SYTYCD
So You Think You Can Dance? Audition!
If you’ve always wanted to be on So You Think You Can Dance, you might want to check this out…
Auditions for this popular show are going to take place for season 9, starting in Atlanta, GA, January 5th at the historic FOX Theatre. They will continue on Friday, Jan. 13 at the McFarlin Memorial Auditorium in Dallas, TX; Monday, Jan. 23 at the Manhattan Center in New York, NY; Thursday, Feb. 23 at the Capitol Theatre in Salt Lake City, UT; and Friday, March 2 at the Orpheum Theatre in Los Angeles, CA.
Those who shine during auditions are given a ticket to Las Vegas for callbacks, where they will work with top choreographers to learn and then be judged on multiple styles of dance. For more details on auditions for Season Nine, as well as eligibility requirements, go to www.fox.com/dance.
Here are the details:
Dance In The UK: Dance Shows Boost Popularity?
by Jessica Wilson
Jessica Wilson
Having seen a huge influx of dance-related TV shows throughout 2011, a recent survey conducted by YouGov has revealed that just over 1 in 5 British adults (21%) have become interested in dancing as a result of shows such as Strictly Come Dancing and So You Think You Can Dance. The survey was completed in the prelude to the Dance Proms, a new festival which took place at the Royal Albert Hall in London on Sunday 13th November of this year. The Dance Proms featured twenty-four acts selected from a competition held to find the UK’s most talented dance students and representing all genres of dance. Dance Proms, a celebration of dance in all its forms, is organised by UK’s leading dance organisations: the International Dance Teachers’ Association (IDTA), Imperial Society of Teachers of Dancing (ISTD); and the Royal Academy of Dance (RAD).
The YouGov survey also revealed that roughly the same number of adults (1 in 5) currently participate in some form of dance, stretching across a vast range of styles, with just over 1 in 8 adults (13%) having taken part in a dance class in the last five years. This is sure to grow in the future, with the introduction of extremely popular “dance-fit” activities such as Zumba, the latest dance craze to sweep the US and Europe, and favoured among many celebrities including Wayne Rooney, Madonna and Jennifer Lopez.
Coming Up On 4dancers…
From time to time I like to do a little preview of things that will be coming up on 4dancers, and this week I have a lot to share! In addition to the new column we have “The Business of Dance” by Lizzie Leopold, we are also adding two new features in the upcoming weeks….
Join us for “Finis” – a new monthly column that will feature a dance photo at the end of the month, and “Music & Dance” – a column that will highlight a composer/producer’s take on the relationship between sound and movement. You’ll be meeting both of the new contributors soon in our “10 Questions With…” series. And good news for those of you who have enjoyed our SYTYCD contributor, Kimberly Peterson’s writing…she’ll be staying on to write more for 4dancers on other topics…
Also–look for more interviews (on Mondays) and dance music reviews (on Wednesdays) as we finish up the summer and settle into fall. I am going to be taking more time to work on this blog, so expect to see more content overall as we take 4dancers to the next level.
Let us know if there is something you’d like to hear more about, and in the meantime, we’d just like to thank you for taking the time to visit. If you haven’t yet taken the time to link up with us on Facebook and Twitter why not join us now? There’s going to be a lot going on!
0The Power of Choice: On Tools and Intelligence
by Kimberly Peterson
Something has been irking me lately despite the vast improvement in critique – thanks largely in part to the guest judges – which is the role of a dancer as a tool vs. the dancer making active intelligent choices. I want to discuss the role of choice, how it relates to power and how the use of choice takes a dancer from a mere “tool of the trade” to an active participant utilizing their choice to make intelligent artistic decisions. To do this I want to walk through three very important distinctions: tools v. choice; choice inside creative process; and process with artistic intelligence.
0Pairing Up
Art forms are always political in what they choose to explore and what they don’t. Even the lack of making an active choice – is still a choice. Bodies especially, carry this weight of political choice because it is difficult, I would argue impossible, to separate the actions and emotions of a performance from the physical body in performance. In this way, the bodies you use are indeed political statements, the movement itself is a political statement, and the genders of the bodies you use are also political.
One of my biggest disappointments with the format of SYTYCD is the idea of Male/Female partnerships. While I understand that many styles are often best served with Male/Female partnerships in smaller groups and that the format of duet story-lines tends to revolve around relationships, there are several disconcerting connotations with this kind of coupling.
First, it’s very heterosexually oriented – excluding other kinds of relationships and sexualities. Secondly, it’s very gender normative – in that the roles of traditional “men” and “women” are reinforced through story, movement and the comments of judges. Finally, it’s limiting – not only in scope, but it limits the voters’ choices, it limits the choreographers, and it limits the audiences’ comprehension of dance as an art form.
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