So You Think You Can Dance
Contents |
Host
Co-hosts
Judges: Nigel Lythgoe, Arlene Phillips, Louise Redknapp, Sisco Gomez
Guest judge (auditions): Priscilla Samuels
Broadcast
19 Productions / BBC for BBC One, 2 January 2010-
Synopsis
Back in 2005, the BBC attempted to extend its registered trademark Strictly brand with Strictly Dance Fever, a competition for completely unknown dancers. It intriduced Graham Norton to mainstream Saturday night audiences, and uncovered some terrific terpsichorean talent, but petered out after two series when the Corporation chose to give the time over to an Andrew Lloyd Webber promotion instead.
In effect, So You Think You Can Dance is Son of Strictly Dance Fever, though its key components - and personnel - can be traced right back through the generations to the earliest reality-talent hybrids, Popstars and Pop Idol. This isn't surprising, not just because the entire genre owes a huge debt to these pioneers, but also because SYTYCD (and what a superb acronym that isn't) is the creation of Stars judge "Nasty" Nigel Lythgoe, and Idol creator Simon Fuller. Having given birth to both Pop Idol and its descendant SYTYCD, Fuller has now technically become his own great-grandmother, which must be rather awkward at family get-togethers.
The format offers no huge innovation. Nationwide auditions see talented solo dancers aged from 18-35 given the opportunity to dance in front of a panel of experts. The 100 that impress are given a golden ticket to the Choreography Camp stage. Here, over three days, they are put through their paces by a group of choreographers you've never heard of, and some bloke off Strictly before the field is narrowed to 14 dancers, who will compete in live Saturday night programmes in front of the judges, and the viewing public. Here, two dancers (one "boy" and one "girl") are eliminated each week, until the winner is chosen, and receives £100,000, and a chance to perform on the American version of the show.
Although the show produces a single winner, the dancers mostly perform in pairs, with couples (always boy-girl, save for the final when all possible permutations perform) and dance styles allocated at random each week. Unlike Strictly Dance Fever, the couples are not asked to provide their own choreography but instead work with professional choreographers. Evidently these are top names in choreography; we can't claim to have heard of more than three or four, but then we can't be experts in everything - suffice it to say that the competitiors often seem genuinely starstruck when told who they'll be working with.
The actual shows mostly follow the usual realitalent (and if anyone from the OED is reading this, we claim that as a neologism) template, with the odd tweak thrown in, or sometimes thrown out. The dancers dance in pairs, the judges judge in their infinite wisdom (but do not score), and the phone lines close in twenty minutes. The two couples with the least votes get to do 30-second solos (were it not for the fact that SYTYCD has been going in the States since 2005, we'd think Nige and Si were taking notes from The Underdog Show) and then the judges decide which two individuals to send packing.
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Champions
2010 Charlie Bruce
Inventor
Simon Fuller and Nigel Lythgoe
