I wasn’t planning on blogging about the Dance! Show! Live! Show!, because really, how much dance show can one poor little blog take?

But it was good. Really, really good, and I loved it, so now I must take a (hopefully very small) moment to gush.

LOVED. IT.

The live show was sort of like the finale that should have been, but never was. It was all dancing, like continuous dancing, for two hours. One pair would finish, and as their number was winding down, the next couple was already on stage getting started. I would guess that about three quarters of the numbers were from the show, but it had been enough time and the interesting ordering/blurring together of performances made them interesting again; while another quarter or so were brand new and all of those were just plain old good. Choreographer Mandy Moore was the force behind the live show, and I adore her, and so it was really just one fantastic thing after another. I can’t say enough good things about it and would go again in a heartbeat if it ever comes back to Ottawa.

One of my favourite things was that the top 10 got to perform a solo. It made me realize how much I miss the 1/2 hour “results” show, which used to allow those in jeopardy to oh-so-dramatically “dance for their lives.” The plus there was that getting to know the dancers individually like that went such a HUGE way towards loyalty and investment in the show. The solos at the live show showed me more about the dancers as individuals than I ever got from the show. Add more solos, please, dance show!

Also: Ricky’s solo was SO AMAZING. Like, a) he blew everyone else out of the water, and b) he can practically fly, and c) so, so deserved to win. No doubt. He was literally mind blowing.

Know who else was amazing? Teddy, who, it turned out, was the mysterious *crackle* guy from the phone call interview. He never really impressed me much on the show but on stage, he OWNED it. He literally stood out from the pack in all the group numbers he was in, and he had a couple of duets that were amazing. Where was that guy during the show? And also rocking it: Tanisha. She was EVERYWHERE, and she was FEROCIOUS. She took over the “snake” part in the King Tut hip-hop number with Emilio, AND did the Amy part from After The Rain with Zac, AND she did almost every number from the show with Rudy, AND had featured rolls in almost all of the new numbers, and just WOW.

For those who wonder if they’d be bored seeing the same numbers in real life that they’d already seen on the show, I’d say that one of the best things was being able to watch the group numbers from my own viewpoint – that is, not controlled by the camera angle. You really get the full effect of the group choreography and it’s dazzling. They did pretty much all of my favourite group numbers in real life – the top 7 girls (GORGEOUS, this was the one with the pretty pink and purple flowing dresses), top 7 guys (so cool – this was the one with the waves), the “chess” based hip hop, the “love runs out” group number by Travis (which was super complex and nifty to see in person). But my favourite was this one:

A Sonya routine! Who would have guessed? You can watch the YouTube clip, but although the cameras can get nice and close up to see the expressions on everyone’s face, this particular number was SO much better in person – the group dynamics were amazing and the way they seemed to move as one unit was so impressive. I think I may have gasped out loud.

My only real complaint is that there was, I thought, not enough ballroom. They tried to diversify a bit – my absolute favourite part was when they ran together the Sing tap dance number with the Happy Jive number and the Rudy and Tanisha Sing Sing Sing number with the canes, which I had actually forgotten about so I’m linking to it here:

And then, those three couples did a group number with a Broadway/50s feel that was SO AWESOME. They did a small Spencer Liff segment (oh, that reminds me – most of the show was “sorted” by choreographer, which I LOVED, it was so cool to see pieces by the same choreographer next to each other like that), and they did force poor Bridget and Valerie and Ricky to revisit Bollywod (with poor Rudy taking on the disco Bollywood with Bridget, and although it was a nice change of pace it was really just as dreadful in real life as it was on the screen). But other than those smaller parts, it was mainly contemporary with a sprinkling of hip-hop, and although everything was super, super good, I found myself wondering when they were going to get around to some ballroom, and they never did. Tanisha and Marquet were on hand, yet no salsas or sambas or anything; no Leonardo and Miriam tangos, or Jean-Marc’s paso doble for Zack and Jacque (which would have given Jacque something more to do, as she was underrepresented, I thought). The jive and Tanisha’s solo were, I think, the only ballroom I saw.

Well, that’s about five times as much as I wanted to write, and I’m sure six times as much as you were interested in reading, so I’ll let it go now. But really: SO AWESOME. I’ll see you there next time!