Get Ready for SO YOU THINK YOU CAN DANCE!

This is what we call fair warning people! My favorite summer show (and my favorite reality show) kicks off tonight. I wanted to give you a heads up that we’ll be talking about it a lot over the next few months here at GMMR. So if you haven’t watched SO YOU THINK YOU CAN DANCE in its previous three seasons then go set the DVR now because season 4 kicks off tonight on Fox at 8pm EST. You don’t want to be out of the loop, right?I know, I know…you’re asking yourself, ‘do I really need to watch another reality show’? Yep. ‘But GMMR, I know nothing about dance and I’m not really into it, so would I even like it?’ Yeppers. SO YOU THINK YOU CAN DANCE is a fantastic display of talent and you don’t have to interested in dance in general to enjoy the amazing routines put together by some of the top choreographers in the world and danced by some truly talented artists.

For your newbies out there, I thought I’d give you a little 101 on how the show works, and share a few of my favorite routines from year’s past so you can see the talent level we are talking about. These kids don’t kid around…they can dance.

The Auditions and off the Vegas…
The judges will travel the country and look for the most uniquely talented dancers they can find from every genre imaginable – jazz, hip-hop, contemporary, ballet, swing…anything and everything. Expect to see some truly awful auditions among the rare gems. The best of the best will be invited to Las Vegas for the final round of auditions. From there the field will be narrowed down to the best 20 dancers – 10 guys and 10 girls.

The Pairings and Routines…
The guys and girls will be paired up to form 10 couples. The pairings are the exciting part. A ballet dancer who has taken lessons her whole life could be paired with a B-Boy who has never had a formal lesson and just learned his moves by dancing with his friends. It’s different worlds of dance coming together as one. The routines are often very artistic and tell an amazing story.

Each week the pair will randomly choose a genre of dance out of a hat. Together they will learn a routine choreographed by the world’s best choreographers. They will perform for the judges and the audience on Wednesday night before it’s turned over to us to call in and vote.

Here are a few of my favorites:
#1: Hip-Hop dancer Ivan and Contemporary dancer Allison take on a Contemporary routine
#2: Contemporary dancers Sabra Johnson and Neil Haskell with a jazz routine

‘Dancing for Your Life’…
On Thursday the bottom three couples with the least amount of votes will ‘dance for their lives’ – meaning they will dance 30-second self-choreographed solos in their original genre of dance. The judges will then choose one girl and one guy to go home each night. If a person’s partner is sent home, then he or she will be paired up the other dancer who also lost a partner that night.

(Here’s Travis and Hok dancing for their lives)

The Winner…
Later in the competition all bets are off when all the couples are split apart and new couples are formed each week. In the end, it will come down to two dancers, but only one can be named America’s Favorite Dancer and the winner of So You Think You Can Dance 2008.

Some of the best of the rest…
One of the great things about this show is how much you’ll learn about dance. The real focus hear is the artistry and enhancing our ‘dance vocabulary’. You don’t need to know anything about dance to really appreciate these routines. Here are a few of my favorites from years past:

If you’ve never seen the show and plan on checking it out for the first time tonight….YAY YOU! Leave a comment and let me know.