Robert Roldan | Pure So You Think You Can Dance

Top 4 Power Rankings

Last night was another great night of dancing by the Top 4 and the All Stars. I have to congratulate the Top 4 for surviving last nights show, they showed great stamina to dance five times in the span of two hours. Paula Abdul was a guest judge for a second time this season and honestly I want more of her on the show. Gabby Douglas also was a guest judge, I felt like she was there simply cause she is a fan of the show. The gold medal references got old fast. Anyways, by the end of the season sometimes it’s hard to know who will exactly be America’s favorite dancer.

Each dancer, danced a solo, danced with the other top 4, and the style of their with an all star. The best dances of the night for each finalist were the dance style of their choice. The top 4 have all been great this season and they all have impressed me over the season. So here is how I would rank the top 4 based on last night’s performances.

Girls

Amy: Amy had the better night of the two girls. Her ballroom dance was better than Jasmine’s. She really does remind me of Melanie Moore, in the fact that she is a little powerhouse and she has been an early favorite for the fans and the judges. Ranking her dances of the night contemporary with Robert gets the top spot. The two Jazz numbers were about even for me, but I’m really beginning to question what planet Mark is really from. I did enjoy the Tango/Paso fusion but I just felt like it would have been dance better if it were danced with an all star.

Jasmine: Anyone else surprised to learn that it was Cat Deely that fought hard to make sure that Jasmine was a part of the top 20. So a big thank you goes to Cat for fighting so hard and hopefully she will win the Emmy this time. Back to Jasmine, I can’t say I was surprise that she chose hip-hop for her style of choice. She and Comfort hit a homerun with that dance. The only time she seemed to struggle last night was in the Samba. I know that her skirt not wanting to come off threw her and Aaron. Other than that I’m not sure why it just didn’t seem to work for them.

Guys

Aaron: Finally we get to see another tap dance. I really think Aaron and Melinda have very similar tap style, not to mention insane technique, which is why this pairing worked so well. I didn’t expect the song choice they chose for the dance. This was my absolute favorite of the night from the telling of the story to the crisp clear sounds of their taps. Paula was right in saying that Aaron is a very generous partner, is the sense he doesn’t try to out dance them. He too struggled with the Samba but in the long run I don’t think that will affect him.

FikShun: I’m sure he isn’t alone in thinking to dance with Twitch will make your life awesome. I loved these two together. They both have fun personalities that came to life in this hip-hop. The other thing that I like about FikShun is the fact that he has risen to every challenge that’s been given to him. Sure he may still need some refining but partnering skills are there, and he proved that last night. I was a bit nervous if he could partner Jasmine, but he seemed to do it with ease.

So who is your favorite Guy and Girl dancer? Truthfully I would be happy no matter which girl wins. As for the guys Aaron is my pick to win, what can I say I love tap dancers.

Top 8 Power Rankings

Great night of dancing last night but with the All Stars joining the Top 10, I can’t say I’m surprised. Twitch, Marko, Brandon, Jakob, Robert, Neil, Kathryn, Melanie, Comfort, and Witney were the All Stars for this episode.

The bottom four was Jenna, Makensie, Nico, and Tucker (who was only there by default). There were no solos last night and looking back on it not sure if that was the right thing to do, but in the end Nico and Makensie were the two to say goodbye.

Since the partners were split up I figured I would rank the girls and guys separately.

Girls

Jasmine: Marko joined here for this fun dance to one of the songs of the summer. Jasmine gets the top spot cause she seemed to outshine her all-star partner; it was hard to take your eyes off her. To answer Nigel’s question, he was looking at two all-stars last night.

Jenna: I still have no clue as to why I just can’t connect with Jenna but she is a great dancer. I loved Mandy’s choreography and with Neil as a partner I say this helped Jenna.

Amy: I had to watch this twice cause the first time the song threw me off. Brandon to me is the perfect disco partner with all those crazy lift and that death drop at the end that was so close to the ground. Amy rocked this number keeping the energy up threw the entire dance.

Hayley: This is a perfect example of why sometimes dancing with an all-star isn’t such a good thing. Hayley and Twitch did have the chemistry and dance well with each other. However, even though Hayley did a great job, I think may people were watching Twitch.

Makensie: Paired with Jakob, they definitely have the best feet. This actually was my favorite dance out of all the girls so needless to say I’m sad she was voted off.

Guys

Tucker: What can I say; everything about this piece was just absolutely amazing. Travis provided us with a story that both Tucker and Robert could relate to. They have both survived life threatening accidents, I would imagine it was easy for them to tap into the emotion of the dance. I haven’t really cried while watching a dance on this show but this one came close.

Aaron: It’s crazy to think that he wasn’t part of the original top 10 guys; he has proven he deserved a spot on the show. Love watching him and Kathryn dance together.

Paul: Must have be the luck of the draw that he and Witney were paired together for this cha cha. Thankfully they did not disappoint, which I figured since this is Paul’s style.

FikShun: He is by far the most improved dancer on the show. He kept up with Melanie in this sassy jazz number. I’m excited to see what he has next.

Nico: Loved this reptilian hip-hop. I thought Nico and Comfort were selling not only the character of the dance but the choreography as well. Hated to see him leave but after Tucker’s performance I figured it might happen.

So Hayley, Amy, Paul, and Fikshun make up my bottom four but will the fans agree.

Next week should be interesting since the all-stars are choreographing and dancing with the top 8. Maybe we will get to see Travis dance on the stage again, or maybe even Dmitry.

SYTYCD Season 9: Los Angeles Auditions…Thoughts

Tonight’s auditions take us to Los Angeles and on of my favorite guest judges from last season Jesse Tyler Ferguson joins Mary and Nigel. I have to admit sometimes I get so wrapped up in the show I forget to take notes. It was a jammed packed two hours and plenty of talent in Los Angeles. I know that many will complain about the stories but in my opinion the stories are important to some of the dancers and how we will remember them. My suggestion is if you don’t like that stuff then don’t watch the show till we get to the live shows. Also, I think it’s really important to watch this season, so we don’t have to say goodbye to the show. Okay enough ranting and on to the dancers.

*Nigel tweeted along with the east coast, and glad he did. He did say he was watching at the Fox Studios and said they couldn’t find the right channel…lol.

Alexa Anderson: Granted I don’t really remember her from last season but I’m glad she decided to come back. Loved that she had her hair pulled back but also thought she was a great dancer.

“Johnny Waacks” Gibson: Cue the constant giggling from the judges, or as Nigel called it a Faux Pas Festival. I know whacking is a form of dance but it does sound so wrong. Granted not as good as Princess Lockaroo but not too shabby, but then again I really don’t know too much about whacking.

Eliana G: When she said that she has trained with Joffrey and Ailey, two very well-known companies in the dance world, I didn’t need to see her dance to know that she was going to be good. Now the working with the silks and the pole is what caught my attention. All I can say is wow when in comes to the pole work the amount of strength that takes is insane. Needless to say she is amazing technical dancer and to be compared to Melanie is a great compliment. I hope we get to see more of her.

The Ninja Twins Nick and James: So they are 33 and yes too old for the show and I’m sure some will complain about even showing them but I don’t care. I loved these two and they are incredibly entertaining and truthfully they need their own show. Which is something Nigel has thought of too, call me crazy but I hope it happens. It turns out they can actually dance and very thankful and humble for the opportunity that they show gave them.

Sam Lenarz: Beautiful girl and beautiful dancer. I agreed with the judges she needs to work on her transitions. Happy to see her make it through the choreography round and I hope her family sees this and comes to their senses.

Caley Carr: A crazy cool kind of guy who can tap. Love seeing the tap dancers on the show and was a bit disappointed he got cut.

Megan Branch: My first thought when she started dancing was Sonya will like her. I liked her too and hope to see more of her in Vegas.

Cole Horibe: A karate and dance fusion that I have to admit was kind of interesting. When he started listing the styles he has trained in and well I guess we will have to wait to Vegas to really know if any of it is true.

David Matz: Sure he isn’t right for the show but I love seeing things I’ve never seen before.

Steven Jacobsen: I have no idea what he was thinking with that first audition. Thank you Nigel for making him show what he can really do. He is the perfect example to stick to what you know in an audition.

Jasmine and Marshae Mason: They previewed that story all night and I was relieved to see that Marshae survived that accident. Six weeks between the time of the accident and audition and he dances like that he deserves that ticket to Vegas. Jasmine his sister I loved and she reminded me of Lo Fro a little bit.

Next week Atlanta and well for me I’ll be in Vegas. Let us know your thoughts and any your favorites of the night.

Podcast: SYTYCD Season 8 – Top 4 Performance and Finale

Summary
For the finale of So You Think You Can Dance season 8 we give you a super-sized podcast with 15 more minutes of content. We were happy with Melanie’s win and were pleasantly surprised that the top two dancers this season were both women, which has not happened before on this program. The performance episode was not up to the high standards of past seasons which was disappointing for us, but there were some highlights such as Marko and Lauren F.’s wonderful contemporary piece by Tessandra Chavez and the captivating performance by Melanie and Sasha in the second Stacey Tookey routine of the night.

The results show reminded us of many of the great routines from the season, although we were surprised by how the judges picks seemed to place less emphasis on everyone except for Melanie, Marko and Sasha (even Tadd only had one non-group routine repeated). This portion of the show has historically served as a warm-up for the forthcoming tour and features many of the routines that are expected to show up. But here we had many routines that involved all-stars, none of which will likely be on the tour. It was unexpected for the judges picks to lack variety.

We conclude the podcast with a discussion of the show’s production and the effect it’s having on the pacing and the way we get to know the dancers. We pinpoint that the approach towards the show changed in season 6, when they moved to the live show format. At this point the packages became shorter and contained more schtick and the judges comments started having less substance due to the time constraints of a live program. We also discuss the choreographers and that some of them tailor their work to their selected dancers and that others do not and whether this is a fair way of doing things. Finally, we discuss the variety of dancers in the top 20 in later seasons versus the early seasons and the effect this seems to have on the type of choreography we see each week.

Please let us know your thoughts by dropping us a comment here after listening! We love to hear feedback and what you thought of the show. We also encourage you to check out our twitter feed!

We want to thank everyone that has tuned into our podcasts during the course of the season! We’ve enjoyed doing this and its been a learning experience for us! We’re planning to do podcasts for season 9 of So You Think You Can Dance, so check back with us in May 2012. We’re going to continue doing our Big Brother podcasts and will be adding The X-Factor to our weekly discussions when it premieres on September 21st. We are also adding a Week in Review podcast in the fall for all the other shows we watch during that time. So if any of that sounds interesting to you, then follow our blog Reflections on Pop Entertainment and watch for our updates. If you’re only interested in our So You Think You Can Dance material, we’ll see you again next summer!

Episode Length: 44:53

Time Stamps
0:00 – Introduction: Congrats to Melanie! Guest judges: Katie Holmes and Kenny Ortega and the choice to have celebrity judges
2:37 – Melanie and Marko’s disco
4:15 – Sasha and Mark’s jazz
5:44 – Tadd and Joshua’s hip-hop
7:10 – Melanie and Robert’s contemporary
8:29 – Sasha and Marko’s broadway
10:46 – Sasha and Tadd’s chacha
12:57 – Marko and Lauren F.’s contemporary
14:36 – Tadd and Melanie’s jazz
16:01 – Melanie and Sasha’s contemporary
18:27 – Marko and Tadd’s gumboot stepping
20:28 – The order of the placing: 2 girls in the top
22:22 – Results show: The new top 20 routine and tap routine
24:28 – Results show: The judges picks were stacked towards Melanie, Sasha and Marko and didn’t seem to be a retrospective of the season
28:58 – Post-season discussion: The direction of production and how it affects the show – pacing in live shows vs recorded shows, an increasing focus on the judging panel, choreographers tailoring their work to the dancers, variety in the dancers in the Top 20 (stacked towards contemporary/jazz now), variety in routine genres (less ballroom now, more contemporary/jazz)
42:34 – Wrap-up: What are your thoughts on our post-season discussion? What we’re going to be doing in future podcasts (Big Brother, The X-Factor, Week in Review)

Listen to the podcast

Episode 15 direct download

Subscribe to podcast on iTunes

Season 8 Finale Part 1 Thoughts and Discussion

Tonight’s Part 1 of the Season 8 finale. I’m going to post my thoughts live and I hope you’ll join in the discussion. Let us know what you think?

Spoiler space, just in case…

SYTYCD Season 8 Finale Part 1 Music

Who knows what tonight’s going to bring? I can’t wait to find out!!

Melanie and Marko danced a Doreana Sanchez disco to: Donna Summer’s “I Feel Love (12″ Version)” –

Sasha and All-Star Mark danced a Sonya Tayeh jazz to: Deadmau5’s “Raise Your Weapon” –

Tadd and All-Star Joshua danced a Lil C hip hop to: Ace Hood’s “Hustle Hard” –

Melanie and All-Star Robert danced a Stacey Tookey contemporary to: Sinead O’Connor’s “Sacrifice” – not on iTunes yet.

Sasha and Marko danced a Spencer Liff Broadway to: Ella Fitzgerald’s “Whatever Lola Wants” –

Melanie danced her solo to: Peter Bradley Adams’s “Song for Viola” –

Marko danced his solo to: Joshua Radin’s “The Fear You Won’t Fall” –

Sasha and Tadd danced a Mark Ballas cha cha to: Basement Jaxx’s “Raindrops” –

Marko and All-Star LoFro danced a Tessandra Chavez contemporary to: Me’Shell Ndegéocello’s “Shirk” –

Tadd danced his solo to: Jessie J’s “Mamma Knows Best” –

Sasha danced her solo to: Rachael Yamagata’s “Be Be Your Love” –

Melanie and Sasha danced a Stacey Tookey contemporary to: Ahn Trio’s “Heart Asks Pleasure First” –

Marko and Tadd danced a Chuck Maldonado gumboot stepping routine to: Outkast’s “B.O.B.” –

Top 6 Results Thoughts and Discussion

I’ll be a little behind posting my thoughts tonight, at least for the moment. But, just in case, a spoiler space…

Podcast: SYTYCD Season 8 – Top 10 Performance and Elimination

Summary
It was an exciting night of performances for So You Think You Can Dance. The introduction of the all-stars gave a boost of energy to the remaining contestants and treated us to a bunch of interesting routines that show us just how strong the Top 10 is for this season. We really enjoyed the performances from Caitlynn, Sasha and Melanie as well as Marko and Jess. It goes to show how difficult it’ll be to whittle the remaining field down to a Top 4. At the moment, we believe it’s Melanie’s season to lose as she’s been absolutely phenomenal week in and out. In the podcast we discuss what we enjoyed during the performances, as well as special touches we noticed.

For eliminations, we were a little caught off guard by the judges retention of control over the eliminations after reaching the Top 10. We didn’t disagree with the eliminations of Mitchell and Clarice, we were more just confused about the rationale. We also discuss the effect of Tyce routines on this season of So You Think You Can Dance and how they’ve replaced the Quickstep as the new “kiss of death.” Every single person that has received a Tyce routine has ended up in the bottom three and half of them have gone home (at least one person per elimination week). We discuss what may be happening and wonder if America no longer likes his brand of choreography.

We wrap things up by reviewing next week’s grouping of all-stars. Overall, we like how this season is wrapping up and we eagerly await the next collection of pieces!

Please let us know your thoughts by dropping us a comment here after listening! We love to hear feedback and what you thought of the show. We also encourage you to check out our blog and twitter feed to keep up to date with us!

Episode Length: 30:56

Time Stamps
0:00 – Judges retain control over eliminations
2:00 – Neil Patrick Harris was an awesome judge
3:23 – The all-stars and new couples!
4:30 – The Tyce DiOrio kiss of death
7:30 – Bottom 4: Mitchell/Melody
10:40 – Bottom 4: Ricky/Allison
12:22 – We think Tadd should have actually been in the bottom 4
14:27 – Bottom 2 girls, general discussion
15:30 – Bottom 4: Jordan/Brandon
16:36 – Bottom 4: Clarice/Robert
18:00 – Performance: Marko/Chelsie
19:58 – Performance: Tadd/Comfort
20:41 – Performance: Caitlynn/Pasha
22:22 – Performance: Sasha/Twitch
23:47 – Performance: Jess/Kathryn
25:18 – Performance: Melanie/Pasha
27:36 – Next week’s all-stars: Ivan, Jaime, Pasha, Anya, Lauren G., Neil, Ade, Lauren F.
30:10 – Wrap-up

Listen to the podcast

Episode 10 direct download

Subscribe to podcast on iTunes

Top 10 Results Thoughts and Discussion

Here are my live thoughts on tonight’s Top 10/All-Star results episode. I hope you’ll join the discussion, too!

The Top 10 group Broadway routine was cool in some parts, but felt kinda loose and empty in some places. I’m not familiar with the choreographer’s work, so I don’t know if this is typical of his style. Anybody? Was it just me or was there a lot of little wobbles and out of unison moments? Was that Clarice off the the right in the back and really off in the beginning? I really liked the Chorus Line-esque gold hats and unison bits at the end, though.

I’m bummed that they’re still cutting 1 guy and 1 girl and Amanda is confused that the judges are still apparently in control of the fates of the Bottom 4 (got that wrong in the Power Rankings, yesterday).

Here’s a spoiler space as I start to talk about the results…

SYTYCD Season 8 – Week 6, Top 10, Robert Roldan, Comfort Fedoke

Week 6 post-performance interviews with the top 10, and all stars Robert and Comfort of So You Think You Can Dance (SYTYCD) Season 8!    Video Below 🙂

Top 4 Power Rankings

Top 8 Power Rankings

SYTYCD Season 9: Los Angeles Auditions…Thoughts

Podcast: SYTYCD Season 8 – Top 4 Performance and Finale

Season 8 Finale Part 1 Thoughts and Discussion

SYTYCD Season 8 Finale Part 1 Music

Top 6 Results Thoughts and Discussion

Podcast: SYTYCD Season 8 – Top 10 Performance and Elimination

Top 10 Results Thoughts and Discussion

SYTYCD Season 8 – Week 6, Top 10, Robert Roldan, Comfort Fedoke

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