S16.E05: Auditions 5

[ElectricBoogaloo]

Quote

Hopefuls perform for the judges as the auditions come to a close in Los Angeles.

Original air date: 7/8/19

[Samwise979]

Is there usually 5 episodes of auditions? Maybe because in the past they've gone to different cities, it didn't seem so looooong. 

[luvthepros]

4 hours ago, ElectricBoogaloo said:

Original air date: 7/8/19

EB....Original air date is 7/1/19

EDIT: Just checked FOX schedule. I see there is a repeat of Auditions #1 tonight. I wonder why?????

EB is correct.....original air date for Auditions #5 is 7/8/19.

Edited July 1, 2019 by luvthepros

[slaterain]

auditions always take way too long - then they cut short the dance eps and have double eliminations thanks to holidays and such. Really wish they were on to the academy this week!

[luvthepros]

Why air a repeat? Why not have one more episode of the competition so we can get to know the contestants better?

[Prairie Fire]

Maybe they want to imitate AGT even more than I said earlier. Don't auditions take up almost half the season on that show?

[Jsage]

How many episodes total are in the season? I'm so sick of these sob story audition episodes!

[LexieLily]

American Idol was on for fifteen years and So You Think You Can Dance for sixteen. Nigel still makes me uncomfortable with how he presents singers or dancers that are disabled. 

[Pattycake2]

So glad the auditions are over!  I’ve never fast forwarded so much. I hate the new judges.  Dom is a nonentity and Laurie Ann, Shut Up!!  These are not the best dancers in the universe.  I want to see dancing. And Laurie Ann - Shut Up!

[kirklandia]

Judge "Do you have any support?"

Contestant "My mom's here, and my dance teacher."

Judge "Where's your father?"

Me "WTF?"

(Contestant "He's in jail.")

[khyber]

Fast forward, fast forward, fast forward. I could not watch this show without recording it.

[displayname]

IDK why people are recording at all, since every routine gets uploaded to YouTube.

[PhD-Purgatory15]

That was a dud end to a somewhat blah audition run this season. There were points in the side by side, synchronized movements when the salsa duo looked like easy No's when they weren't doing all of their fancy tricks.

Also wasn't overwhelmed by the Bboy or the Animator. I think we've seen better of each category already. Eddy the tapper is a lock finalist (unless he injures himself during the Academy), I think we can all pretty much accept that at this point.

The 3 seconds we saw of the last guy in the 3 person, contempo-montage make me think he could legitimately be an alien. I hope he doesn't disappear into the ether of the Academy...

Edited July 9, 2019 by PhD-Purgatory15

[Athena5217]

On 7/1/2019 at 10:44 AM, Samwise979 said:

Is there usually 5 episodes of auditions? Maybe because in the past they've gone to different cities, it didn't seem so looooong. 

I looked up past seasons, and it varies. In season 4 there were SIX episodes of auditions. Several seasons had five weeks of auditions. More recent seasons have had just two or three so that’s probably why it seems so long.

I miss them going to different cities. Sometimes there was a short segment on the dance culture in that city. I prefer that to the lengthy contestant backstories. I don’t want to become invested in someone until they make the top 20.

[ElectricBoogaloo]

James Cody

Andrew Avila & Melany Mercedes

Phoebe Kochis

Michael Sales

Maia Bliudnikas

Eddie Hoyt

Mariah Russell

[ElectricBoogaloo]

The absolute worst thing about James Cody's audition was having to see Nigel dance in his seat. It was like watching your old drunk uncle who still thinks he's cool announce that at family dinner that he's going to get jiggy with it.

Andrew Avila & Melany Mercedes were fine but we've definitely seen better salsa dancers on this show before. I mean, I'm all for some salsa or ballroom dancers making it to the top 10 so that there will be a few contestants who are trained in partnering, but I kept waiting for these two to blow me away and it never happened. There were moments (in their non-trick dancing) when they looked a bit gangly.

Phoebe Kochis should be commended for her flexibility and her sweet smile.

Michael Sales had such great musicality.

Maia Bliudnikas was a typical female contemporary dancer. I don't know what else to say about her besides that.

I'm not a huge tap fan, but I liked the rhythms that Eddie Hoyt used.

Mariah Russell has an immature quality to her movement so she might need a year or two to be ready.

Thank goodness we're done with auditions. The sad thing is that it's been five LONG weeks of auditions and I feel like I don't know (or even remember) most of these dancers so I have no horse in this race. I remember in past seasons, there were dancers who grabbed me immediately and I was rooting for them to make it to the top 20/10. This year, ehh.
 

[displayname]

1 hour ago, ElectricBoogaloo said:

Maia Bliudnikas was a typical female contemporary dancer. I don't know what else to say about her besides that.

That her legs were extremely sloppy?

1 hour ago, ElectricBoogaloo said:

The sad thing is that it's been five LONG weeks of auditions and I feel like I don't know (or even remember) most of these dancers so I have no horse in this race. I remember in past seasons, there were dancers who grabbed me immediately and I was rooting for them to make it to the top 20/10. This year, ehh.

This, and for last season too. I do like that Tap dancer from Audition week 4, but IDER her name.

Edited July 10, 2019 by displayname

[Haleth]

I enjoyed Eddie and Maia (Blueknickers, ha!).  Man, is she strong!  

Will the academy be one week?  At this point I'm ready to get on with the show for real.  I can't remember any of the dancers from previous auditions and I'm guessing the dancers picked for the show will be mostly people we have not seen (or who only popped up in montages).  Anyone know if they are taking 20 contestants?

[Steph01924]

5 hours ago, Haleth said:

I enjoyed Eddie and Maia (Blueknickers, ha!).  Man, is she strong!  

Will the academy be one week?  At this point I'm ready to get on with the show for real.  I can't remember any of the dancers from previous auditions and I'm guessing the dancers picked for the show will be mostly people we have not seen (or who only popped up in montages).  Anyone know if they are taking 20 contestants?

They are taking 20 to whittle it down to 10 in one episode, just like last year. So I'm imagining the Academy will be 2 weeks, in that one week will be getting to the top 20, next week top 10, then the live episodes.

This was definitely the most boring of the audition episodes.

[crowceilidh]

I thought Luke looked interesting, but that may have been my superficiality rearing her celibate head.  I just ffed through nearly everything in utter boredom.  I hope the actual show isn't ruined too.

[ramble]

I’m more and more convinced that the truly good dancers we either don’t see at all in the auditions or we see 1½ seconds of in the little montage pieces.

And this needs to be repeated:

On 7/8/2019 at 9:34 PM, Pattycake2 said:

Dom is a nonentity and Laurie Ann, Shut Up!!

What a blah, boring thing this episode was. I also don’t get the endless crying and I’m a social crier who cries easily but come on people!

Edited July 10, 2019 by ramble

[ElectricBoogaloo]

11 minutes ago, ramble said:

I also don’t get the endless crying and I’m a social crier who cries easily but come on people!

Same here. I cry at the drop of a hat (those Sarah McLachlan pet commercials, fictitious tv proposals/weddings, etc) but even I was like WTF is Boom Kat tearing up about while watching these auditions?

[realdancemom]

Just now, ElectricBoogaloo said:

Same here. I cry at the drop of a hat (those Sarah McLachlan pet commercials, fictitious tv proposals/weddings, etc) but even I was like WTF is Boom Kat tearing up about while watching these auditions?

Me three and like both of you, I cry really easy.  My daughters make fun of me because of it.

[realdancemom]

On 7/10/2019 at 1:42 AM, ElectricBoogaloo said:

The absolute worst thing about James Cody's audition was having to see Nigel dance in his seat. It was like watching your old drunk uncle who still thinks he's cool announce that at family dinner that he's going to get jiggy with it.

Andrew Avila & Melany Mercedes were fine but we've definitely seen better salsa dancers on this show before. I mean, I'm all for some salsa or ballroom dancers making it to the top 10 so that there will be a few contestants who are trained in partnering, but I kept waiting for these two to blow me away and it never happened. There were moments (in their non-trick dancing) when they looked a bit gangly.

Phoebe Kochis should be commended for her flexibility and her sweet smile.

Michael Sales had such great musicality.

Maia Bliudnikas was a typical female contemporary dancer. I don't know what else to say about her besides that.

I'm not a huge tap fan, but I liked the rhythms that Eddie Hoyt used.

Mariah Russell has an immature quality to her movement so she might need a year or two to be ready.

Thank goodness we're done with auditions. The sad thing is that it's been five LONG weeks of auditions and I feel like I don't know (or even remember) most of these dancers so I have no horse in this race. I remember in past seasons, there were dancers who grabbed me immediately and I was rooting for them to make it to the top 20/10. This year, ehh.
 

I agree with your comments.  It's sad that I'm not really excited about anybody.  But I think they didn't show a lot of the really good dancers except in montages.  For example,  I think the best ballroom dancers were shown in montage with the alumni.

I like Cody's audition.  I guess the judges are frustrated with him since he's been to Vegas before.  He knows that he didn't make it because he needs to take some dance classes.  But then he says that he only took one or two classes.  If he really wants to make it, he should have taken more.

Michael had really good musicality for a B Boy.  A lot of times, they just do tricks and don't even care about the music that much.

Also thought Eddie had good musicality and emotion.  I can't believe he free styled his audition.  I couldn't tell.  Since he teaches at Center Stage in Utah, I wonder if he took advantage of taking their classes including ballroom, jazz, ballet, etc.  That would make him a better contestant for the show.

On 7/10/2019 at 3:36 AM, displayname said:

That her legs were extremely sloppy?

Yes, you can tell that Maia is strong with certain moves.  For example, she got up from a pistol squat.  But she needs to work on her legs.  It affects her lines.

[Athena5217]

I don’t get all the Laurieann hate. She seems middle of the pack to me among all the judges. Mostly, I am just glad she is not Jason Derulo or a random celebrity like Vanessa Hudgens.

[ElectricBoogaloo]

40 minutes ago, Athena5217 said:

I don’t get all the Laurieann hate. She seems middle of the pack to me among all the judges. Mostly, I am just glad she is not Jason Derulo or a random celebrity like Vanessa Hudgens.

To me, the fact that she has decades of experience as a dancer/choreographer makes her even worse than lightweights like Vanessa Hudgens. LAG has the vocabulary and experience to give constructive criticism and all she does is tear up at every middle of the road audition like it's the most amazing, emotional, touching dancing that she's ever seen.

[Samwise979]

This episode should have been skipped.

Ok, do the cameras have the ability to zoom in super super close from really far away? Like, the one judge was crying throughout that one audition and the show kept switching back and forth between dancer and judge. But the shots of the judge were like, in her face but then the shots of the dancer, you could see the judges in the background and clearly there was no camera on the judge. So is she crying after the fact? Like how actors will go in and add things to their scenes? All I can picture is Nigel in the background saying "aaaaand..... cue crying". 

The ballroom couple at the beginning were terrible. I thought for sure they were a no. 

Obviously the judges already knew that the one dancer's dad is in prison. Why bring it up? Smh. 

[slaterain]

I'm guessing that they have stationary cameras up high that are aimed and focused on each judge and all the judges together so that they always have those shots without having to devote a cameraman to them. 

I always hate the staged questions - let me get you to talk about that line on the application that shows you have experienced major struggles in your life - and then they act shocked that they haven't already gotten a cheat sheet highlighted to prompt the questions. 

I'm so happy we are done with the auditions - I don't understand with how many changes they keep making, they still haven't thought to shorten the initial auditions part. I used to enjoy the auditions as there would be routines that would give me goosebumps that made me remember and root for them in the academy. I don't remember any specific auditions at this point. 

[Ilovepie]

I finally caught up with these episodes, but my love of this show is just......gone. I just hated the live audience at the auditions. It just seems less organic since they invited all of these people to audition rather than discovering them in a random city. I actually liked the plain stage, no frills audition quality that is missing now. I think I keep watching out of habit, but I really don't remember a single dancer except Eddie (and weirdly to me, he looks like he could be Walker's brother from last season of American Idol).

I really hope once the actual "lives" start, my love will return by seeing some amazing routines. I kind of felt the same last year, and then Slavik and Genessy came out and performed Round and Round and all was well in my SYTYCD world. Fingers crossed it will happen again this year!

[1TrackMind]

Am I the only one, I can't remember if it was this ep or the last when the camera focused on LAG as tears cinematically fell down her cheeks....that felt she was side eyeing the camera the whole time? I mean I am sure no matter what it was all for the camera anyway but did she have to be so obvious?

[Carrots4]

Phoebe seemed so tiny compared to Cat during her interview. I wonder how tall she is.