The top eight couples took the stage by storm tonight on So You Think You Can Dance. The question is, which one of these 16 dancers will become America’s next favorite dancer?
Tonight’s performance show featured all sorts of great styles, including a sultry rumba, a fun and quirky contemporary and two amazing hip hop routines. The night was very entertaining but, of course, we won’t know who will have to dance for their lives on tomorrow night’s So You Think You Can Dance results show. Read on to see which of the eight performances I liked the best.
1. Katee Shean and Joshua Allen – Samba
Katee and Josh, in my mind, are the couple to beat. Although I thought that very little separates the top four couples in my rankings, Katee and Josh deserve to be at the top because of their standout samba tonight. These two dancers are so versatile, so effortlessly flawless. They don’t just have technique, though. They truly dance together, as a unit, and they brought out a wonderfully saucy sexiness tonight, which earned them two first-class tickets on Mary Murphy’s hot tamale train.
2. Kherington Payne and Twitch Boss – Hip hop
Tabitha and Napoleon D’Umo are quickly becoming my favorite choreography team on So You Think You Can Dance. They were responsible for the incredibly moving hip hop routine that Katee and Josh performed in the first week, and tonight, they outdid themselves with the prison break-style routine for Twitchington. Everyone knew that Twitch would be great at hip hop, but Kherington was not only merely a convincing jailbird, she popped and locked with the best of them.
3. Chelsie Hightower and Mark Kanemura – Hip hop
Dancing another D’Umo lyrical hip hop routine, Chelsie and Mark really stole my heart with their performance tonight. They brought so much emotion to their dance and put so much attention to detail in every single step. These two have been one of my favorite couples since the beginning, and every week, they continue to prove how versatile and strong they are as dancers. Guest judge Adam Shankman called them the couple to beat and, although they are not at the top of my rankings, I was gratified to hear him say that.
4. Courtney Galiano and Gev Manoukian – Rumba
There is almost nothing sexier than a well-executed rumba. It’s a slower dance, and it doesn’t always have the wow factor of other styles, but Courtney and Gev really wowed me tonight with their rendition. They performed some very difficult moves with an almost tangible sexual chemistry, especially when Gev had to grab Courtney’s butt, probably his favorite part of the routine.
5. Kourtni Lind and Matt Dorame – Contemporary
This contemporary routine came to us by way of first-time guest choreographer, Sonya Tayeh. It was a fun and quirky piece, ostensibly about two comic book characters, which was a welcome departure from the legion of over-serious ones from other choreographers. Kourtni and Matt danced it amazingly well, executing side-by-side leaps in perfect sync. They both got uniform praise from the judges, although Matt was told that he still needs to loosen up a bit.
6. Jessica King and William Wingfield – Disco
Poor Jessica has been stuck in Will’s shadow right from the get-go. In their disco routine tonight, she made some strides in establishing herself as a dancer, but there are still miles to go before she sleeps. The disco routine was fun and disco-licious, but not without mistakes. Still, they pulled off a respectable performance.
7. Comfort Fedoke and Chris Jarosz – Jazz
Comfort and Chris were given a fiercely aggressive and animalistic jazz routine tonight with a Marilyn Manson soundtrack, but they weren’t quite able to bring the ferocity to it that they needed. Well, Chris wasn’t, anyway. I also felt like the technique wasn’t quite at the level of that of the other dancers. Comfort and Chris just might find themselves in the bottom three again tomorrow.
8. Chelsea Traille and Thayne Jasperson – Quickstep
The quickstep is one of the most difficult styles to get right on So You Think You Can Dance, and tonight was no different. Chelsea and Thayne bounced and sweat their way through their quickstep tonight, when they should have skimmed and glided. It was a disappointing performance, and they will almost certainly have to dance for their lives tomorrow.
-Debbie Chang, BuddyTV Staff Writer
(Image courtesy of FOX)
Staff Writer, BuddyTV
