TORONTO – I have been to many shows in my life. Highlights include the Wonderland stop by TLC, Boyz II Men and M.C. Hammer on the same bill, a couple of Virgin Music Festivals, seeing almost every episode of Canadian Idol live and the American Idol tour stop earlier this year.
With all of that experience, I have no problem admitting that the So You Think You Can Dance tour was the greatest show that I have ever attended.
I want to make something quite clear. I was late to get in on the Dance craze. When I initially heard the concept for the show, I thought that there was no way it would rival the popularity of American Idol. The first time I even saw an episode was exactly a year ago and that was only because I wanted to make sure that I was prepped for the last So You Think You Can Dance tour. Since that day, I have never missed an episode of the show that has become one of the hottest on TV and now even has a spin-off in Canada.
As a result of my newfound love for dance, I was excited to check out the tour again and when it hit the Air Canada Centre on Sunday night, I knew that the sold out audience was in for a memorable night. Even with my high level of both anticipation and expectation, even the world’s foremost reality television expert could not predict the spectacular show that was put on by Joshua Allen and the rest of the Dance finalists.
The show opened with a video of Nigel Lythgoe introducing his top five auditions and this preceded the first group performance of the evening.
Katee and Josh started with their samba. It was a hot number and considering that this pair was widely considered to be the best of the entire competition, I understood why it was chosen to lead the pair performances.
With that being said, I definitely thought leading with the evening’s second performance might have been better. Twitch and Kherington got the entire crowd buzzed with their exciting “Don’t Touch Me Now” hip hop routine and this actually was a contender for my favorite dance of the night.
Courtney and Will were next with their hip hop routine and this preceded Jessica King’s solo.
From there, it was time for the most memorable dances from the show to begin, starting with an electrifying jive from Gev and Chelsie. In terms of the differences between seeing the show live versus just watching it on TV, this was definitely the performance where I saw a clear distinction as the synchronization between the breaker and the latin dancer was flawless.
One of the performances that I was the most excited about was “The Garden.” The jazz routine choreographed by Sonya Tayeh was one of the most memorable of the entire season and really proprelled Courtney into the finals. The live version did not disappoint. I would also like to point out that for the majority of the concert, the dancers wore the same outfits that they did on the show.
Joshua and Katee came back out to do Wade Robson’s Broadway number. It was good, but I felt that Katee stole the show. This was followed by Will & Jessica’s contemporary routine, and then a rousing hip-hop routine by Comfort and Mark.
One of the loudest cheers of the evening came when Twitch and Kherington were introduced to doing their Mia Michaels’ contemporary sequence (with the bed). The imagery, form and technique were a wonder to watch and it was the only time in the course of the evening where the crowd remained completely still and mesmerized (Murtz-merized?)
The five guys (Joshua, Twitch, Mark, Gev and Thayne) performed Nigel Lythgoe’s “5 Guys Named Moe” routine and this looked to be even tougher than it came across on TV.
The Around The World theme was used to introduce a variety of performances and Gev Manoukian made himself the butt of almost every joke by wearing the traditional dress of whichever country’s dance was being honored. And when I say “traditional dress,” I am speaking completely literally because Gev wore the female outfit which delighted the crowd.
The performances here included:
– The Cha-Cha (by Chelsea T and Thayne)
– The Trepak (by Josh and Twitch)
– The Viennese Waltz (by Courtney and Mark)
– Bollywood Dance (by Katee and Josh… who else?!)
And a group Bollywood number led to the show’s intermission.
After the break, it was time for more dancing and some of the most memorable performances of the season.
These included the “Mercy”/Door routine by Twitch and Katee, and Chelsie and Joshua’s Argentine Tango which was choreographed by Dmitry Chaplin (who made a brief appearance since he happened to be in town for So You Think You Can Dance Canada). Chaplin was introduced by a doe-eyed Courtney.
Twitch and Comfort did their “Forever On The Dancefloor” hip hop routine and this was followed by the brilliant Adam & Eve number by Jessica and Will (two of the most underrated dancers on the tour).
Gev and Courtney delighted the crowd (after the auspicious flirting throughout the course of the evening) with their “Don’t Stop The Music” cha-cha and Katee and Josh did their Top 6 contemporary number to “All By Myself.”
Courtney and Josh did their “Skip It”/Frankenstein routine (which was choreographed by Dave Scott) and this led to the two most-anticipated performances of the evening.
The first was the “Bleeding Love” routine by Chelsie and Mark which got everyone on their feet. I kid you not, the entire audience was singing along.
As if it couldn’t get any better, this was followed up by the dance that I wanted to see the most (and told Katee about when I interviewed her earlier in the day). It was her “No Air” routine with Josh (which I thought was the best dance of the entire season). It didn’t disappoint and it was the only moment for the entire show where I lost my sense of journalistic objectivity and couldn’t help but enjoy the awesomeness that was being displayed on the stage in front of me.
There were some more group performances and all of the dancers did solos in addition to all of the pieces above. The crowd got a special treat because the cast of So You Think You Can Dance Canada was in attendance and were invited up on stage by their U.S. counterparts. I’ll have more on the Northern version of the show soon as I am ready to start covering it live… Canadian Idol-style.
It truly was the greatest spectacle that I have ever witnessed. Usually in reviews, the show is either recommended or not recommended. That’s not the case this time. I INSIST that you check this out because it is truly something that you have to see (and not just read about) to believe. In fact, I might take a little road trip to one of the remaining tour cities below to check it out again.
SAT NOV 1 Mashantucket, CT MGM Grand Theater
SUN NOV 2 Manchester, NH Verizon Wireless Center
MON NOV 3 Providence, RI Dunkin’ Donuts Center
WED NOV 5 Long Island, NY Nassau Coliseum
THU NOV 6 Newark, NJ Prudential Center
SAT NOV 8 Pittsburgh, PA Petersen Events Center
SUN NOV 9 Norfolk, VA Constant Convocation Center
MON NOV 10 Baltimore, MD 1st Mariner Arena
WED NOV 12 Charlotte, NC Time Warner Cable Arena
THU NOV 13 Duluth, GA Arena at Gwinnett
FRI NOV 14 Pensacola, FL Pensacola Civic Center
SUN NOV 16 Miami, FL American Airlines Arena
MON NOV 17 Tampa, FL St. Pete Times Forum
Thanks to my friends at SYTYCDism for helping with the setlist.
Stay tuned for my exclusive interviews with Jessica, Chelsea T, Mark, Katee and Josh that will be coming up!
