Top eight week on So You Think You Can Dance finally brought the long-awaited pairing of contestants, providing dancers with just a little better opportunity to showcase strengths. It’s refreshing, in a sea of routines sometimes overburdened by a detailed narrative, to get a dance with one simple purpose: movement. Choreographer Mandy Moore is good…
Category: Quick Steps
Short takes on the world of dance
Dance, Quick Steps
So You Think You Can Dance: Meet the Top 10
Last week’s So You Think You Can Dance recap singled out Gaby Diaz’s tap routine with finalists Lex Ishimoto and Evan DeBenedetto. And while official pick Ishimoto is appearing here as a contemporary-first dancer, his training in tap has been substantial enough for the two to offer up this Fred-and-Ginger referencing routine from the usually…
Dance, Quick Steps
World of So You Think You Can Dance: Creative Editing
Back to the highlights as So You Think You Can Dance‘s second-to-last “Academy” round, whittling the All-Star teams down to two candidates apiece, before the top 10 reveal in weeks to come, brought back a bit more in the way of dance routines. While we’re sorry not to have seen, for example, Fik-Shun’s efforts with…
Dance, Quick Steps
Happy Birthday, Ginger Rogers
Moving in Measure can never pass up a chance to post any clip of Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire, and the 106th anniversary of Ms. Rogers’ birth is certainly as good an excuse as any. While uptempo numbers like Swing Time‘s “Pick Yourself Up” are great demonstrations of technical ability and connection in the purest…
Quick Steps
World of So You Think You Can Dance: Traditional Value
Has the hour time cap forced So You Think You Can Dance‘s producers to tighten focus for Season 14 — highlighting both talent and stylistic diversity on a weekly basis, giving viewers less of the most conventional contemporary auditions and more ballroom, more varied hip hop, and a smattering of specialty styles? While the competitive…
Quick Steps
World of So You Think You Can Dance: Fancy Footwork
It was a passably good week for lovers of rhythm and footwork on the summer’s TV dance competitions. Tuesday’s World of Dance included a duel between Kyle Van Newkirk and high-profile hip hop duo Les Twins. The battle, unsurprisingly, favored the latter, but it was nice to get a glimpse of a full routine from…
Quick Steps
Wednesday Watch: World of So You Think You Can Dance
Note: Updated June 16 NBC’s new World of Dance set a rough road its first two weeks for fans of ballroom; similarly, the genre’s had more downs than ups on Fox’s So You Think You Can Dance, with the last real gasp in its last adult-focused season coming when Latin champ and SYTYCD Canada winner…
Quick Steps
Wednesday Watch: Blues Meets West Coast Swing
Fusion is a topic in the debut issue of our magazine, and so is blues and social dance instructor Campbell Miller. And here she is, along with Tommy Schwegmann and Taletha Jouzdani, demonstrating a fun and rhythm-driven pairing of blues’s close hold with West Coast Swing’s turns and passes.
Dance, Ice Dance, Quick Steps
Wednesday Watch: The Last Tango and the Joy of Rehearsals
We’re still on a tango kick (so to speak) so for this week’s Watch, enjoy this 2015 backstage performance of “La Cumparsita” from Flavia Cacace and Vincent Simone: I have a strong affection for performance executed outside of the official trappings — rehearsal footage and demos in practice wardrobe, away from the eyes of a…
Quick Steps
Wednesday Watch: Strictly Seasonal
For this last Wednesday Watch before Christmas, why not pass the time with a few festive picks from Strictly Come Dancing‘s annual Christmas special? (And take a further moment to ask just why its American counterpart can’t mount a similar gala event?) Harry Judd and Joanne Clifton, “Baby It’s Cold Outside” (American Smooth, 2015) Great…
