Sparkle Over Subtlety: ‘So You Think You Can Dance’ Comes to Agganis

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Every moment of the So You Think You Can Dance live show on Monday night at Agganis was filled with high-octane, glitter-covered, dizzyingly lighted dance feats. The 13 dancers (seven Season 7 contestants and six all-stars from past seasons) re-performed Bollywood, hip hop, jazz and contemporary routines from the show as well as some sick new numbers choreographed especially for the tour, a two-month, 40-city affair.

Season 7 winner Lauren Froderman and contestant Billy Bell lost their music at one point during a perky jazz routine complete with blue and pink Converse-like sneakers, but didn’t even skip a beat, finishing the routine in silence like pros. But the malfunction was emblematic of the whole show: high energy and awe-inspiring technique, but with something still missing.

So You Think You Can Dance is built around short routines in different genres created by some of the world’s leading choreographers. The show has generated incredible viewer numbers and has brought dance into the mainstream American consciousness in an unprecedented way.

It’s fantastic, addictive TV. But every season has become more and more of a production, and the negative aspects of the live tour made me think about how it’s affecting dance culture in the US. The dancers must throw everything they have into 30-second solos and two-minute duets – tricks and showiness are utilized in a way that would be taboo in an evening-length work by a professional company. Some routines every season, usually Mia Michaels‘ contemporary pieces, are breathtakingly emotional and beautiful works of art. But it’s still all commercial, and many of the So You Think You Can Dance alumni are consequently working as backup dancers, movie extras and workshop circuit fixtures.

If young dancers are training with becoming a So You Think You Can Dance superstar in mind, they will certainly develop their technique and artistry. But they’ll also focus a lot on tricks, and work at becoming adept at everything from ballroom to hip hop rather than dedicating themselves to a particular type of expression. Sure, non-commercial choreographers study multiple genres, but they use them to feed into and expand their movement vocabulary, not to pull of a dazzling two-minute samba routine.

The cheesy skits the tour’s cast members delivered in between dances, the Jersey Shore-esque fist pumps at curtain call and whiplash-inducing pace of it all just seemed depressingly jarring compared to the otherworldly quality I usually love about contemporary dance performances. Commercial dance definitely has value, and everyone involved with the So You Think You Can Dance phenomenon is fantastically talented; but with the mass appeal of the show, I just hope the artistry, surrealism, and movement experimentation of non-mainstream dance doesn’t get lost in the glare of sequins.

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