It’s Thursday night, so you know that it’s time to get good and drunk in the Step It Up and Dance drinking game. The rules: take a shot every time someone says, “Step it up” or “Step up.” This does not include the opening theme song, which has at least seven “Step it up”s. That would just be crazy.
Previously on Step It Up and Dance, Elizabeth Berkley took the dancers out to a Hollywood club for a surprise audition challenge with choreographer Jamie King. Janelle Ginestra was the winner of the week, while Jessica Feltman showed early on that she was going to be the show’s resident basketcase. Adriana Falcon lost the elimination challenge and had to dance her last dance.
The dancers are instructed to don their most provocative dancewear and get ready to leave in a half hour. They pull up to the King King club where Elizabeth and Jerry Mitchell greet them. There the dancers get to watch L’Effleur des Sens, a French-style cabaret dance troupe. They do a series of very sexy and saucy cabaret performances. Tovah Collins is taken aback at the sexiness of it. The third dance that the troupe performs is called an Apache (pronounced “ah-PAWSH”) dance, a very dramatic dance that portrays a fight between a pimp and his prostitute.
The show’s creator and choreographer is Cati Jean. Her star performer is Carolina Cerisola, and both women will be guest judges this week on Step It Up and Dance.
For the Audition Challenge, everyone has one hour to learn the choreography and then perform the Apache dance that they just saw. After the performance, they will be divided into a winning group and an elimination group for the Audition Callback Challenge.
After their performances, the dancers are divided up:
In the first group are Mochi Camaya, Tovah Collins, Cody Green, Oscar Campisi and Nick Drago.
In the second group are Jessica Feltman, Janelle Ginestra, Michael Silas, James Alsop and Miguel Zarate.
The catch is, even though they are all divided up, they won’t find out which group is which until the next day.
Jessica cries to Jerry that she wants to go home. She feels like an amateur, but Jerry gives her a pep talk and tells her that she’s tall and gorgeous and she should stick around. She decides to stick around and keep going.
The groups head back to their rehearsal studio to get to work on their routines for the Callback Performances. Each group must choreograph their own Apache dance, creating their own characters and a story, all in just an hour and a half.
In the first group, Cody is a pimp and falls in love with his ho Tovah at first sight. Oscar is the bad guy who roughs up Tovah. Nick and everyone else kind of resent that Cody is taking charge so much. With only 20 minutes to spare, the group finally gets their act together, but Jerry advises them to work more on creating their characters and the story that they are trying to tell.
The second group uses a lot of personal inspiration to create their characters. Jessica just wants to be loved, and Michael can’t decide whether he wants to be with a woman or a man. (He’s a bisexual in real life.) Miguel takes it upon himself to say what everyone else’s choreography should be. Jerry’s critique is that there isn’t a unifying connection that ties all the dancers together.
At home, Oscar hangs out just wearing little white boxers, and some of the others ask him to please put some clothes on. But he’s European, so normal rules don’t apply to him. Lest we think that he is just a pervy Italian dude, he later gets on the phone with his mother, who is a cancer patient, to wish her a happy birthday. Jessica comes in and anxiously suggests that they rehearse. James and Miguel are more interested in drinking wine and hanging out with their fabulous selves, however.
The next morning, they go back to the Variety Theater. The dancers find out that the first group is the winning group, which means that someone from the second group will be eliminated tonight. (Janelle is in the elimination group, but she won last week’s challenge, so she has immunity tonight.)
Before the Callback Performance, the dancers gather backstage with Jerry to cheer a big “Step It Up and Dance!” (Everyone take shot #1!) Then they all go onstage to meet the judges: Elizabeth Berkley, Vincent Paterson, Nancy O’Meara, Cati Jean and Carolina Cerisola.
The first group performs their Apache. They succeed in telling a good story, and their movements are very unified. After the performance, the judges are very impressed with the dance. Oscar has stepped up (everyone take shot #2!), but Nick wasn’t powerful enough. They tell Tovah to watch her posture and not feels self-conscious about her body. (Earlier, she confessionaled that she has major body issues, especially since she has large bust for a dancer.)
The judges take a moment to talk amongst themselves. They disagree for a while about which was the best dancer, but in the end, Cati likes Oscar and Cody the best. She picks Oscar to be the winner. This means that he has immunity for next week’s challenge. (Oscar confessionals that he was glad that they saw that he “stepped it up.” Everyone take a shot #3!)
The elimination group performs next. Elizabeth warns them soberly, that this will be the last performance for one of them, so it’s time to “step it up.” (Shot #4!) Miguel tries his best to butch up his performance to show Nancy that he can be macho and masculine. This group’s story wasn’t as clear cut. Cati thinks that everyone in this group was over-acting. The judges unanimously thought Janelle was sloppy and would have definitely ousted her if she didn’t have immunity. Everyone gets a lot of harsh criticism except for Jessica, whose performance Vincent loves. Nancy was proud that Miguel managed to butch his performance, but that’s about all she likes about it.. Elizabeth Berkley asks each member of the group whom they think should be eliminated, and everyone says Michael.
The judges talk amongst themselves. They think Michael is good but not overwhelmingly good. Miguel is unfocused, and James is too feminine. These three guys are in the bottom three.
Michael is safe, but he’ll have to give it his all next week. Miguel is safe as well. However, the show is over for James, and it is time for his last dance. Cue footage of James dancing solo in the studio. How poignant.
Episode shot count: 4
-Debbie Chang, BuddyTV Staff Writer
(Image courtesy of Bravo)
Staff Writer, BuddyTV
