Are you ready to Dance?

All of my TV shows have been saying so long and farewell for the summer the past couple of weeks, which kind of sucks. First it was 30 Rock, my newest love. Then we got a new America's Next Top Model (even if it wasn't Lauren, who was awesome and my hero) and still not enough Kelly on The Office. Finally, this week Gossip Girl took off for summer vacation and America has a brand-new Idol as of last night. And Ugly Betty ends tonight, too, but I haven't really been paying as much attention to UB this year (the whole "we can be together until you leaaaave me because you got another girl pregnant!" thing was a real sour turn).

So you'd think I'd be more bummed about losing all of my shows. Nope! You know why?

Because So You Think You Can Dance is back!!

If you've got a long-ish memory (or have browsed ye olde archives recently), SYTYCD made my things I'm loving lately post last June. And it's easy to forget just how much I loved it and how much I adored so many of the last two troupes of dancers... and then I saw them performing on American Idol Gives Back this year (I know, I know, but check it out below -- sorry I couldn't find anything in better quality).



Anyway, I'm totally excited for its return and for the new group of dancers, even though I don't know if any of them can be as near and dear to my heart as so many were last year (Pasha! Sara! Danny! Lacey! Sabra! Dominic! Hok! Travis! Donyelle! Anya! Cedric! Jimmy!).

(More SYTYCD routines to check out: Ramalama from Season Two, Jaimie and Hok as the Flower and Butterfly complete with some impressive use of MAC pigments, the awesome Triplets of Belleville cabaret, and basically anything Danny did -- go to 5:25 for his final solo. Aaaand all of those, with the exception of Danny, were choreographed by Wade Robson, who choreographed "I'm a Slave 4 U", among others.)

Since there's always such an amazing variety of dances and looks (Push It, anyone?), I thought I'd throw a couple together in Polyvore!



The hip hop/contemporary outfit is particularly inspired by Sabra's outfit from the Make It Work dance, where she was wearing big heavy bamboo gold hoops and I was cringing as soon as I saw that she'd have to dance wearing those. (In fact, at :50, you can see one of them fall off her ear. Ouch!) And the tube socks are, of course, ubiquitous among the contemporary dancers. My plea for this season: no more tube socks!! On anyone!! (Note: This will not happen. There will be tube socks FOREVER.)

Next, I picked a ballroom/Latin outfit, complete with ballroom dancing shoes, opera gloves, and a feathery hairpiece. (The Lanvin pearls are just for bonus. I don't really expect anyone to be wearing Lanvin pearls.) The ballroom and Latin outfits are always so incredibly over the top, but that's how it goes and that's how we love it.

Finally, even though they tend to group their ballet dancers as "contemporary" dancers, I put together a little ballet-inspired outfit, because sometimes you get a girl en pointe at auditions, and I'd really like to see them accept the term "ballet" over "contemporary".

So if you haven't given So You Think You Can Dance a shot, I'd definitely strongly urge you to do so. The first couple of weeks are auditions, which can range from awesome to painfully bad, and then we go to Vegas to narrow it down, and then finally, finally we'll get the actual top 20 dancers in about three weeks, which is really when you ought to start tuning in. The contestants are professional dancers and champions: they're the real deal, and the talent that makes it to the top 20 is always incredible.

What other summer shows are you looking forward to? Or are you still musing over everything wrapping up? And, I guess the real question is, Do You Think You Can Dance?

video from youtube.com, image from polyvore.com