive contemporary routine since Kourtni Lind's audition back in Season 4 but I'm sure I'm forgetting some good ones.

[Canada]

What is it with the street dancers repeatedly saying that their form of dance is more real?  I don't think it's any more real than any other form of dance.  Get over yourselves!!

 

I agree that all the contemporary stuff looks the same.  But then I think all the street stuff looks the same too.  So, this episode was pretty boring for me.

[luvthepros]

From what I gather, there is actually no choreography round at the individual auditions this year. It's part of the revamped format. Choreography happens during Vegas week.

 

 

Thanks. I was wondering about that. Did I miss Nigel saying that on the show last night. I have to listen better.

NFK.

 

However, with the new set-up, it would become even more obvious that the only people going to choreo were the street people and that's not exactly playing the party line about this manufactured street/stage division.  Are they going to pair street dancers with stage dancers?  Are they going to make stage dancers dance street and vice versa all the time or any of the time?  Are they going to have group street and stage dances?

All great questions. Will the eliminated dancers be gender specific? I don't know how that would work out if one dancer from each team is eliminated. I'm still on the fence about if this new format is going to work.

[realdancemom]

Paula is a good judge when she's coherent.  I was pleasantly surprised by that.  I'm not that impressed with Jason yet.

 

I have to watch again but I wasn't impressed with the dancing.  They were good but none really stood out to me except for some of the street dancers.  As for the contemporary dancers, some had good technique but they need help with choreography.  They needed to move around the stage more, have a variety of turns and leaps, and not just show their flexibility. 

Edited June 2, 2015 by realdancemom

[crowceilidh]

Wasn't JoJo a stage dancer?  I seem to remember saying to myself that I was on team JoJo right after she danced and then they showed Ladia and I switched teams.

[dcalley]

Another bored long-time viewer here. I was reading a book while watching the show. I missed the first 40 minutes. Did I see a cast on Cat's arm? There was one contemporary young woman who looked to me as if she was dancing to different music than what we heard. That has happened before. I didn't like Jason.

[BensBritches]

Apparently I bought an express pass on the boredom train, as I fell asleep in the middle of the show. Everything seemed repetitive to me and while I enjoy contemporary, I don't like all the gymnastic moves the dancers seem to be adding in. I felt like most of the contemporary dancers were out of synch with the music and/or made slight "errors". No one really impressed me...

I haven't heard the words "musicality" or "interpretation" used in critiquing a contemporary routine. I can't even remember a truly interpretive contemporary routine since Kourtni Lind's audition back in Season 4 but I'm sure I'm forgetting some good ones.

 

Mark Kanemura added great musicality and humor to his audition.  It is possible for there to be humor in "stage" dancing... it doesn't have to be all "clutch my heart, woe is me, tumble to the ground" shenanigans.  That's the problem with this show right now IMHO. The "street" dancers are seen as performers and the "stage" dancers are seen as technicians, when in actuality both forms of dance can and show combine these aspects together. 

 

Like others, I'm also curious to see if the show is going to push the "street dancers aren't trained" dancers agenda that they have in the past.  Because there are lots of hip hop classes (and other "street genres") that are taught.  And if there is to be choreography on the show this year, I'm assuming they will want some "street" dancers who've been trained and are good at following someone else's choreography. 

 

Time will tell, but at the moment I'm not loving this new format.

[rereader2]

I thought the whole point of having all these different dance styles on one show was to argue that no style of dance is better than another, a good dancer is a good dancer is a good dancer--so what the hell is this business of dividing the styles and having them compete?!? Boo.

[Mason]

Our Ladia has been on the SYTYCD stage before: during Janelle Monae's performance. Check out www.youtube.com/watch?v=ysf9VWqy5MA; Ladia features quite prominently from about 2:15 on.

[damnman]

I was very excited to see this show back again...having said that I missed any form of dance other than street and contemporary. I liked Jason and thought that he and Parla had a nice, easy connection to each other (and does she look amazing for her age!). I am not homophobic in the least (I have a gay BF), but I see where some people are seeing Jason as homophobic, but honestly do you think main stream Ameriker is ready for blatantly out and out people like Courtney??? Fun performer but just not for this show, and that's where I think Jason was coming from.  

 

Hopefully we get more next week that isn't angst driven contemporary or animation, which while animation is very, very cool it seems to be getting the contemporary feel in that they are all starting to feel/look that same, but that girl that did the jooking was amazing!

[PhD-Purgatory15]

What was a little frustrating was for all the talk about the team Street being "unique" and "freeform", it felt like auditions were very animation heavy and by the time we got to the Bill Gates guy in the second hour....his routine (minus the one hands coming from out of his back move which he clearly liked alot) was very derivative of a lot of other routines we had seen from earlier that all got tickets to Vegas as well. Really (even if you counted the montaged people who got a couple seconds each) there were only three hip hop auditions that sort of broke that mold within Street. One was Ladia the Memphis jookin dancer, and then their was a "modern krumper" iirc as well as a White female hip hopper who felt a little more like Comfort in her style than animation/popping.

 

Did people notice Jason Derulo flinch at any male dancers dancing femininely outside of Courtney and Kioshe (the one who the show itself compared w/ Richard Simmons)? It's hard to say where these two audition cities were in the schedule of audition cities but if they were close to the beginning, he may have genuinely been thrown by the "joke audition" aspect of Kioshe and in his mind he also might of thought that Courtney's audition was supposed to be received as a joke too (they made it seem with a couple of camera cuts like there were fellow dancers in the audience who were shocked and appalled that a ticket was given in that instance). Or he legitimately may have an issue.....which is sad, but I'm not going to completely condemn him just yet. I was more frustrated that for as known as he is as a dancer.....his vocabulary to talk about the auditions was seriously limited. When it's an actor like Minnie Driver or Jesse Tyler Ferguson or Wayne Brady I get it....but it was dissapointing to say the least. I wish schedule-wise it could have worked out where Misty Copeland had been able to join the judges panel full time....she was a breath of fresh air when she guest judged.

Edited June 2, 2015 by PhD-Purgatory15

[Wootini]

I'm kind of holding out hope that perhaps since their explanation of the new format was so vague that they'll actually consider tweaking it as the season goes on if it doesn't work out... As I said before, I suspect that when they reach the top ten there will be a Survivor-like merge, but if the show starts taking fast, they could do it sooner.

 

It's a shame because I fear this is likely their last season and I hate to see it go out like this. :(

[WhineandCheez]

The big surprise for me was Courtney-

 

Yes if he puts his hair in the bun he may do better, as he had more hair-whipping than 10 seasons-worth of blonde contemporary dancers and Willow Smith combined.

 

Girl with red lipstick, beige bra and a wink was cute but and alarm went off in my head:  DANGER WILL ROBINSON --VEERING INTO JESSICA TERRITORY AGAIN THIS YEAR (black fedora girl from last year's finals).

 

Everytime someone in the audience got on stage is was SO S C R I P T E D it was painful.  That jookin teacher's kids were cute but come on, you just happened to have 15 kids with you, sure.

[Misslindsey]

I know the guy wasn't a good dancer and I forgot his name, but I hated Paula and Jason laughing about his outfit, with Nigel eventually joining in. It just felt so mean spirited.

[Merneith]

So when we get to the actual show - is going to be nothing but contemporary & street? No ballroom? No Bollywood? No Samba? Because I would probably just skip this season altogether if that's the case.