Like the rest of So You Think You Can Dance Canada fans, guestblogger Christina Wallaert couldn't wait for Finals Week in Toronto to begin. Time to see which dancers have long-term staying power, who can adapt the most, and who can perform dances out of their genre the best.
Every round was tough, I really felt for the dancers. Sometimes you do your absolute best and don’t get the results you want. That’s dance and hey let’s face it, that’s life too. So this is how the Finals routines went dow: learn a dance from one of the top choreographers (kind of like taking a master class), perform the dance for the judges in a group and if they like you, you get to stay. If the dance performance was bad you have to dance for your life. If the performance was really bad, you go home.
First dance was Hip Hop with
Luther Brown which you may be thinking,
not so bad, right? Wrong. This was a tough number and you could see it in the dancers’ faces. A lot of dancers had trouble with Luther’s choreography with some getting sent home right away. As far as I can tell, anyone who danced for their life stayed for the next round.
The second number was an amazing Afro Jazz routine by
Shawn Cheeseman. I’m not sure if they are making the choreography especially hard this year but it seemed to look like it was. This routine was extremely fast and based on the dancers' comments I’m going to assume it was even harder than it looked on T.V.
One thing I’ve noticed this week is that they showed us the entire dance before the smaller groups perform it for the judges which, fom an audience perspective, was really nice to see. Little clips from each group aren’t enough for me and I felt I got a better sense of the dance this way.
Not only are the dances harder, it seemed like the judges were especially tough. There were some dancers I thought performed well, but the judges sent them home right away. And can I say how much I love Afro Jazz? It’s this wild, yet controlled abandon and every time I see it, I think about how much fun it looks. I may be searching out a class for this in the near future.
The third choreography was Cha Cha with
Jean Marc and can you say steamy? Woohoo, from the second his wife stepped on the stage it was a super hot affair, first between Jean Marc and his wife and then the couples. But hey, they are professionals and this is what they have to do to get into character. But things went from steamy to cool pretty quickly when Jean Marc felt the dancers weren’t giving it their all. In the end though, it came together.
Next up was the group number where dancers create a piece together and sometimes, it can be a real disaster. I was pretty impressed with our Canadians as the episode showcased some really good routines. Even illness didn’t stop people from performing. It must be hard to mesh personalities as well as dance styles and they did a pretty good job.
Of course there were some the judges didn’t like, but honestly I’ve seen worse.
And just when I thought it was over, one more obstacle shows up in the form of
Blake McGrath. Blake has done some outstanding routines in the past but this one was all those put together and more. Honestly, one of the best I’ve ever seen. How lucky the dancers were to get an absolute stunning Contemporary routine to
Adele’s “Turning Tables”. It’s possible my love for her music is making me biased on this one so everyone judge for yourselves. This was my favourite from the night and I salute Blake on this one.
Tonight's show will be the final round of solos and then the Top 20 will be chosen. As of now, 45 dancers are left. Who will still be there after tonight?
Beginning next week, the Top 20 perform in front of a live audience with a special two-hour episode. I'll be tweeting so make sure to join the conversation!