“SO YOU Think You Can Dance” judges (from left) Mary Murphy, Nigel Lythgoe and Cat Deeley
There are many singing tilts on TV these days, but the best talent search program on the tube is a dance competition, “So You Think You Can Dance.” Every time we watch the show on the Velvet channel, we are bowled over by the high level of talent and training abundantly evident in the contestants’ performances.
And the jurors who pass judgment on their skills and charisma are most judicious in the verdicts they make, allowing only the cream of an already excellent crop to get into the tilt’s finals, where they are made to master routines in all the major dance types and styles, to prove their all-around prowess and versatility.
Indeed, the dance competition’s level is so high that it makes many singing tilts look and sound like Amateur Night.
Since the dancers have to express themselves and “speak” using their entire bodies, they’ve developed their physical “instrument” to such a rigorous degree that they come off as virtual athletes who can execute practically any move that the most daring and sadistic choreographer can think up.
Most singers take voice lessons when their teen or grown-up voice placement has already established itself. On the other hand, kids start taking ballet lessons when they’re only 5 or 6 years old!
Thus, a number of them have already been dancing for a full decade by the time they hit their mid-teens, which is when they’re deemed ready to compete in nationwide competitions like “So You Think You Can Dance.”
Fact is, some of the contestants in the TV dance tilt are even older, so they’re even more experienced and emotionally prepared and expressive than the teen talents who manage to get into the dance finals. They’ve been through the mill, so to speak, so they are even more focused and determined than their precociously gifted juniors.
But, don’t knock the newbies, because they’ve turned out to be really fast learners. We’ve seen new dancers who started out doing only one dance style really well, but worked so hard in a relatively short time that they ended up mastering the other dance modes, as well.
Some years ago, we caught an edition of the show in which a petite Fil-Am finalist did really well. Despite the stiff competition provided by the bigger and taller American bets, she more than measured up to them, and in fact (if memory serves) ended up in second place!
This in turn reminds us of the time when the late, great choreographer Bob Fosse, decided to produce a musical tribute to dance and dancers on Broadway, and got the best American dancers to star in it. One of his chosen soloists was a really “tiny” Filipina named Cynthia Onrubia, and he even gave her a couple of challenging numbers to fully showcase her impressive talent.
When we watched a performance of that show, we took great pride in Cynthia’s standout performance and learned an important lesson from it:
Sheer, exceptional talent will eventually get recognized and showcased, no matter where the performer comes from. And that some of us can be as good as anybody else—so “colonial mentality” is both an insult—and an irrelevance!
Catch a telecast of “So You Think You Can Dance” real soon, and get similarly excited and inspired!