So You Think You Can Dance Teaser

“We have a couple of choices,” Irina said, walking over to the sound system. “’Uptown Funk’ by Mark Ronson, ‘Thinking Out Loud,’ by Ed Sheeran, ‘Centuries,’ by Fall Out Boy and ‘Lips are Moving’ by Meghan Trainor.”

“Let’s listen to all of them and immediately nix the one that is the most annoying,” I said. We sat down on the floor, listening to each of the songs. Almost immediately, we eliminated “Lips are Moving” and “Centuries.” Both had been overplayed and were bound to drive both of us nuts by the end of the choreography process. They were both great songs, but didn’t have the diversity for what we needed. We had to separate the strong dancers from the weak. “Thinking Out Loud” could prove to be a beautiful lyrical, contemporary piece while “Uptown Funk” lent itself to more partner work.

“I don’t know,” Irina said. “Both songs are pretty great. What do you think?”

“It depends on what they’re looking for,” I murmured. “What do they want to see? Beautiful lines and something flowy or intricate, challenging choreography?”

“I’m thinking the latter, Edward. You remember the choreography round from last season,” she shuddered.

“I was lucky. I was sent through right after my audition,” I snickered. “I heard rumors of how wicked hard it was. Almost all of the dancers who performed it messed up.”

“How about we split the difference?” Irina suggested. “I like the Mark Ronson song. I think that we could do a ton with it, making it challenging with lifts and fast footwork, but have some spots where dancers can really shine. Have a nice combination of jazz, hip hop, and ballroom.”

“Let’s put it on repeat and brain storm,” I smiled, setting up the sound system.

We spent a couple of hours just getting the ‘language’ of our dance down. It had a lot of attitude immediately. Irina and I just had fun, creating as we went. Every so often, we’d pause, jot down our movements and discussed how to teach it since we only had an hour to present it to the contestants.

I wanted to do more than just have them run through it as many times with us. I actually wanted to teach it to them as opposed to pray they got it. Irina was in agreement, saying that was why so many struggled with the choreography last year. The contestants were left to figure out lifts and twists on their own. Some contestants didn’t know the proper way to lift or to handle a partner and it was their downfall.