SYTYCD Part 1: Highlights (videos!)

Last Thursday some of us headed over to Newark, New Jersey for a fun post-work field trip — destination: the So You Think You Can Dance tour!

This has nothing to do with Scholastic, books, or reading, but as anyone can see from our High School Musical 3 coverage, synchronized dancing is quite popular over here on Ink Splot 26.

The show started off with introductions of the Top 11 dancers from Season 4 of the show, and the costume color scheme looked a little familiar . . .

It looked a lot like the red and white Wildcat colors from High School Musical to me!

But, we're not here to discuss High School Musical. SYTYCD is on my brain now, and here are some highlights from the show:

Lyrical Hip-Hop, to Jordin Sparks' and Chris Brown's duet "No Air"
(Katee Shean and Joshua Allen)
This was a crowd favorite:

Another lyrical Hip-Hop piece, to Leona Lewis' "Bleeding Love"
(Mark Kanemura and Chelsie Hightower)
My personal favorite:

Hip-Hop, to "Party People" by Nelly feat. Fergie
(Comfort Fedoke and Mark Kanemura)
I didn't expect Mark to pull off the gangsta moves so well! He's not a trained hip-hop dancer and is usually very fluid and elegant, so I was impressed with the strength of his movements:

Hip-Hop, to Alicia Keys' "Like You'll Never See Me Again"
(Courtney Galiano and William Wingfield)
For this one, I was impressed by the choreography; hip-hop usually moves at a fast pace, which allows for some errors. But this song had a slow tempo, which meant that the dancers had to make every movement very clear and perfect — and the choreographers made each movement beautiful!

Jazz, to "The Garden" by Mirah
(Mark Kanemura and Courtney Galiano)
This is one of Karen's favorites — so much so that when she saw it during Season 4, she actually switched from being a hard-core Katee follower to a Courtney supporter!

Hip-Hop, to "Forever" by Chris Brown
(Comfort Fedoke and Stephen "Twitch" Boss)
Take a look at the crowd's reaction!

There were also modern/contemporary pieces with more of a dramatic, artsy flair — check out the entire group dance to Charlotte Martin's "The Dance" (aren't those also amazing costumes?):

Some pieces were inspired by Broadway, like this one choreographed by show judge Nigel Lythgoe to "Five Guys Named Mo," with all the guys from the Top 11:

Here was another Broadway-style piece from the musical Godspell
(Katee Shean and Joshua Allen):

And just like any arena-style concert, there was even an encore performance! They danced to "You Can Stop The Beat" from Hairspray (another Zac Efron connection)!

Not all of the dance numbers were duets and groups — there were also solos, but I didn't catch any of those on video. Check back soon for Part 2 of the SYTYCD tour coverage on The Splot!

— Nancy, STACKS Staffer