SYTYCD Top 8 Hip Hop

So now we're down to the final 8 in SYTYCD and I have to say it's getting harder and harder to find out who's the weakest link.....all of them have good qualities and bad qualities that make me love them all equally.

Here are the breakdowns of the Hip hop routines by Nappytabs, who I have to say had two really good and well executed hip hop routines this week.


Courtney and Will: Like You’ll Never See Me Again – Alicia Keys


Nappytabs has a habit at times of doing a literal interpretation of the song which gets cheesy pretty quickly, IE whenever the lyric says touch or kiss there would literally be a "touching" or a "kissing" moment in the case of the song for Courtney and Will.

As for the dancers, it was a solid routine but it could have been better. It's good by the show's standards, but it's not memorable.

What did they do wrong then? Both Courtney and Will (well Will for the most part) executed the snapping movements that this choreography entails and hit every beat and groove where it should. However, there are subtle indicators that there is not much hip hop technique or dance technique in general.

First of all, it's a bit monotonous and there's no progression of their snapping moves. At the song from about 1:45 to 1:55, the song has a hook with the "never will see you again"(something like that). They went with the groove and snapped to the beats, but could have slightly exaggerated their arm movements or flow to complement the change in pace.

Also from about 2:52 - 2:53, where Courtney handles Will's feet to do the snapping motion, there was no interaction between the partners. Courtney pulled on Will's foot, which meant that Will should have been propelling forward. Instead, he just switched his feet and stood in place awkwardly.

The pull showed the same issue of the propelling move at 3:03. Where yes, they pulled and retracted to the beat, but it's just a shifting movement. It should have been more of a rubber band movement -- pulling but feeling the lash back.

These are really subtle things that differentiates good hip hop dancers to great hip hop dancers. Both Courtney and Will did a good job representing hip hop, but there was a lack of technique.

Personally to me, hip hop dancing is kind of similar to drumming. You hit the beat, but there are times when you hit the drums harder or softer, plant the drumstick down to give a thump, or or obtain a more stacatto like movement. These techniques helps with the interpretation of the song, and thus put what was cute rhythms to what is a rhythm force.


Comfort and Mark – “Party People” by Fergie


First off, they did probably my favorite hip hop routine this season bar none. And Nappytabs showed how they have a great sense of story without being literal, and challenged the contestants finally with a really tough hip hop piece.

I can basically say within the first 15 seconds they did hip hop right.

This is a hard hitting song, and they could have booty shaked and popped the sternum off of their skeletons. But they didn’t. As seen in 2:03-2:06, Comfort starts THRASHING with the song, but simpers down to a thumping scowl as the song cools down, just in time to sneak a peek at Mark's desk. Notice also later how Comfort and Mark moves with a sense of movement; they kick and then felt the affect of the kick to lash back. There was a natural flow of movement with the song.

Comfort and Mark had great coordination that Courtney and Will didn’t have, and it’s not really technique wise. As seen in 2:48 to 2:59 ish, there is the stanza and of course Comfort and Mark hits it hard just like Courtney and Will.

But what differentiated the two routines’ execution was the last few seconds at 2.56-2:59, where Comfort and Mark kind of “shadow punched” the beats in the hook – stealth and effective. It’s not just a quick retracted punch to emphasize a decibal, but it emphasized the hook of the song.

The choreography was just as complex and intricate as Courtney and Will's. But what blew Comfort and Mark's dancing out of the framework was their technique that helped with the interaction and interpretation of the song.

As Shane Sparks would say, "They killed it."




****note that videos are from metalkintoyou.blogspot.com