Shimmy's SYTYCD Picks Part 2

Wade Robson's Homage to the Rabbits




The Best of SYTYCD Group Routine

SYTYCD Spoilers

******SPOILERS******
Taken from IDF

Judges are Nigel, Mary and Mandy Moore



Ladies--->
Court/Katee- Tyce Broadway to instrumental version of the Trolley Song from Meet Me In St. Louis. Katee is in pink, Court is in yellow. ItLots of roses and wickety wack on the costumes, it's like a cross between a sheperdhess and a flamenco dancer, sort of. The dance uses a prop, white parasols, which the girls were both nervous about according to the package. Lots of jumping and synced up dancing.



Katee solo- to Hide and Seek by Imogen Heap, a quintessentially Katee solo. She wore this patterned silk hankerchief dress.


Court solo- to (I'm pretty sure) Special Two by Missy Higgins (it's definitely Missy, I'm just not totally sure on the song). She wore a low-backed bright yellow dress. It was a little more contemporary than we've seen from her, but still with lots of jumps and turns.



Guys---->
Twitch/Josh- Russian trepak by Yuri- I-can't-remember-his-last name to Nutcracker Suite. White shirt with blue trim and blue pants (Josh) and white shirt with red trim and red pants (Twitch), very traditional Russian costumes. Incredibly athletic routine, lots of jumping and turning by Josh, floorwork section by Twitch in which he is all on his knees the entire time.



Twitch solo- not sure on the music. No "T" shirt, but a "T" shirt used as a doo-rag. Lots of popping and hand movements, more than we've seen from him before, IIRC.



Josh solo- Red and blue striped shirt and jeans, he actually ran off the stage and jumped onto the judge's platform and started dancing. Lots of playing to the audience and to the judges, he does several sections of booty shaking and ends in the splits...

Ladies/Guys--->

Twitch/Katee Waltz- Melanie and Tony to "Feeling Good" by Michael Buble. Katee is in an ankle- length sky blue dress with lots of fringe, Twitch is in a tuxedo. Twitch does some heavy lifting in this, including a full press over the shoulders in the middle of one that the judges went crazy for. Judges love it for the most part, Mary tells Katee that she could walk into the US Ballroom Championships in September because she is so good.



Courtney/Josh Jive- Jason Gilkin (Glikman?) to "Dirty Boogie" (I think) by The Brian Setzer Orchestra. Josh is in jeans, white shirt, and burgandy leather jacket. Court is in tall boots with fringe and a burgandy leotard-almost dress that has short skirt of fringe that is accented with a fringe detail at the top. Lots of fast footwork and flicks, lots of lifts including an around the world with a flip kick sequence thing that the judges go crazy for. However, Nigel pretty much pans the number by saying that the technique wasn't really there. Mandy says it lost energy which suprised her. Mary went on and on about how difficult it was.



Courtney/Twitch Hip Hop- NappyTabs to a very popular song that I can't remember right now, but I know it was on the Step Up 2 Soundtrack if that helps anyone. She's the crazy demented girlfriend who is mad at him for going out to the clubs. They're both in light colors, him in a vest and khakis and a tie (I think), her in plaid pants and a beige-y shirt. Lots of isolations and accents on the music, including this sequence where Court mimes punching him in the face, chest, and "family jewels.

"

Josh/Katee Contemp--> Wade to John Mayer song that I didn't know. Wade says it's about love being hard work, and a couple who has a big fight and is now making up. Katee is in anther (darker) purple negliee, Josh is in a blue shirt and (I think) blue pants. I had a hard time seeing this one, and they didn't put it on the monitors because it was only being shot with one steady cam and one single light in a continuous, round shot. It should look cool on TV. There was a lot of floorwork and partner work, including this memorable bit where Josh kisses Katee's elbow.



Special Performances-->
Debbie Allen Dancers feat. Nigel- Tap routine to Boogie Wonderland mix with some other songs. Group of little dancers, and then Nigel comes in and does a sort of battle type thing with them. They all waddle of like penguins, it's very entertaining and "show-biz," if that makes sense. They did record a sound track before, so you should be able to hear the sounds.



Mary and Dmitry Samba--> I'm pretty sure it's to that "Danced with the DJ" song that Will and Court did. If not that song, then it's a song by that same artist. Dima is wearing black pants and a white, slouchy button down that he....wait for it.....gets ripped open by Mary. Mary is in a short red dress with three layers of fringe and a lot of rhinestones, along with silver t-strap heels that are rhinestoned, and four chunky, rhinestoned red and white bracelets. Lots of footwork in their samba, as well as some samba rolls. Mary has a very coquettish, subtle style which really surprised me- I thought she would be more aggressive and sharp like Heidi.



The Jonas Brothers performed their song Burnin' Up.



Group dance is a Scottish-inspired number by Mia, dancers are wearing kilts, guys are shirtless, girls have contrasting tartan vests and kilts. They use a burgandy curtain type thing in the beginning. Mia says the dance is celebratory of their time on the show. It's VERY athletic and quirky, lot of isolations and jerking and rebounding, as well as lots of jumps and partner work. The song is an instrumental, lots of bagpipes.




Past seasons contestants perform a group routine to Rihanna- "Don't Stop The Music"
with Season's Four Top 20

Season 1: Melody, Ryan
Season 2: Benji, Travis, Ivan, Allison, Dmitry
Season 3: Neil, Lauren, Dominic, Jaimie, Hok, Anya
Season 4: Top 20

The American Mall

Here is the full length trailer for The American Mall. It will be premiering on MTV on August 11th at 9:00 PM!

American Mall Trailer

The MTV film features SYTYCD alum Neil Haskell.

Shimmy Exclusive Interview

Neil Haskell


Photos: Tania Gressell

Shimmy: So what have you been doing these past few months?

Neil Haskell: Well, the (So You Think You Can Dance) tour ended at the beginning of December so I kind of had that month off. Then I went to film a movie for MTV in January and February. It's called The American Mall and filming it was really fun. I've always wanted to crossover into film and television and this project was an excellent chance for me. It's a musical so I was able to combine dance with singing as well. It's a great opportunity and I felt that a musical movie would be the best way for me to break into the film world. It's more natural for me and now I know a lot about that business. It has also opened up a lot of doors and that's really cool. I just got back to New York about two weeks ago and I've been just getting back into the swing of things here. Taking class and auditioning again.

Shimmy: What exactly is your background in dance?

Neil Haskell: Well I grew up in Buffalo, New York and I trained at David Demarie Dance Studio. I also trained at a ballet studio as well. When I was fifteen I started going to summer intensives for ballet and that definitely gave me five or seven weeks of solid training, six days a week. I eventually moved to New York and I did a Broadway show called, "The Times They Are A Changin" and then I did So You Think You Can Dance.

Shimmy: Now that you have had several months to do other things, looking back, how was the whole So You Think You Can Dance experience for you?



Neil Haskell: I realize that the highs from it, all the great things that went on were just so awesome. Everything is so much better than what I thought it was as it was happening. I tried not to get too excited while I was on the show, but now when I look back it was such a great experience to go through and it will be great to look back on years from now. I also realized that the lows really weren't that low. Even though they felt really low as they happened- like being in the bottom three- it hurt that week, but looking back now it was just such an overall positive experience for me. When I was on tour I loved watching everybody perform every single night and seeing them grow. It was an amazing thing to watch us grow not just as dancers, but as people.

Shimmy: Are you still in touch with anyone from the show?

Neil Haskell: I'm not as in touch as I should be right now but I think everybody has been really busy. I'm going to be in Buffalo this weekend and I know that Sara is going to be there with the Avril Lavigne tour so I'm hoping to see her.



I've seen Danny Tidwell a couple of times in the city and I've seen Sabra and Kameron as well. So I've seen a few people that have been in and out of New York. Oh and Dominic decided to call me at 4am once too (laughing).

Shimmy:What inspires your dancing?

Neil Haskell: I guess right now it's really about making my body feel good. When I'm in class doing a jump or turn, somebody else's movement- it just feels so good to be able to do that. I think that's what keeps me dancing.

Shimmy: What choreographers do you love working with?



Neil Haskell: I think Wade Robson's choreography is the most challenging. It's strange and quirky. You have to find a way to learn where your weight, your hip, foot and just everything is supposed to be or else it won't look right. The way he does it is so unique that if you aren't doing it exactly as he's telling you to then it's going to look awkward unique rather than cool unique. I love being able to do his stuff. I also love being able to dance Mia Micheal's stuff because it is more my style. Her jazz and contemporary feel is very unique as well and it suit my body and way of moving.

Shimmy: If you weren't dancing what might you be doing instead?

Neil Haskell: I don't know. I'd probably be singing or acting or doing something where I'm still performing.

Shimmy: What advice do you have for dancers that have yet to make their mark?

Neil Haskell: Keep working as hard as you can. Be in class as often as you can, take extra classes. Watch the other people in class because I think you can learn the most from watching other people, whether they are better than you or not. There is always something that can be learned when somebody else is dancing.




Shimmy: You haven't done a lot of press in the last few months so what would you like to say to your fans at this point?

Neil Haskell: I'm still working and I cannot wait for the MTV movie to come out in August so that people can see what else I can do. Life has been really exciting and who knows what will be coming out next!

Neil Haskell to Perform in Pittsburgh

PITTSBURGH—The University of Pittsburgh fraternities and sororities will sponsor their annual “Greek Sing,” at 7 p.m. March 28 at Fitzgerald Field House, Allequippa and Darragh streets, Oakland. Tickets are $10 and available at the door. All proceeds benefit the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute.

Each year, the University’s Greek Community sponsors a series of events to support local charities. The University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute is the beneficiary of a five-year commitment from Pitts’s fraternities and sororities, who have set a goal to raise $500,000 to help fund a thoracic and lung cancer research laboratory.

“Greek Sing” highlights the singing and dancing talents of many of Pitt’s fraternity and sorority members. This year’s event will feature Neil Haskell, a former finalist on Fox Television’s “So You Think You Can Dance”. Haskell will be joined by area dance, choreography, and singing professionals to serve as judges for the show.

For more information, contact Peter Hammerle at 215-834-7865 or peterhammerle@gmail.com.

Shimmy Exclusive- Movmnt Is Coming!

When I was about fifteen years old my girlfriends' and I would pour over teen magazines. It was back in the mid-80's and everything was bright, bold and above all else, it was colorful. We would venture into the grocery store once a month and buy a copy of everything, then share custody of the newest issues. One day I walked into the store and found a new magazine called Sassy. It was aimed at my age but even the cover was different. I couldn't tell you why, it just was. I bought the issue and loved it from one end to the other. I never missed an issue after that and when they arrived I poured over every inch right down to the binding (There was always a message on the binding!). Did they deal with teen issues? Sure, but the approach was different. It was like a peer was talking to you. Did they do fashion spreads? Absolutely, but there was always a deeper message behind the clothes and setting. In a nutshell, Sassy made me think.

It has been twenty years since I've had that reaction to a magazine. One where you just absorb every ounce and still keep it tucked away on a shelf for fear you missed something that you'll be overjoyed to discover on some random day. This week for the second time in my life, I've had that same reaction. This time the publication that took me by complete surprise is called Movmnt. The latest issue includes a sit-down with SYTYCD fan favorites' Sabra Johnson, Danny Tidwell and Neil Haskell that actually puts readers at that table. Forget everything you already think you know about these three and just listen to them banter. The dance-fashion-in-action will blow you away and have you even heard of Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings? Vintage Motown sound for a brand new generation of listeners. If you are not a subscriber already then you need to pick up a copy next week when it graces' Barnes & Noble shelves for the very first time.



David Benaym is the brilliant guiding force behind this innovative new magazine and he was kind enough to give Shimmy a bit of his time this week. What follows is a glimpse into how love of dance and journalistic vision collided in the form of Movmnt.

How did I find myself involved in the dance world? Well like many stories it is a love story. I grew up in France so I was familiar with performances, the ballet world, the Arts in general are really part of the everyday culture there. I grew up watching Maurice Bejart performing live on prime time TV. As a journalist I also specialized in the media and entertainment world. I covered the Oscars as well as the Cannes Film Festival many times. But I was never involved with the Dance world. While covering the 2004 Presidential campaign in New York I met Danny Tidwell. He really is the one that introduced me to the dance world, as he was a performer with ABT at the time. His knowledge and passion for the dance world, its history, the choreography, the technicality as well as the quest of sense in performances. I was hooked, so we worked together along with choreographer Lauren Adams, on a project called Moving Still. Mixing performance, photography and fashion, we created a show and book. At the time I really started to dive into the dance world, watching performances as various as classical ballet at the MET with ABT, contemporary pieces from choreographers Lar Lubovitch, Ohad Naharin, and even intimate workshops by Mia Michaels (that was even before she started to judge on So You Think You Can Dance). So it was a very sudden, learning, breath taking initiation to the dance world, and the involvement came naturally. It's one of the rare places where there is no language barrier. The emotion is pure, there are so many layers of emotion, understanding and interpretation that if you ask an audience members what they feel at a certain moment of a performance, you might not get even once the same answer. My education, my passion as a journalist has always been about words and phrases. So coming from a different background, culture, with a different accent, I just let myself immerse, I am a child when it comes to watching a show. I forget as much as possible everything that makes me- me in order to feel, candidly, rediscover every time the beauty of a pirouette, the emotion of a silence... By doing this, I always discover more about myself. Even the worst in life is never disappointing.



Moving Still was a great success, and we kept on hearing from dancers how much they loved the photography, how different it was from everything they had seen before. At the time we were already talking about working on a different dance magazine. The book started to sell well at Amazon and Barnes and Noble, and I succeeded in selling some pictures from the book to Flaunt, a fashion magazine that loved the feeling of. But just doing a fashion dance magazine was missing substance, and we are all about the quest of sense, and definitely have the ambition to talk about issues for a generation that gets more coverage about Paris Hilton in Jail than any 'real' story. I mean I can't even dare to talk about conflicts in Africa, hostage situation in South America, or Health Care in America...

But there are many other ways to do so, and dancers, performers, have this capability to convey messages, ideas, changes. Romeo and Juliet, Cinderella, The Bolshoi, they all were methaphores to talk about subjects that mattered at the time that they were written. I was looking for a new project at the time, particularly as a publisher (I launched two magazines in Europe 2 books in the US). Danny Tidwell and I analyzed the dance magazines that existed already and realized that they all were very technical, or targeting a very young audience and their parents, but the 18-35 year old generation, the dancers themselves, performers, musicians, entertainers in general did not have a publication that echoed to what they live and love.

These artists are trend setters, they create, innovate, they are very often in advance with the rest of the society, and yet, interact with the real world. With them there are a lot of young adults that we identified as the pop culture generation that are passionate about the art and want to know more than just what these artists have to offer on stage. With Movmnt, we wanted to give fashion photography both motion and emotion. Seeing the clothes in action, sometimes to the fullest, and still portrait dancers in editorials that make sense to who they are. With this new issue, with Neil, Sabra and Danny, I feel that we are starting to really get there.

Yes the pictures are gorgeous, but there is also a meaning to every single one of them and an article on the side for the journalistic aspect of the magazine. We brought together all these different aspects, fashion, dance, music, social issues and Movmnt was born. Each issue has a general theme, a feeling, it is never obvious, never written in a big way because it is not about education, but about experiencing a learning process. We have a wake up call in each issue. It's a double page spread featuring a different feeling that happens around the world. Last issue it was about the graffiti world, very colorful and yet historical. It encompasses the political murals in Nothern Ireland as well as the anti-poutine grafs in Russia, or the cultural revolution in China.



We want Movmnt to be entertaining, yet with meaning.

In the future issue we might look back at the 80's... I believe that our generation, the pop culture generation is missing a link. There is something about these years that has a huge impact today, plus the heart of our readership was born in the 80's and it might be nice to sing along and ask ourselves if video really killed the radio...we are going to look for Roxanne, live in a box, dance la lambada, wow, maybe not after thinking about it! We haven't approached ballroom really at all... not by snobism, but because we've yet figure out how to approach it the right way. I want to understand how Russians can be so incredible at latin dance and understand the passion of the fox trot. I'd love to do a shoot with some of these dancers but challenge them as individuals, see them away from the partner that they always rely on.

Next week when Movmnt comes to newsstands it's our first goal of course, to reach a wider audience. We want to bring the Movmnt family to dance lovers, and performers themselves. But personally, if I could touch just one person, to fulfill their dream. Just inspiring someone to reach and accomplish their passion, that would bring me a tremendous amount of joy

Visit Movmnt online HERE.
Subscribe To Movmnt

Movmnt On Its Way To Newsstands

Hello everyone, long time no post, I was 100% devoted to the coming issue and here are some fresh news...

The new movmnt featuring Sabra Johnson, Danny Tidwell and Neil Haskell is coming very soon...

It will be shipped to subscribers on Tuesday January 29th so depending where you live you can expect it first week of February or so. It will then hit newsstands February 11th. Movmnt is available in every B&N and B&N university nationwide, Universal News, and hundreds of selected newsstands throughout the US and Canada. It will also be available online for single copy sale as well as with a subscription at www.movmnt.com

This is our best issue to date. :-) Well that's what i say every time but it's true. We are trying to improve each time. One special treat... SYTYCD lovers will love the free folded poster included in this issue... The poster will mark the launch of our non for profit campaign "Keep it Real" to bring back to the community and bring awareness to issues that touches us the most.

Also, movmnt has its own social network. For those who love music, dance, fashion, for the pop culture generation that moves in style, join movmnt.net and lets shake our world, share your videos, pictures, create your own blog...

See you on the other network...

Stay tuned, for more news...

David Benaym,
Editor in Chief, Publisher of movmnt magazine