After a season experimenting with a younger cast, "So You Think You Can Dance" just announced that it'll return to its traditional format this summer.
“This season is about giving our loyal fan base what they’ve been asking for,” executive producer Nigel Lythgoe wrote in a press release. “We’ve decided to go back to basics by bringing the best of our past formats together for an exciting new summer featuring accomplished adult competitors partnered with fan-favorite All-Star dancers."
That means the show is now searching for dancers ages 18-30. Want to audition? This season, rather than holding open calls, "SYTYCD" is asking all potential candidates to apply online: You can upload or provide a link to a video of yourself performing.
Here's the timeline:
- February 19: New York audition application deadline
- March 4-6: New York in-person auditions
- March 5: Los Angeles audition application deadline
- March 17-19: Los Angeles in-person auditions
The pre-screening makes us hopeful that the early audition episodes will focus less on the sometimes cringe-worthy non-dancers making fools of themselves just for fame, and more on real dancers with real potential. Fingers crossed!
Music videos are embracing concert dance more than ever.
It was the music video the world couldn’t stop talking about. Sia’s “Chandelier” featured “Dance Moms” star Maddie Ziegler moving with reckless abandon in a forlorn apartment. The video became the 17th most viewed on YouTube, and won the award for Best Choreography at the 2014 MTV Video Music Awards. After two more collaborations, Sia’s projects starring Ziegler and choreographed by Ryan Heffington have collectively garnered over a billion views on YouTube.
Though we don’t yet know who will take home a VMA this month, one thing is for certain: Dancers are no longer just a backdrop. They’ve become the heart of many videos, like in Taylor Swift’s dance mash-up “Shake It Off” and Carrie Underwood’s splashy “Something in the Water,” featuring the dancers of Shaping Sound.
Pop culture and dance have already come together in television, on shows like “So You Think You Can Dance” and “Breaking Pointe.” But music videos, generally with a three- to four-minute window, pack in only the most impressive movement. It’s a quick dose of culture packaged for consumption. “What we have been creating these past few years are products of evolution and sit in the confines of current culture. There is no chance I could have created this work a decade ago,” says Heffington, who has also choreographed for Arcade Fire, FKA twigs and Florence + the Machine. “The more people see dance in music videos, the more they can relate to it.”
But is boiling dance down to a few minutes of flash good for the art form? The success of a music video is generally determined by its director, says Jade Hale-Christofi, who choreographed a viral video to Hozier’s “Take Me to Church,”danced by Sergei Polunin. He says that director David LaChapelle’s understanding of dance helped give himself and Polunin the freedom to develop a powerful final product. “If it’s done right and it’s done with care and love for the art, more dancers would definitely go into music videos,” he says. “Anyone can look at it and understand the piece. And I think that if you can inspire enough people to watch ballet, that’s a great thing.”
