July 21st, 2010 by soullldiva

Yes, there have been a LOT of upsets on Season 7 of SYTYCD. Two of the best dancers are gone, and not because of lack of votes. My first pick for early choice to win is gone. The best female dancer on the show is gone. What NEXT? Billy Bell sidelined with a knee injury? Oh, what’s that? Billy’s injured? Oh.

Gorgeous, wonderful, teddy bear Kenny Ortega is a guest judge tonight which is really amazing and a great treat for us. Sa-weeeet!

Does anyone know what Cat Deely is wearing tonight? My husband said it looked like her original dress had static cling and picked up a red scarf. He has a point.

First up: Last girl standing Lauren and all-star Twitch with a Hip Hop routine. I’ll give this to Lauren she is one powerful dancer. She’s got muscles and she’s not afraid to use them. She works this dance within an inch of it’s life. What about that rollover she did–twice? What? Cool. Not my favorite NappyTabs number, but it’s pretty cool nonetheless. Judge’s love it and her. Nigel noted that Twitch looked like he’d been “ridden hard and put away wet.” Ooh, baby.

Jose is next with all-star Allison for a contemporary number with Sonya Tayeh. A sad, breakup contemporary number, which will be interesting to see Jose in, since he’s super good at loving the girl. And Allison says she melts when she’s around him. Hmmmm… The dance starts on the edge of the stage which is awesome, we’ve not seen that for a while. Jose really got nailed bad last week for his dancing and I’m not certain that he pulls it out here, either. He’s very into the acting and the moments with Allison, though, to his credit. But then again, there is not much dancing for him to do here. The piece is mostly acting. Very quaint and sweet. The judges have trouble critiquing it, as his performance was great but his dancing didn’t seem to shine because of what she gave him to do.

Robert is paired with Lauren for a Tyce DiOrio Jazz routine. The boys are fawning (or is that foaming) over Lauren and her juicy booty. Sexy dance indeed for the two of them, along with sexy music from My Life With the Thrill Kill Kult…although I am left a bit unimpressed with the entire thing. It was good, though, don’t get me wrong. I just wasn’t blown away. Mia noted that it was refreshing to see just a strait jazz piece with no story. The choreography was good, but I do miss story (that’s my thang and all). Judges loved it and Robert.

Little Kent is matched with Kathryn for another Sonya Tayeh number, but jazz this time. Hopefully Kent can contain his love for the audience this time. I love this piece from the music to the costumes, to the great choreography. The chemistry is there between them, but is more like sister and brother rather than romantic. But it works for them because the both of them are so sweet. This is just tons of fun. And the song, “Tightrope” by Janelle Monae is just first rate music, I’m checking into her right now. Mia gets on his case for making the choreography “juvenile” with his facial expression. I really see her point, but it seemed to work in this piece. The other judges love him.

AdeChike gets to do a NappyTabs Hip Hop with Comfort next. This one is a bit more serious than the cowboy one, so it should be interesting. Not to mention she really smacked the hell out of him in the rehearsal (did you see the slowmo?). Lyrical Hip Hop? We’ll see. Oooh, props on the stage! Alicia Keys’ “Fallin’” lends itself so wonderfully to hip hop, yet is not the usual driving music. I liked it. I think that it needed a bit more of the softer side of the love to match the violence, but it was very good, especially Ade, he really was moved by the scenario, you could totally tell. It was very raw and real, and very cinematic, as the judges said. Nicely done by AdeChike!

Lauren and Robert are the first contestants to be paired together for the night, and get to do a Dmitry Chaplin Samba, set at a beach party. Lauren’s butt is a lethal weapon, ya’ll. I’ve never seen a behind cocked up and rolled so much. Pretty amazing stuff. She shot me with her butt. This was a non-traditional samba, pretty cool, though. I love Dmitry. They did a great job, very clean, precise and lots of shaking and rolls. Robert really looked like a ballroom dancer, wow!

AdeChike and Jose get to do a…Paso Doble together? Two guys, very interesting concept. Will Dmitry and the boys be able to pull it off with the concept of them fighting over the girl? I think the Paso is the most challenging dance anyone will ever do on the show for so many reasons. It is unfortunately clear who the more technically accomplished and undoubtedly better dancer is here, folks. It is kinda unfair to pair Jose with AdeChike. But on the whole, it was not so bad, they were both committed to the piece and had connection.

The last contestant pairing is Kent and Billy. Will Billy bring Kent down to earth or will Kent send billy up into the stratosphere? We’ll never know, will we? Nor will we ever get to see Billy do Step. And I’m disappointed, because for two contemporary/ballet boys to do straight rhythmic movement would be something to see. Twitch gets to do the routine with him which is fine, but defeats the purpose of having two ballet boys do it. I much prefer stepping with a large crowd of men, I think it resonates better and has more power. But I think it’s great we get to see a new style on the show, one that doesn’t get much air time on national TV (Tahitian dancing, Russian dancing, what’s next?) Not my favorite thing, but done pretty well. The judges gush over it and that’s…okay. Mia says Kent is the one to beat. Mia, love ya, but we’re not on the same page.

The standout solo of the night is the only one I’m going to comment on and that’s AdeChike’s solo to the infamous “Women’s Work” covered by Maxwell. This was an absolutely superb solo, and I could not take my eyes off him. I was a little nervous for him using the song that was already “done” two season’s ago with Tyce’s cancer piece, but no. He ripped his heart out and left it on the stage. Perfection. Ade is officially my new front runner and favorite dancer on the show. Can I get an amen?

That’s all for this week, it’s whittling down to the best of the best. Who will go home tomorrow night? Let’s hope it’s due to votes and not an injury. Cross your fingers, people.

March 18th, 2010 by soullldiva

Today I needed a little injection of beauty into my world. There’s no better excuse to share a Dance Quote from lovely Isadora Duncan:

“The dancer’s body is simply the luminous manifestation of the soul.
The true dance is an expression of serenity;
it is controlled by the profound rhythm of inner emotion.
Emotion does not reach the moment of frenzy out of a spurt of action;
it broods first, it sleeps like the life in the seed,
and it unfolds with a gentle slowness.
The Greeks understood the continuing beauty of a movement
that mounted, that spread, that ended with a promise of rebirth.” Isadora Duncan

To accompany the poetry (that’s always what her quotes sound like to me), I found a fantastic video of the Isadora Duncan Dance Group performing in Bologna in 1997. These are just snippets, but you get to see choreographed pieces from Isadora herself, including “The Butterfly”, “The Furies” and “The Revolutionary”.

I attempted to find the group’s website to no avail (even tried to find an archived page). If you know where this group’s webpage has gone to, let me know!

Hope you all enjoy the day ;o)

January 25th, 2010 by soullldiva

Cirque du Soleil, (Circus of the Sun) is a self-described “dramatic mix of circus arts and street entertainment”. (Thanks, Wikipedia!) The production company is locate in Montreal, Quebec and was founded by two street performers, Guy Laliberte and Daniel Gauthier (later director Franco Dragone would join on as a director).

Certainly more theatrical than the traditional 3-ring circus (and there are no animals), what really drives Cirque is the original characters that develop during the show. Yes, there are clowns, but does Barnum & Bailey’s tell a story of a clown watching his own funeral, inspired by “The Grand Parade: Portrait of the Artist as Clown” on display at the National Gallery of Canada? I think not.

Cirque artfully blends many types of performing: dance, acrobatics, music, acting, wire, ring and fabric work, and even the sets and costumes are themselves works of art. Sometimes it’s almost too much for the senses to take in!

Here is an example, from their 2005 show Corteo (about the clown mentioned above). There are highwire acts in circuses, but what about a dancing highwire artist in TOE SHOES? Kid you not. And just drink in the other wire work being done (angels who assist her), and the beautiful classic flamenco guitar music and other performers dressed as harlequin clowns.

Eye candy, right?

There are also transformation of normal things in Cirque to extraordinary, fun things. Like turning trampolines into beds and having the “kids” bounce on them! They bounce so high and keep their lovely lines, toes pointed. Really fun.

I had an acting teacher who encouraged us to go see Cirque when it came to town, because it wasn’t a circus to show us animal tricks, it showed us the amazing things that human beings could do. And amazing it is. It’s really about being completely submersed in a cornucopia of art forms for two solid hours. Heaven.

Do you have a favorite Cirque show? Let me know!

October 22nd, 2009 by soullldiva

Doing some more studying the lovely Isadora Duncan, I discovered something new for myself. Isadora actually brought dance into the 20th century as true, pure, high-art form. Until that time, dance was either done in toe shoes, restricted in movement by technique, or on a vaudeville stage (or even possibly bar room).

“I have discovered the dance. I have discovered the art which has been lost for two thousand years.” Isadora Duncan

In 1909 Isadora moved to Paris and started a dance school where the mode was to dance barefoot with loose hair and dress in flowing scarves and Grecian-like tunics. She brought actual primitive, improvisational dance to the forefront–countering rigid ballet styles that she found to be “ugly and against nature.”

At the core of her technique was using the solar plexus and the torso (we would say “center” or “core” these days) as the point where all the body’s movements to come from. With this basic idea Isadora is said to have invented what is known as “Modern Dance.”

“Dance is the movement of the universe concentrated in an individual.” Isadora Duncan

Through her dance she demonstrated her defiance of the time and expressed her thought, opinions and feelings with poetic imagination and enthusiastic humor. Isadora sought not only to raise dance to a sacred art form, but to find poetry and beauty in everyday movement and life.

As a dancer who does a lot of improvisation and what I call “dancing from the heart,” I thank Isadora for her gift.

“My motto–sans limites” (without limits) Isadora Duncan