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We just have our friends and our dancing
It’s a little sad to see the audition rounds of So You Think You Can Dance end, because once the top dancers get to Las Vegas, it gets so much more intense. It’s painful to watch some of the breakdowns we see in Vegas every year, but it’s a definite uplift to get to be around for the top twenty getting the good news. As good as the dancing gets from here on out, there are some fun aspects to the auditions that were unique and entertaining.

Some of tonight’s best moments were from dancers who had auditioned in past years and had either been rejected outright or cut in Vegas. Yesenia Gomez, who changed her life after not making it through last year’s Vegas round and lost fifty pounds, gave us the most emotional moment of the night, when her knee broke down on stage, but her friend Philip Courter came through for her. Last year Nigel called him one-dimensional, but this audition was vivid 3D, with a little added passion.

What makes these auditions special is often the way the judges, especially Nigel, address the emotions of the moment, and when he told Yesenia he was proud of her, it brought tears to her eyes (and mine). It was great to hear Mary tell Rebecca Hart that she had just had her “moment.” And it was obvious the judges really “got” Evan Kasprzak’s homage to Gene Kelly and the dancers of the forties and fifties. But they also nailed salsa dancers Janette and Romulo on the fact that, while their tricks were fantastic, the dancing was “all over the place.” (She made it to Vegas; he didn’t.)

It’s always good to see genre dancers, tappers and poppers, get their due. I don’t know what Ashley Henry was trying to do, however, but it was her personality, and not her dancing, that got her through to the choreography round. It was a gift to her, and she took it that way. She didn’t make it to Vegas, but she told the judges that she had already signed up for ballet classes and would be back next year.

Finally, I loved (loved!) the amazing comic routine Travis Wall did at the end of tonight’s show. He was my favorite in season two, and he’s still a joy to watch.

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