So You Think You Can Dance 9.01 recap: New York and Dallas Auditions

Hey dance fans! It’s time for my personal favorite of the talent competition shows, So You Think You Can Dance. There was some impressive talent in this first crop of performers, and I’m excited to find out who makes it into the actual competition. So, without further ado, here is a rundown of the solos we saw on night one of auditions.

New York, Day 1

The New York City auditions started off with a performance from adorable would-be flapper Amelia. Nigel immediately noted her resemblance to the actress from The Artist, and background footage revealed that she takes inspiration for her look and style from the raging 1920s. As a lover of all things vintage myself, I was a little worried for her at the beginning of her solo. Her extensions weren’t quite there at times, but she made up for it by dancing with a lot of passion and was given a ticket to Vegas. I’m not sure how she’ll fare against other, more technically gifted dancers in Vegas, but I hope she does well. She has a distinctive look and sweet personality.

The next featured dancer was Toshihiko from Japan. He definitely stood out with huge orange hair to match a brightly colored jumpsuit. He described his style (in broken English) as “little bit popping, little bit locking, little bit ballet.” Uhh, ballet, eh? I’m thinking he may have been joking around, but he did seem to try to incorporate some really terrible fouette turns into his very entertaining hip-hop solo. Nigel compared him to tWitch from season four, but I didn’t think he had near the charisma. I did agree with Tyce when he complimented him on his musicality. That being said, I wasn’t too surprised when he gave up during choreography.

Next up was funny guy Austin. He called his dance style “the wiggle,” but I’d call it an excuse to be silly on TV. His character was pretty funny, although his attempt at dancing wasn’t quite amusing enough to shake the awkward. Tyce said he loved the personality but his bad dancing made him sad. Nigel told him he needed to do more…I agree, some actual dancing would have worked. Shockingly, he didn’t make it to Vegas or choreography.

In between featured solos was a montage of other dancers given tickets to Vegas. One of these was a promising looking female hip-hop dancer. We haven’t had a decent one of those in so long on this show, I hope we see more of her during Vegas week. *fingers crossed*

Day one of auditions finished up beautifully with a solo from a Philadelphia street dancer. I feel really bad that I didn’t catch his name and I will be sure to note it during Vegas Week, because he was really fantastic. He was just an amazing athlete with some pretty impressive power moves. More than that, his style was unique and artistic. He had great control and surprising fluidity for a breaker. After his piece, he shared the story behind his choreography: he had a friend who died in 9/11 and he was dancing as his soul flying out from the twin towers. I felt like his choreography pretty impressively conveyed that feeling. He could definitely be a breaker who really holds his own in other styles. The judges loved him and gave him a ticket to Vegas.

New York, Day 2

To start off the second day of auditions was Leo, a contemporary dancer with an emotional back story. Leo said he was dancing for his mother, who had previously attempted suicide. That experience inspired him not to take life or his talent for granted. His movement was very expressive, but something about it didn’t quite connect with me in terms of his performance. It didn’t feel as authentic as I would like. Really a minor gripe given an overall great performance, and the judges gave him a ticket to Vegas without any critique.

The last New York audition was from Chehon, a skilled ballet dancer. He chose a great song and danced beautifully with fantastic technique and control. I felt like his energy dropped a couple of times during transitions between impressive leaps and turns, but I think with his skill he would do amazing things with the choreographers on the show. It was no surprise that he was sent straight through to Vegas. I hope he shows a bit more personality and showmanship during Vegas Week.

Dallas, Day 1

The first round of featured Dallas auditions were fabulously entertaining. First was Bree, a 29-year-old mother of 2 with her family there to cheer her on. Her two young children were adorable, a little boy and girl. When asked whether they dance, she told us that her daughter does while her son proudly proclaimed from the audience that he shuffles. He kept yelling how much he loves his mom – TOO CUTE. As for her actual dancing, she was very good and had beautiful emotional connection to the audience and the choreography. Nigel sent her son on stage to bring her a ticket to Vegas, and we were treated to a bit of improvisation from her daughter.

To follow up the sweet familial display was a sort of dance horror double feature. First was Stepheon, who claimed that his zombie-like hip-hop style is inspired by video games and cartoons. There was some off-putting maniacal laughter at first, but he turned out to be pretty good. Honestly, in my opinion the most unique thing he did was roll his eyes into the back of his head and creep everyone out – the dancing itself was pretty standard. He kept doing this walking in a backbend thing, but he wasn’t that exceptionally flexible so it just didn’t impress me much. I probably would have wanted to see how he did in choreography, but the judges loved it and sent him straight through to Vegas. Lil C, the resident hip-hop expert, seemed to be particularly inspired.

Part two of the horror show was was courtesy of Hampton “The Exorcist” Williams. He cited horror films as the inspiration for his style, which I will say, was actually very unique and powerful. When a guy gets up on stage and says he’s going to take your fear and pain and make you look at life differently, I’m pretty much expecting a train wreck.  Hampton surprised me by delivering an insane, quick, twitchy style of popping that was eerily reminiscent of Tim Burton’s claymation or flickering black and white horror films. He was so emotionally focused and so fluid. There was some cool symbolic choreography going on as well and he finished by dragging himself across the floor. Mary was crying and he got a ticket straight to Vegas. I’m going to have to agree with Nigel about him – not sure how he’ll do with other styles, but who cares?

Dallas, Day 2

Day two of Dallas auditions started out right with an attractive Australian ballet dancer named Daniel. What is there to say about him? His technique was gorgeous, he was incredibly talented, he had great extension and emotion – pretty close to perfection. He is a dancer with the San Francisco Ballet looking to expand his horizons. The judges gave him his ticket to Vegas and sent him on his way. I’m calling him as a favorite to get on the show, he has a lot going for him.

After a montage of kickass girls getting tickets to Vegas, a sweet autistic kid named Sam stepped onto the stage. He said that he uses dance to help him let go of some of his social awkwardness. He doesn’t have any training and as such his lyrical freestyle was pretty chaotic (Nigel joked that he looked like he was fighting off a swarm of wasps, to give you an idea), but he put his heart into it was a lot of fun to watch. While he didn’t move on to choreography or Vegas, all of the judges commended him for sharing his passion and encouraged him to keep dancing.

The entire audience gave Sam a standing ovation, so you can imagine why it didn’t go over so well when Vaughn, a b-boy with an attitude, decided to trash the show for letting someone with such bad technique audition. In his pre-audition interview he basically just bashed the show and visibly irritated Cat. After all the big talk, he put out an unfocused and generally spastic performance which he tried to pass off as “intricate choreography” (yeah, you’re not fooling us). After singling out Sam and getting a talking to from Nigel, he was rightly booed off stage.

Luckily, our first round of auditions ended on a high note with Jarell Rochelle (“It rhymes,” he helpfully points out), a contemporary dancer who is dancing for his nearly blind mother before she loses the rest of her eyesight. Nigel invited his mom up to take his seat so she could better see the stage. Jarell was absolutely glowing during his performance and he left me smiling from ear to ear. He has tons of personality, great musicality, and is just generally totally lovely. Nigel gave his mom his ticket to Vegas.

NEXT WEEK: Los Angeles auditions and JESSE TYLER FERGUSON from Modern Family guest judging! I can’t even wait! Until then, what’s your verdict? Who are your favorites at this stage in the game and who would you like to see go home?