So You Think You Can Dance - NY & Denver Auditions!

Ahhhh, it's back! Six months is too long with no Dance! No kidding! And as a side note, I pretty much had to take a crash course on blogging again, it's been so long... thank goodness for Kim, keeping our blog moving along over the past months, as I have neglected it terribly. I still have pictures to post from the SYTYCDC tour that we saw in Kelowna... in, what January??

Cat, Cat, Cat...how we've missed you! Best line of the night:

It's okay! DRYCLEANING, DRYCLEANING, DRYCLEANING!

Leah is great on the Canadian show, but she is no Cat Deeley. Although she tries, she really does...

Some quick observations on the show tonight, and they're going to be all over the map:

I love Sonya Tayeh. I'm hoping she has a much larger influence on the show this year. She strikes me as the kind of person who's entire life is about her art. She's fantastic. I love her as a choreographer, but not so much as a judge... there was one point when I said out loud that I could see that Nigel was probably thinking 'Oh just shut up already', and then suddenly he jumped up and said 'Oh for god's sakes! It's just dancing already!!!' Tee hee! She was just a bit too much in that capacity for me - but to reiterate, I think her choreography is brilliant, and I join Kim in hoping to see a lot more of her this season.

If Natalie Reid is not in the Top 20 this year, it will be a crime. She should have been there last year. Love. Her. She should NOT have been cut last year, it was just gimmicky how they played her and Katie off each other. I'll go as far as putting her in the Top 10 this year.

Another person who deserves an honourable mention is Brandon Bryant (thanks for looking that up for me Kim!) who was there with Natalie. It was down to him and Gev last year, and I remember being disappointed that he didn't make it through. I think he is absolutely amazing and have very high hopes for him.

The first girl shown in Denver - Kayla Radomski - was outstanding. Reminds me very much of Mark Kanemura (I've probably spelled that very wrong) from last season.

Love seeing the familiar faces of Lauren and Faina. Damn! I missed most of the first hour, so I didn't get to see them...

Those 'Mutation' guys were fantastically bizarre. If I saw them performing in a park or on a street corner, I'd definitely put money in their hat.

Overall, I found the Denver auditions more exciting than the New York ones, which is unusual for me. I also want to say kudos to the featured dancers for picking different, original music. It was nice to watch a two hour audition show and not hear from The Pussycat Dolls or Fergie. Truly refreshing.

And we already have some controversy this year. The forums on the SYTYCD page on Fox.com are already lighting up in response to Nigel's comments to the same-sex ballroom dancers. I don't really know what I think about them and have to mull it over before I form an opinion. I think it may be a case of him not choosing the right words to get his point across, but I'm not certain. What do you think? You can tell us in the comments. This audition was... awkward... I agreed with Mary when she said it would have been easier if they had each picked a part and gone with it... but then I understood their point of wanting to be able to show off both strengths of partnering... sigh... I was torn... But if we were solely focussing on dancing ability, which is really the whole point of the show, the fact that they fell down kind of clinched the fact that they weren't strong enough to make it through at this time.

During the end credits, did anyone catch them say that they're doing a Fall season too? With auditions on now? How exciting would that be? We'd have the Canadian version and the American version going on at the same time! Might get a little confusing, but totally cool too! Fun!

What did you think of tonight's show? Let us know!

Cheers!