With a week to go and the top 4 on the line (after another partner switch), the remaining dancers took the stage with back-to-back, powerhouse performances. Each pair stood out in their own way, but Katee Shean and Joshua Allen, choreographed by Tyce Diorio, danced a contemporary number that had guest judge Adam Shankman calling them the “holy trinity” of the season. Watch a clip.
The final six contestants have the $250,000 prize money and instant fame within their reach, but it’s their talent that will make the season’s finale one of the most incredible finishes in So You Think You Can Dance history. – Jed Dreben
From Viennese waltz to hip-hop, here’s how it all went down:
Mark Kanemura and his new partner Courtney Galiano looked quite good together as they kicked things off with a Viennese Waltz to American Idol winner David Cook’s “The Time of My Life.” By the way they gracefully glided around the moonlit dance floor, it was clear that these two had a connection. Shankman said it was a good start to the show and that they were “really beautiful” together. For their second dance, they worked with the always-innovative Sonya Tayeh for a wicked jazz routine that had Courtney looking like a member of the Pussycat Dolls in her most scandalous outfit to date. Set to the hypnotic “The Garden” by Mirah, the new pair had a thoroughly satisfied Shankman said it was “sick!” (in a good way).
Together again, former partners Katee Shean and Joshua Allen were given another chance to shine — and it couldn’t have come at a better time or with a better choreographer — as they jumped into Tyce Diorio’s contemporary number. Shankman said was “was the best piece [Diorio has] done all season,” and even more so thanks to Katee and Joshua, “by far two of the most exciting dancers that have ever graced” the SYTYCD stage. In fact, the three working together were “the holy trinity” of the season, Shankman said. For their second dance, they both stripped down to get down in an epic pase doble that set the room on fire. Screaming, judge Mary Murphy called the pair, “true magic on stage.”
The last of the perfect six to go were the team of Stephen ‘Twitch’ Boss and Chelsie Hightower. Their opener, a snappy mambo, gave Latin dancer Hightower a chance to shake, rattle and roll and left her partner with nothing to do but hold on for dear life. The judges gave Twitch props for hanging in there — despite lacking formal training — and said that the smoke generated by her hips left little else to be seen. Hoping to leap back into the competition with their last dance of the night, these two now moved into Twitch’s element with a hip-hop routine choreographed by the imaginative team of Tabitha and Napoleon Dumo. Set to an orchestral version of Janet Jackson’s “Control,” it did what it had to do, which was to wow the judges across the panel. Mary called it simply “unbelievable.”
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