So You Think You Can Dance alumni Danny Tidwell and Jakob Karr have joined Rasta Thomas’s Bad Boys of Dance and will be touring with that company this summer. I’m very glad to hear this for Bad Boys’ sake since all I could keep thinking the last time I saw them perform at the Joyce was how much better it would be if all of the dancers were at Rasta’s level. All of the dancers he had were good, but he was just … Rasta! Now he’s got more star power up there with him.

In other SYTYCD news, Alex Wong will be competing in the next season, along with Billy Bell (which we already knew). I mean, for now they made it to Vegas, but, you know, if they don’t make the top 20 I think SYTYCD may have some problems!

Above photo of Danny Tidwell from Flickr.

Here’s a video of Adam Shankman talking about the upcoming number he’s choreographing for the Academy Awards. According to SYTYCism, Jakob Karr will be performing in that number, and those auditioning included SYTYCD alums Billy Bell, Travis Wall, Katee Shean, Russell Ferguson, Jaimie Goodwin, Legacy Perez, Ellenore Scott, and Kathryn McCormick.

Yes! I knew it would come down to Russell Ferguson and Jakob Karr. I loved Jakob, but how absolutely fabulous that a krumper — the first to appear on the show — has won. I’m so happy for Russell! I was so worried, though, that he was going hurt himself worse (he hurt his leg during an encore performance on the show) with all that jumping around when he was announced the champ! And how sweet that he not only thanked God, but pointed his finger up to the sky like that What did he say, “God!” and pointed. Like a kind of high-five! Oh, I love him.

I still think Jakob is one of the best contemporary dancers ever to be on the show and he has a huge future in modern ballet, perhaps with a company like Complexions. I’ll definitely be looking for him out in the concert dance world after the SYTYCD tour is over.

I’m so ludicrously weird though. I’d honestly started to worry at the end that if Jakob won last night, well then two male contemporary dancers likely wouldn’t win in a row, and so Billy Bell’s chances for next season might be jeopardized. I know I know: Billy’s only made the top 100 at this point and I need to not get so far ahead of myself

Anyway, here’s Russell’s solo that first made me fall for him:

Okay, here are the interviews I did with Sonya Tayeh and Billy Bell last week at the DeMa Dance Company rehearsal. (Bell and Tayeh are most known for their work on So You Think You Can Dance, if you don’t know – Bell was on the show briefly at the beginning of the season and had to withdraw due to illness, and Tayeh is a choreographer). I spoke with them very quickly, during their tiny lunch break, and I shared the interview with a writer from Dance Spirit magazine. It was hard to get everything down (especially with Billy, who is a fast talker!) and remember the other writer’s questions, etc. (I intend to get a flip camera for the future). Anyway, it’s hard to put this in a question / answer format, so I’m just going to summarize and paraphrase what they each said.

Billy was so sweetly enthusiastic and excited about his life. So much fun to talk to!

First things first – SYTYCD, since that’s how most people know him. He said he definitely plans to return to the show next season. The producers told him he’ll be automatically advanced to the top 100 – so he’ll start out at the Vegas auditions and go from there.

He had to leave the show at the beginning of this season after being diagnosed with Mononucleosis. The problem wasn’t that he was contagious any longer by the time he was diagnosed, but that the illness had significantly enlarged his spleen, and he even had to be hospitalized. Doctors told him if he moved too much with his spleen so enlarged, he could have ruptured it and died. It would likely take a few months for the spleen to return to normal size, they said, which is why he had to leave the show at that point. Now, it’s nearly back to normal though it’s still a slight bit enlarged. “That’s why I wasn’t really dancing full-out,” he said with a little laugh, referring to the rehearsal we’d just seen. Dance Spirit woman and I nearly fell off the couch at this. “If that wasn’t full out, I can’t imagine what you normally look like!” she said. And I agreed. He seemed completely healed to me, to make a massive understatement.

I asked him how he got started in dance. He said he started late, in high school, and he actually began with Hip Hop. His lack of early training didn’t matter for that dance because, unlike ballet for example, the movement isn’t codified. But he soon became interested in Jazz, for which he needed ballet training. He initially learned by mimicking movement, but he soon enrolled in the ballet academy at Ballet Florida and, in order to make up for lost time, really threw himself into it, moving very close to the studio and taking several hours of dance per day, along with his other studies. After a while of ballet, he became interested in tap, and so began training in that too. He’s interested in multiple dance forms but considers his main style to be contemporary ballet.

I asked him who his favorite dancers were or if he had any particular heroes or sources of inspiration. He immediately named Andrea Miller, choreographer and director of Gallim Dance, whom he called his “personal mentor.” He’s worked with her before – when he was 18, his first pro experience — and he performed her work at the Joyce SoHo. He loves her approach to movement and how she teaches: she wants you to experience the movement in your body, he said; it’s not just about the positions, but about how the movement makes you feel. He’s excited to be able to work with her again at Juilliard; she’s to set a piece there soon.

I asked him what other choreographers or companies he’d like to work with. In addition to Gallim, he named William Forsythe and Ohad Naharin’s Batsheva. He finds in this “dance theater” an outer simplicity and yet so much complexity behind it. “What’s going on inside you – (with Gallim and Naharin’s Gaga training) – is simple and yet so complex.” He would also love to do some Paul Taylor, Merce Cunningham, Jose Limon, Jerome Robbins, to name a few.

But his biggest passion: choreographing. He wants to dance while he’s young but eventually his goal is to create dances. He said with a laugh that he loves “destroying ballet” – kind of bending those rods ballet dancers seem to hold up their spines and freeing them up, allowing them to go back and forth between different kinds of movement. He loves being able to work with dancers and bring certain things out in them. He strives to move people emotionally, to move the audience, he loves having that power. He choreographed his first piece — 15 minutes long — at Dreyfoos, his high school back in Florida. It was performed there at a show in January.

But that’s in the future. In the meantime, he’s finishing up at Juilliard (he’s about halfway through his BFA; has another couple years to go), he has the SYTYCD Vegas auditions coming up next season, he’s participating in a choreographic competition that travels throughout the States, and he just became a principal dancer at DeMa this month. Despina Simegiatos, one of the artistic directors of DeMa, says back when she was looking for strong male dancers for her fledgling company, she found him on YouTube, through some videos he’d posted, and really fell for him. He hadn’t yet gone on SYTYCD.

He’s excited about working with DeMa because it’s a company that seeks to fuse the creative with the commercial. Companies are where artists can focus on their creative work, but commercial work is what pays the bills. In an ideal world these would be fused, but in the U.S. they rarely are, he said. He seeks to be able to transition back and forth between the two. He’s excited about working with Sonya because he was just about to work with her before he had to leave the show. A couple of other Juilliard students are also dancing with DeMa, which makes the company feel homey to him.

He sweetly said he considers himself the luckiest person in the world that he gets to do what he loves and get paid for it.

Sonya Tayeh, like her work, was very intriguing and I wish I would have had more time with her but she was so busy creating this piece. This is her first time working with DeMa. As I mentioned earlier, her dance, titled When the Love Enters, the Light Shines, is six minutes long and is set to Bjork’s Unison.

When asked a bit about this piece, she said it’s about finding moments where you look at your life and you’re just in love with it. She actually found making this dance a bit challenging, she said. She’s really in love right now, very comfortable with herself and unafraid, and usually her choreography is about fighting. Lately she’s been so peaceful. But it’s nice to exhale, she said with a laugh.

When asked what she wants of her dancers, she said all she asks is that they listen to her instructions but that they try to find the emotion in themselves, to embody it in the movement, not just go through movements she’s creating. She has a very disciplined way of working and seeks to embellish movement as much as possible. She likes to have fast, abrupt stops and starts; she likes elements of surprise. She’s high-strung, she said with a little laugh – she has wild hair, wears crazy clothes, is really out there. Her choreography echoes that.

I asked her what inspires her, how she works, and what her goals are. She said it’s hard to talk about inspiration. She’ll have an idea in her head, but not the movement. She needs to get to the studio to see the dancers in order to create the movement. She begins with a mood in her head. She doesn’t watch much of others’ choreography because she’s afraid of duplicating them. Instead she watches a lot of documentaries of dancers and dance makers for inspiration. She watches cartoons, a lot of animation, and has a rather fantastical mind. Her focus is on making a mark in the world with movement, with her choreography.

Here are some more pictures, by Kim Max, of Tayeh rehearsing with the DeMa dancers (the picture at the top of the post is of Tayeh choreographing on Bell).

Today I was invited to attend a rehearsal for a new company, DeMa Dance Company, at their studio in Brooklyn. For their first set of performances, which will be in May at the Alvin Ailey Theater, Sonya Tayeh, from So You Think You Can Dance is choreographing a piece, called When the Love Enters, the Light Shines, set to Bjork’s Unison. They let me sit in and watch her work, which was really thrilling!

Thrilling also because none other than Billy Bell (who, all regular readers of this blog will remember, I was going on and on and on about at the start of this SYTYCD season) just became a principal dancer with this company. So I got to watch him rehearse too

And then, I got to do little mini-interviews with both Tayeh and Bell. (A first for this blog!) Billy is one of the sweetest, most enthusiastic people I think I’ve ever met and I’m just so intrigued by Sonya’s unique work; she’s really endlessly fascinating, as was just watching her work — and this is the first time I’ve ever been invited to a rehearsal when the dance is at its beginning stages; you learn so much more about how a dance is actually created by watching at this stage than when you only see the finished, or almost-finished product. So I’m really thankful to DeMa for inviting me today.

It may be a couple of days though before I’m able to get the interview and rehearsal notes up because I have Alvin Ailey tonight and then tomorrow I’m leaving for Art Basel in Miami for the weekend. But I wanted to at least get some of the photos up now (all taken by DeMa’s photog Kim Max).

Above are Tayeh and Bell with the founders and artistic directors of DeMa, Despina and Matina Simegiatos (Matina is on the far left, Despina on the far right). Below is the whole company. All of the dancers (at least those I saw today) are very good, with strong technique and loads of energy (you need it to work with Tayeh). More on the rehearsal and the interviews to come, but in the meantime, check out their website — I think they’ll be a promising company. And check out the videos — I particularly like the top one — Zaloggos — about the Greek women.

Wow, I’m so happy Kelly Osbourne and Karen Hauer are staying, on DWTS and SYTYCD respectively, after this week.

Re DWTS: I was really blown away by Kelly and Louis’s Quickstep Monday night and I have to take back what I said last week about her self-esteem not seeming to improve much. She danced that Quickstep with so much intelligence and sophistication and a real inner confidence. She was like a pro. I still think Mya is technically the best, but I’m rooting for Kelly!

I’m not at all surprised Joanna Krupa was booted. I think she tried hard but, as I’ve said before, I thought she didn’t have good enough dancer form and discipline in her body. Interestingly, as I was preparing to record the show, I happened upon the Ellen Degeneres show and saw her and Derrek on, where it was revealed that she’s in Playboy this month. And of course Monday night Hugh Hefner was on DWTS giving his esteemed opinion on why she should win. Anyway, when Ellen asked, Krupa denied using the Playboy cover to try to gain more votes, but I’m not so sure I believe it — even if it’s more the show’s producers who are behind such a stunt and not Krupa herself. So it backfired, unsurprisingly — I don’t think consumers of mags like that and this show come from the same demographic exactly.

Re SYTYCD: I really like Karen and think she’s so versatile and has such immense performance quality in her dancing. So I’m glad the judges decided to keep her this week and let Channing go. I kind of knew when both dancers ended up in the bottom three, the judges would do that. Karen’s different; she adds something unique. Channing’s like a slightly less compelling version of Mollee, who, with Nathan, surprisingly ended up in the bottom three as well. Well, maybe it’s not that surprising though, after what Nigel said about Nathan last week — I think his cutting him down and telling him his head was too big and he was only staying on because of his female teeny-bopper fans made all of the non-teeny-bopper watchers weigh in with their votes.

At any rate, this week Nigel told Nathan he was glad he seems to have listened to him and learned his lesson because he is truly one of the best dancers ever to be on the show. I was like “HUH???” Has he forgotten about Danny Tidwell, and don’t they keep saying Jakob’s by far the best this season? I mean, come on — what’s Nigel trying to do? Nathan is fine — he’s not a jerk and he’s not the best dancer this show has ever seen; he’s just a decent dancer and a regular contestant — stop trying to create drama.

Anyway, I do really like Russell too and he and Noelle’s Foxtrot was I think overall my favorite dance last night. That was so enjoyable. They both just floated over the floor, seemed to have perfect ballroom technique though he’s a krumper and she a contemporary dancer, and they gave it even more umph than regular ballroomers do. Excellent excellent job. I like Russell so much, I’ll even be happy if he wins over Jakob — so long as Jakob is in the finals

I also thought Victor came to life for the first time this season last night. I didn’t much care for Tyce’s kooky birds breaking out of their cage routine but I thought Victor really made the most of the movement, hitting every line right on and making very bizarrely intriguing shapes with his body.

I think overall my favorite moment of the show was when Tony Meredith asked Legacy if he knew what Paso Doble was and Legacy said dramatically and humorously, “No! I know that it’s pronounced Paso Doble (and of course he said that with a perfect Spanish accent), but other than that I know nothing!” For some reason that comment just really cracked me up; I couldn’t stop laughing. I thought the routine was okay but I really didn’t think he and Kathryn looked like professional ballroom dancers the way Russell and Noelle did. Still, I like Legacy’s personality — well, I like both of them personality-wise, and want them to go far.

I loved Jakob and Ashleigh’s hip hop and thought they completely nailed it and it was one of the best hip hops I’ve ever seen on the show. The contemporary and ballroom dancer — that shows you just how remarkable they both are.

I liked but didn’t love the other two routines. I did like Ryan in Travis Wall’s contemporary but I just didn’t feel the passion there, unlike the judges. The judges were going on and on about him, saying he was the best Latin dancer ever to dance contemporary and I felt like saying, “Hey, you all said that about Janette last season!”

I have to say I really got upset about the judges’ remarks to Karen last night — at least Nigel’s (and Mary always says whatever he says; it’s like she’s afraid to disagree with him; Adam not so much so, though he does defer). Nigel’s said each week that she’s the sexiest dancer ever on the show — the sultriest, the most sensual, the most sexual — how many ways are there to say it? And she just kind of smiles at him, not flirtatiously but like she’s a woman who knows herself too well to let his words pierce her. So he puts her into this box — she’s the official “sex goddess” — and then this week he tells her that when she’s given a routine where she’s supposed to play “cute” — when she can’t be his said “sex goddess” — then her dancing doesn’t do anything for him. I love her expression when he said that — another wholly self-contained smile. But he really made me so mad for that. It wasn’t like she did the wrong thing — it wasn’t like she did a cutely girlish character like a sexed-up vixen. She performed the character right. I’m glad Adam stood up for her and said he liked it when she could show other sides of herself — which she did, and she did so well.

I saw Billy Bell in line yesterday morning at Starbucks. I didn’t speak to him (I’m shy) but wanted then to tell him how wonderful I thought he was and how much I want to see him on the show next season. But after last night, I wanted to tell him to finish Juilliard and try to get a good job with a great ballet company instead. Now, I don’t know. I feel a bit better about the show after tonight, after they didn’t dismiss Karen and gave as their reason for not dismissing her that she was a great performer and a quality dancer and not that she made Nigel hot.

Ugh, these shows. I mean, what is dance? It kind of breaks my heart that these shows tend to make it more about selling women’s bodies than about creating art.

I don’t have much time to write — book issues! — but I just wanted to say how much Russell Ferguson blew me away last night on So You Think You Can Dance with his krumping solo. Holy crap! Now I know what krumping is!

Oh my gosh, I’m so glad the judges had him do that solo so we could all see such excellence. I don’t think they were really seriously thinking about kicking him off; they just wanted to let us see his immense worth to the show, just in case people (like moi) didn’t watch auditions

Ohhh, I just want to see him do that again and again and again!

I can’t seem to find any videos of him doing that solo on YouTube. Can anyone else? Here he is dancing his Foxtrot last night with Melanie LaPatin (who replaced last minute an injured Noelle).

My other favorites from last night were Jakob Karr (duh!) and Kathryn McCormick, and I thought Pauline Mata was lovely in her beautiful Waltz, choreographed by Jason Gilkison. I also liked Victor Smalley but am going to have to see him more before I form a definite opinion. Of course I’m really really really upset about Billy Bell having to leave the show over an illness. I hope he’s okay. He’d said that Juilliard had given him the year off to take part in the show so I hope they extend that another year. Otherwise, I’ll definitely be looking for him in the larger dance world.

Oh, and also, Wade Robson’s group routine from Monday night was just about the best I think I’ve ever seen on that show. Go him.

Above image of Russell Ferguson taken from Rickey.org.

Well, I’m upset about Iveta Lukosiute not making it, but I am glad U.S. National American Rhythm finalist Karen Hauer did. Her husband, Matt, used to teach at my studio and they’d often perform there — and I’ve seen them many times in competition and they are very good. I’m not surprised the judges liked her. She has varied training and can dance — and perhaps just as importantly, she has the kind of body that looks good dancing — many styles.

Here are a couple of (rather bad quality — sorry!) pics I’ve taken of her and Matt at some of the comps.

We weren’t able to see a whole lot of dancing (which is what I despise about the auditions shows) but from what we have seen I’m loving this guy, Billy Bell, above. Early favorite!

Also liking these two: Victor Smalley (something about him — the way he looks anyway — initially reminded me of Tyler Angle)

and Jacob Karr

So far anyway… Apparently we’ll get to know a bit more about the dancers on a special broadcast this Monday night (8 / 7 Central Fox).

Here are the rest of the top 20.