I have seen a lot of live shows in my time, but few will ever measure up to the So You Think You Can Dance 2013 Tour stop at the Bell Centre on Sunday, October 6. Earlier in the day I had an exclusive opportunity to interview the top 10 performers. Only three members of the media attended this press conference, so I found myself with unprecedented access to such a group of reality show superstars.
The group was composed of female and male first place finishers Amy Yakima as well as Du-Shaunt “Fik-Shun” Stegall, Aaron Turner, Jasmine Harper, Hayley Erbert, Jenna Johnson, Makenzie
Dustman, Nico Greetham, Paul Karmiryan and Tucker Knox.
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| Here I am with Jasmine, Aaron, Amy and Fik-Shun. |
What a fine group of young men and women, each of them still
pinching themselves over the celebrity status they have inherited as a result
of being on the hit Fox and CTV program.
Including intermission, the show was just over two
hours and the crowd loved every minute of it. This was high level
entertainment, a superpbly choreographed series of routines from the get go. On
this night the Bell Centre was configured into a smaller theatre, carving out
about two thirds of their capacity and leaving a cozy 6,000 seat venue. It was
perfect from the get go as the top 10
dancers, accompanied by a small supporting cast of others from this season, entered
the stage from the floor level and the song “Putting on the Ritz.”
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| With Makenzie and Paul. |
While the charismatic Nigel Lythgoe,
producer and judge for the show, was not in Montreal, we saw him all evening
long on the beautiful big screen behind the stage. An early highlight was the
introduction of the top 10 to thunderous applause, followed by Fik-Shun and Amy
delivering opening remarks. There were many francophones in the audience and
with apologies to Premier Pauline Marois and her gang from the PQ government,
not a word of French was spoken. Nobody seemed to care. This was all about the international language
of dance.
When So
You Think You Can Dance Canada was on the air here on CTV, two cross-Canada
tours took place: one at the Place des Arts and another at the Bell Centre. The
reception for the Quebec dancers was incredible. I wondered how wild the crowd
would go for the Americans, making their first appearance here. Well, it was
huge. The numbers were draw jopping, the costumes superb and the flow of the
show just right. There was not one dull second. There were a lot of popular
repeat numbers from the show and some new ones. Each dancer did a solo. The
first half ended off with Sand, a contemporary group piece choreographed by Chris
Scott and featuring the whole cast. It had to conclude the opening hour as they
literally did drop sand all over the stage.
Highlights for me included Aaron’s tap dance number, Aaron
and Jasmine making 48 moves in seven seconds,
Jenna looking gorgeous in a spectacular blue dress in her ballroom routine and the emotional finale to
the tune of Jennifer Lopez’s Live It Up.
Celebrating its landmark 10th season, So You Think You Can Dance’s top 10 finalists have been making
their way across North America, performing in a mix of theatres and arenas as part
of the So You Think You Can
Dance Tour 2013,sponsored by BLOCH, an
international leader in dance wear.
The 42-city tour will kicked-off on October 1 in East Lansing,
MI with shows scheduled through November 27
in Los Angeles, CA. Besides the Bell
Centre, Orillia and Windsor were the two other Canadian cities chosen for the
tour.
Amy and “'Fik-Shun” this
year became the first couple to win that were partners from the beginning of
the season. “I still cannot believe this
is all happening,” Amy told me. “A few months ago I was just this average dancer.
Now I am recognized wherever I go and I have such amazing opportunities. It is
just a dream come true. The whole thing has just not sunk in.”
Fik-Shun
already knows what he wants to do from here. “I want to be in the next Step Up movie,” he said, referring to
the popular series of dance/romance/drama films. Season Six third place
finisher Kathryn McCormick and Season Four second place finisher Stephen
“tWitch” Boss were in Step Up Revolution while others have enjoyed success on Dancing With the Stars and other TV and
movie roles.
Where did
the name Fik-Shun come from? “During my freshman year in high school I wanted
to have a dance nickname. So I asked and
I was told that when I dance, I do not look real. Like fiction. That is where
it came from.”
The dancers
say that the tour, thus far, has been a lot of fun. “We are like a family,”
said Makenzie. “We have more than 30 shows to go on this tour
so it is hard on the body. We definitely need our sleep.”
Fik-Shun said that performing before
such live audiences “provides us with that extra dose of energy on stage.”
Noted Jenna: “Dancers are usually on stage in the background at live concerts,
so this kind of tour is unique as people are coming to see us.”
Tucker likes the fact that they are now
getting paid for the job, something which was not the case when they auditioned
and went through the preliminaries and live shows leading to the top 10.”To see
all of these different cities is cool,” he said.
During the day Sunday the dancers
explored downtown Montreal, notably the
underground city of shopping from Eaton Centre to the Promenades des Cathedrales. At a food court,
Tucker decided to give the Quebec speciality of poutine - french fries, topped with brown gravy and cheese curds- a try. “It was amazing,” he said. “I had
never heard of it before.”
Poutine was not on the menu for Fik-
Shun. “Nope,” he said. “I was happy to go to Subways.”
Jenna said she was both surprised and
delighted with how many people recognized them in Montreal. “We are an American
show, so we really did not expect that,” she said. “We quickly learned the
French word for ‘smile’ as a lot of the young girls kept shouting ‘sourire’ to
us.
Which particular stores did they like
shopping at? Brandy Melville, Roots and Lush were their favorites.
I end this story with a plea to CTV.
Please bring back So You Think You Can Dance Canada!
