The final auditions took place in Salt Lake City, with guest judge Adam Shankman joining regulars Nigel and Mary. Before I get into the auditions in earnest, I want to touch on a couple things. First, tacky editing. Look, I know. You're trying to get ratings. But it bothers me when the judges and everyone else is really nice to heartfelt people in person, and then completely make fun of her with the editing. I'm talking about the girl inspired by the cosmos, obviously, Lynn Gravatt. I just didn't appreciate how they made fun of her when she was so earnest and sweet, and clearly was just inspired by dance.On the other hand, they make a big deal about another dancer who we ultimately know isn't going to make it on the show, but because he has an inspiring story and appears to be an extremely kind and genuine person (which Lynn seemed to be too, he's just less weird about it), he gets standing ovations and all sorts of stuff. And I'm not knocking Leroy Martinez, don't get me wrong here. I just get a little aggravated by how they edit things on the show sometimes, you know? I can't be the only one.
ANYWAY. Sorry. Off the soapbox now, I promise.
I think my favorite audition of the night has to go to the krumping girl, Mariah Spears. Man she was ON it. I was seriously impressed, because you'd never just look at her and think oh yeah, she's a krumper. They sent her to choreography, and she nailed it. Go girl! I also really enjoyed Dareian Kujawa, who I merely wrote "beautiful, softness" by in my notes. Also surprisingly impressive, to me, was Witney Carson, the latin ballroom dancer who looks about 12 years old. But she was pretty damn good, garnering the first Mary woo hoo of the season. Finally, I thought Gene Lonardo, though his praying mantis audition was undeniably sort of strange, was actually also pretty dang good. They set it up like he was going to be terrible, but he wasn't!
Why didn't I mention Adrian Lee in my favorites? Because along with the judges, I have to agree, his audition choreography was less than stellar. However, that being said, I think his could be a compelling comeback story, and he's obviously got talent. Whether the other repeat offenders to Vegas week will have as much luck as him, I'm not sure, because I think he probably has the biggest chance of all of them. That we've seen so far, anyway. There could be others in there that they didn't show us yet.
There were a few other dancers that didn't impress me as much that were also put through to Vegas. Deanna Tomasetta, the Italian contemporary-ish dancer. Lindsay Arnold, another latin ballroom girl who I thought was fine but not as good as the other one. And... Rachel Applehans, who got these scribbles, "stripper audition? Tongue?! EW. Burlesque jazz, okay." As the judges put it, she had way more burlesque than jazz in her audition, but after going through choreography was sent through to Vegas.
Well, that's about it for the audition rounds! Do you have any favorites heading into Vegas week? Any predictions about who's going to make the top 20?
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Oh, hahah! Was that allergies with Adam? I wondered, and then when he was blushing so badly after (and during) that stripper-like woman in the white teddy. His comments about how “if things were different in his life” was so funny, (which went over my kids heads.) We love watching the show, and earlier the next evening so I can get to bed early enough to get to Dish early the next morning for work. We can use our automatic commercial skipping feature on our Hopper DVR, called Auto Hop, that works on our Prime Time Anytime recordings. We boil two hours down to just over an hour, and it is a godsend!
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