The evening's dance started with the three finalist boys performing jazz choreography by Sonja Tayeh. They wore purple checker pants and black shirts with neon accents all over and their faces were partially painted in silver. They gave us solid, sharp movements to a driving beat. Evan stood on the backs of Ade and Brandon, then Evan and Ade threw Brandon high in the air. The unison was tight as we saw back flips in perfect unison and double turns in the air.
For the rest of the night, the dancers paired up randomly and performed styles that were randomly selected. In addition, each dancer performed a short solo of their choice.
Jeanine and Ade were put together in a Samba by Louis van Amstel. Looked more like a disco than a samba. The choreography was full of strutting, vamping, and poses and it didn't contain much actual dancing. This posing quality made the piece look more like a music video from a singer who couldn't dance than a Latin samba. Jeanine looked sexy in her purple costume with feathers on the back side, but she spent most of the dance with her mouth open. Mary Murphy didn't like it. Guest judge Lil C said it fell short.
Kayla – Ms. Leggy McLeggington – performed a solo with her exciting, wild abandon. This is a girl who can whack and she flashed her high kicks and lines all over the stage.
Melissa and Evan performed an old style Broadway number that was happy and fun. This suited the couple well. They were sharp and musical. The choreography was so fast that lesser dancers could have made it mushy. Instead, these dancers showed each moment as clear and defined, which carried the piece. Melissa looked a tad winded at the end. Lil C said he expected more from Evan, but Nigel said Evan brought enough.
Ade brought enough on his solo, too. He’s big and masculine and he moves big and masculine. He has great bounce and hangs in the air. His musicality is superb and it's this exceptional phrasing that makes his solo extraordinary instead of merely adequate. He pulls at the music and then catches up again. As Gelsey Kirkland would have said, "he robs and steels," borrowing a moment here only to give it back there. This sense of timing is what sets dancers at this level apart from the others. And although he's a technical dancer, it doesn't look like he's stringing bits of technique together. He's dancing.
Brandon Bryant and Kayla Radomski in a contemporary routine by Stacey Tookey.
Next, rock solid strong Brandon paired up with wild, leggy Kayla. They danced a compelling contemporary piece by Stacy Tookey about a complicated relationship between a mistress and a married man. Kayla looked stunning in a red night gown and Brandon, playing the married man, wore a suit. Lil C said they were "beyond amazing" and Mary put them first class on the hot tamale train.
Melissa performed in pointe shoes again and danced an understated solo to the music "You Put a Spell on Me." Melissa has nice feet which complement her line, but those feet don't show when she's wearing point shoes. Maybe it's because the shoes didn't have ribbons or because they weren't the right shoes for her – or maybe it's weakness in her feet – but the effect was clunky and looked rather unskilled.
Jeanine and Ade performed a slamming hip hop routine by Tabitha and Napoleon D’Umo. They wore green and yellow costumes in a performance about getting evicted from an apartment so the dancers used boxes as props. It was a long, difficult piece that was further complicated by difficult movements with boxes. Ade hit it hard and was bound in the beat. Jeanine certainly held her own.
Brandon performed his solo to the music of Carmina Burana and got a standing ovation from the judges. It's hard to match the power of that music, but he rose for the occasion with a raw, passionate animal quality. He also laid down some solid technique and nailed a flip. Although the judges weren't commenting on the other solos of the evening, Nigel managed to say that Brandon "Has just given us one of the best solos we have ever seen on the show." Yes it was hot, but lets be honest, Blake from season one still holds the honor.
Melissa and Evan then performed a fun and high paced quickstep. So You Think You Can Dance has really set the standard in how to film dance in an exciting way. And perhaps it was the superb camera moves and sweeps that made the dancers seem flawless because Murphy said "It didn't live up to my expectations." Of course, her background is in ballroom and she's a stickler for certain minutia that most people wouldn't notice anyway, but all the judges seemed to think that the couple lost energy in the middle of the number. Furthermore, it's worth noting that this couple was lucky to pick two styles of dance this evening which matched their temperament – rather saccharine – because neither of them have any edge at all and could have suffered if they were challenged with a raw hip hop or something grungy or hard.
Then Jeanine performed a powerful solo with a big jump and lots of sexy posing and struts.
And Evan, forever a throwback, seemed to evoke Laural from Laural and Hardy and Jacky Gleason at the same time. He is the modern master of that happy-heal clicking quality, the prerequisite for dancers on the silver screen during the era of the big Hollywood studios.
Kayla and Brandon burnt it up with a super fast disco. Brandon started with a full-on gymnastic sequence. From there on it was all out at 90 miles an hour in a disc-o-rama whirl which included big, upside down split lifts and fast gyrations. They put everything they had into it and at the end of the dance they literally couldn't breath. This is a strong couple. Mary said they "hit a home run tonight."
Melissa Sandvig, Kayla Radomski and Jeanine Mason in a jazz routine by Sonya Tayeh.
The girls closed the show as a trio. They wore superhero costumes and displayed ample woman power, demonstrating why they are three strong contenders for the finale. Any one of the girls would make a perfect winner for the show although I'm favoring Kayla to win the whole competition at this point. I think Ade and Brandon are standing out as serious contenders next to Evan's boyish, fun quality. Both Ade and Brandon would make great finalists.
Eric Wolfram appeared on renowned stages like the Paris Opera in Paris, The Kirov in St. Petersburg, Lincoln Center in New York, The Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. while performing with the critically-acclaimed Royal Winnipeg Ballet and San Francisco Ballet. Today he films dance in New York City.
*Disclaimer: The views of Eric Wolfram are not necessarily the views of Voice of Dance*
