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'Step It Up & Dance': Rhythm is a dancer
As if last week's hip hop challenge wasn't hard enough, this time around the Step It Up & Dance kids tackle an even bigger issue: dancing while making their own beat.
Spoilers!
All the dancers are anxious to see what the next challenge is and are told to go to the theater. The contestants take a seat while guru Jerry and Elizabeth Berkley get their hair and make-up done. There's a sweeper on the stage who starts doing a beat with his broom. All of a sudden, six others join him, also with brooms. It's the cast of Stomp Out Loud.
After they finish to a standing ovation, Elizabeth comes out and introduces Luke Cresswell, the creator of Stomp, who'll be the guest judge this week. There's a little fear in the eyes of the dancers. Jerry announces that it's all about rhythm this week and that for the next 2 hours, the Stomp crew will give them a crash choreography course. After they Audition, Luke will divide them into winning and losing group. Each group gets two hours to rehearse for The Callback. This isn't going to be pretty, is it?
Cast member Coco will be teaching them the routine. Oscar is having a lot of problems with it because, like hip hop, the center of gravity for this dance is low which is the opposite of ballet. And he admits as much in his confessional. Tovah is having some issues as well but she's fighting through them. After they learn the steps, Luke lets them know that they'll be doing the group choreography as well as a solo. Of all the faces they showed, Nick is the only one who smiles. I can't tell if it's because he's excited or that he just sees the humor in the situation.
It's Audition time. Coco starts them off and other cast members help and then they step away and let the contestants go at it. Cody does the first solo, it wasn't bad. Jenelle gets off beat and says she feels like a "white girl without rhythm." Nick came out strong but kind of fell apart. Miguel and Mochi did surprisingly well. Oscar...well, as Nick says fairly kindly, "it's...not good." I heart Nick. I really do. Michael did okay, he got off-beat. Tovah was also off. It was kind of all shambles.
Every time Luke put someone in the elimination group, he apologized. What a gentleman. Tovah, Oscar and Jenelle (who comments on her own inconsistency) all heard his apologies while Miguel, Mochi and Cody were put on the winning team. Luke was undecided on Michael and Nick so Jerry says...it's time for a "Stomp Off." That's right. A Stomp Off.
It's a 4-bar solo for each. I'll have Nick tell you how he did: "I had a rhythm in my head and then when it was my turn, the rhythm said, 'We're going on vacation and we won't be back for awhile.'" Miguel ended up holding down the beat and won a spot on the winning team, much to Miguel's dismay. Luke will assign a prop to each team and the winning team gets to rehearse first. Also, both teams will perform the numbers with the Stomp cast.
The winning team gets to use the famous trash can lids. Michael's having the most issues of the group and Miguel keeps giving him the eye, which Michael notices but he doesn't care - it's what the judges think that matters.
Tovah lamented in her confessional that she really wants the judges to see she can dance. They keep saying she's pretty, but that not very comforting. Well, it's time for her to prove it as the, as Nick calls it, "Craptastic Group" starts rehearsing. No really, I love him. They'll be doing the broom number. Oscar, to his credit, was struggling but determined to get it (at one point yelling out "Mary Poppins!" in frustration, which I think I might do in real life now). Tovah was in a similar position but she seemed much less...centered about it. Luke chided them all for not using their brooms during their solos, but did so in a tough love way. Their run-through was a mess but there were moments when they pulled it together.
When the get back to their hotels, Team Craptastic tries to practice but don't have many/any brooms. Oscar tries using a vacuum. Hilarious, but not entirely helpful.
In Jerry's pre-performance talk, he tells them that he hopes they go, and I paraphrase, "full f'ing out and ape-shizz." I'd pay to hear Tim Gunn say that.
The winning group goes first. They were way better than I thought they'd be. And, as a small aside, Coco is fantastic. I liked all the solos - I appreciate that Mochi was kicking the lids like cymbals. Luke has the most interesting feedback to me: Michael's told that he did really well in spite of sometimes being a little too eager; he tells Cody that he's like to see him let go more; he tells Miguel that he did really well to but he needs to let go of the training a little more ("every time you came to a stop, you posed"); and Mochi was told that she held her own and had great attitude.
During deliberation, Luke has Miguel and Michael as his top two. As they discuss it, it boils down to Miguel being unique and precise vs. Michael being spontaneous and somewhat wild (read: not entirely on beat). Precision prevails as Miguel wins immunity for the next challenge.
Now it's time for Team Craptastic to take the stage. The beginning was all kinds of sloppy but it came together nicely and only got off in 2 or 3 other spots. The solos were all solid, though not remakable. Nick and Oscar were the stand-outs, though Tovah had a nice beginning. At the end of the performance, Luke had a laugh at how many brooms they broke.
Tovah confused Luke a bit because she was so quiet in rehearsal, he didn't know if she really wanted to be there. The other judges concur but Tovah, nearly in tears, tells them that dancing is everything to her. Luke tells Nick he has better chops than he thinks after Nick confesses to having issues using both his hands and feet rhythmically. Janelle tells the panel that she thought she had good rhythm but this brought the "white girl" out in her. Not something I'd expect her to say to the judges. Luke says that she has good rhythm but needed to choose better patterns - she would've been in the winning group if that were the case. Oscar broke two brooms "in a minute" which Luke says is a good thing, it means he was really trying and compliments him on his work ethic.
The judges converse and, when they ask Luke what he thinks, he says that there were two who had rhythm issues which made them the same in his book. All the other stuff they were talking about (past histories) didn't really mean much to him but he does know that Oscar worked really hard.
It's chopping block time. Janelle has immunity, so she's automatically safe but Nick is safe as well. Yay!
Vincent tells Oscar that he's showing a lot of heart, but it's not lining up with everything else. Nancy tells Tovah that she wants to believe her when she says that she has to dance to live, but kind of doesn't. Which means it's time for Tovah to go home. Poor thing. Oscar hugs her and he's crying harder than she is.
Her final dance sequence was pretty, though the editors didn't put as much content in it as they probably could have. It starts and ends with her touching her image in the mirror as she talks about how Vincent mentioned that maybe she should go on America's Next Top Model instead of dance, but that's not what she wants to do. She also talks about how this competition has opened up her eyes to the worlds outside of ballet. I had hoped that she would have a break-through week but, alas, it wasn't meant to be. I'm hoping next week Nick really steps it up because he amuses me and I want him to stick around.
Do you think Oscar should've have gone home instead? I was a bit surprised with how much trouble the constants had this week, are you? And are you as tired of Miguel bitching about Michael as I am?
I am definitely tired of Miguel bitching about Michael as much as you! And I don't even like Miguel! As for Tovah going home, well she didn't really impress me so I really didn't care if it was her or Oscar
What I don't understand about this show is why their immunity doesn't just go to the callback they have that week. Because it's obviously going to be in the same style as the audition. But the way they do it, someone is often saved from a genre they aren't so proficient at because they did well in one they are.
They treat immunity like Project Runway, which doesn't have mini-challenges, when they should be treating it like Top Chef, which does.
jen | Apr 25, 2008 7:26:13 AM | #They treat immunity like Project Runway because they ARE like Project Runway. This show doesn't have mini-challenges either. The winner is chosen in the Callback, so how would they use immunity then? It has to carry over to the next week.
Beth | Apr 25, 2008 9:21:51 AM | #I liked Tovah, but she isn't up to par with the rest of them! I hate miquel.. he is a cocky bastard, but so is micheal.. so whatever.. they could all leave for all I care!
TrinitySaij | Apr 25, 2008 10:18:12 AM | #
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