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SYTYCD Season 7 Top 7

frau sally benz

Spoilers below!

This week on SYTYCD: more injuries, even more tears, and Cat should get her own show. Jump over to the recap and discuss with me.

Last week, Alex left due to his injury. This week, Ashley is the one injured, so hopefully she won’t leave based on that. But it was a good night, so let’s get to it. Oh, and sorry again for no videos, they’re really starting to crack down on those (every time I find one, it’s gone the next time I go back) =/

Lauren & Mark – A “cultural” dance by Taina Liufau, which was a Tahitian dance. Lauren did really well, my legs killed just watching her. She has officially become my favorite.

AdéChiké & Anya – A salsa routine by Liz & Danny. That was really intense — so many stunts! He almost dropped her in the beginning and some of the harder stuff wasn’t smooth, but he did a good job with the regular steps and typical stunts. Not his best, but it was good.

Jose & Courtney – Broadway by Joey Dowling. I love Mr. Cellophane! Such a great song. The routine was not good, and I’m glad the judges said so. Heaven forbid you take away smiles and focus on dance on a dance competition.

Robert & Allison – Travis contemporary piece that stole the show. Emotional routines are often good, but this was INCREDIBLE. I loved it and I’ll admit that even though I’m not a Robert fan, I thought to myself “I’m so glad he stayed in the competition long enough to perform this.” It was definitely his best dancing.

Billy & Anya – Jive by Louis Van Amstel. They weren’t always together, and that slightly annoyed me, but I think he did a good job. He did connect with her, and that was good to see.

Kent & Neil – A Tyce Broadway routine. Kent and Neil need to be on Broadway right now. It wasn’t emotional or overly done or anything like that, and yet I really liked it! They were so in sync, they danced it so well, Kent was so good!

Lauren & Billy – A jazz piece by Mandy Moore. It was an adorable piece and lots of fun to watch – it really suited both of them. Lauren is incredible! I loved her tonight.

Jose & Dominic – The show’s first ever breaking routine by Tabitha & Napoleon (with help from Legacy!). It was great to see breaking on the show, but I have to say that even in his own style, Jose isn’t fast and doesn’t have as much power as others who have been on the show. Also, why did everybody look like they were gonna cry? I doubt he’ll be in the bottom after dancing his style, but I hope so…

AdéChiké & Kent – A Dee Caspary contemporary piece. I really enjoyed it and I thought they were both great. The choreography really suited them.

Robert (& Kathryn) – Disco by Doriana. I love disco! I wasn’t really watching Robert, I have to admit. But what I did see of him was good.

I loved Lauren this week, she is so great, and Kent has grown a lot as well. I want Jose to go home. Still. But I would be fine if Billy left at this point. This was probably my favorite night of the season. Certainly, there weren’t any major let-downs.

What did you all think?

11 thoughts on SYTYCD Season 7 Top 7

  1. GRRR, it bugs me that the judges seem to have so little to say to Lauren. Other than that it was a great show and I’m bummed that I missed AdéChiké’s samba.

    I have to say I was kind of unimpressed with Jose’s breakdancing routine. There were parts that seemed really awkward, but I don’t know if that’s because of the dancing or the choreography.

    My partner thinks Billy will be out this week because I can’t “out-Kent Kent”.

  2. I think the judges constant blowing smoke up Jose’s ass is such bullshit. Dominic is so much better than him and their dance showed that. AND Jose was out of sync.

    Lauren is my favorite as well.

    Billy really connected with both partners this week, but I’m over him.

    AdéChiké probably had his best week, in my opinion, even with a weak salsa. Sort of like Robert, who almost dropped Kathryn in the disco number, but delivered an incredibly dance with Allison.

    Can we talk about Kent? Everyone just about creamed themselves after his Shoeless Joe dance, but Neil buried him. Truly; every time they danced side-by-side you could see Neil’s leaps were higher, his kicks were straighter, his extensions were cleaner. Kent was marvelous in his dance with AdéChiké, truly moving, but why did no one notice his weakness compared to Neil?

  3. Good question, Deborah. I think Kent and Jose are the weakest dancers on the show right now, but they get nothing but praise from the judges.

    I would like to add that I love the male-male routines this year. Having to choreograph two guys seems to have sparked extra creativity among the choreographers. I would love for the show to pair up two of the women instead of constantly pairing them with a man.

  4. With only two women left, that’s unlikely to happen this season. I agree about the male-male. They’re very worried about staying very het, but even within that constraint, they’re so expressive.

    The thing with the chair was beautiful. I was surprised at how easy the story was to understand.

  6. I’m not sure why you put the dance by Taina Liufau in quotes as “cultural”. Weren’t ALL the dances last night, and every week, “cultural”–meaning both ethnically/regionally specific and “artistic”? I’m confused.

    And, they do routinely tell Jose he isn’t the best, isn’t the strongest, isn’t the most polished. Every week they remind him that his strength is his humility, sweetness, and personality, NOT his dancing skills. So again, I’m confused at why some folks think all they do is worship him. They like him because he’s not egoy and because he’s a very sensitive, sweet person. And that’s what they say about him when complimenting him. I’ve yet to hear one judge tell him “You can win this thing!”, the way they have a bit or a lot with a few of his competitors.

    I totally agree that the male-male dancing has added a lot to the show and hope that in future seasons we see as much female-female pairings–with creative storylines, and that they don’t “revert” to het-pairings only, which are boring a lot of the time, because the stories they want to tell are either boy-loves-girl, girl-needs-boy, or girl-and-boy-are-breaking-up.

    I thought it was brilliant of Travis to take a female and male dancer and make the story transcend heterosexuality. Bravo to him. And, this would have been powerful also with a female dancer playing the daughter supporting the mother. But in some ways it helped break some stereotypes to have the son be the one to extend himself spiritually and emotionally to help a woman. And, it was clear that dance touched everyone, and that Robert’s own humanity really came through. I’ve not been able to get last week’s criticism of him as smarmy out of my mind, probably because it fits so well, but at least he put that aside for this performance.

    And I agree Lauren is awesome. But I think Billy is also awesome, although we’ve had enough footage of his nervous laughter for one season, er, lifetime. I think if Billy is able to keep going with connecting to his partners and the audience, he stands a chance.

    I’d be interested to know from those who don’t especially like him, what it is you don’t especially like. I get that he’s really, really, REALLY white and rather class-privileged. But is there anything else?

    I hope Ashley is able to continue this season and isn’t the one to be automatically out tonight.

  7. Julian, I put cultural in quotations for exactly the reason you mention — the dances they do are already cultural, yet Lauren’s card listed “cultural” as the dance, not Tahitian. I don’t know why they’d do that, but it was weird.

    As for not liking Billy, I don’t know about anybody else, but it’s not that I don’t like him, I just don’t see him growing as much as some of the other competitors. This week he definitely connected with his partners, but it took him weeks to get there. Of course, I’d rather see Jose leave tonight, but I don’t know if that’s gonna happen.

    As for everyone talking about Kent… I like him and I think he’s a great dancer. Of course, he’s not as good as Neil who’s more mature and has many more years of experience, but he really held his own in that dance and it impressed me.

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  10. I think you aptly described Jose’s dancing prowess even as a breaker – he’s not fast enough or powerful enough, which was apparent next to Dominic. I especially noticed how much more lateral Dominic was.

    Lauren has become my favorite, too. She grows each week, which is fun to watch and she killed the Tahitian dance with those hips!

    @Julian Real: I think they do worship Jose, because they consistently fail to give him constructive criticism even Adam who is usually good at summing up Nigel and Mia’s critiques and explaining to the dancer HOW they can use the critique. Yes, they sometimes fail to do this with the other dancers, but it is every week for Jose and it is tiring. And frankly, it is a dance show, not a great personality show. I think the treatment of Jose is unfair to the other dancers who are technically superior to him and want it just as bad. I think Jose needs to take some more dance classes, build up his strength, then try to break into dancing. And I really liked Jose at first, he was one of my faves to get on the show, but I think his time has passed.

    I really like Billy. I think he is a superb soloist (I always love his solo dances the best!), but he’s just not very good at partnering. I see Billy on Broadway, rather than doing music videos and other mainstream dance venues.

  11. I think I’m still bummed from Alex’s departure because I was singularly unimpressed by any of the dances this week. I like seeing the guys dancing together, but am getting annoyed by the range of topics their dances include (sports, battle – even Alex’s incredible hip-hop routine was a “therapeutic” battle, poisonous relationships with women.) And Mia just loving “boys”. I’m remembering previous seasons’ female duo dances as being uniformly weak – wasn’t there one about a fox and her cub? Perhaps it’s seeing the professional dancers and seeing what a woman could be given versus how the contestants are being marketed.

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