SYTYCD Season 11 Auditions - New Orleans and Chicago

Well, So You Think You Can Dance is back, which must mean that summer is starting! I truly cannot believe this show is now in its 11th season on the air, and that I've been watching since that very first season. Egads! Time flies! This year, they've trotted out a new opening credit sequence and have also gone back to the original one winner style. They also are doing some new thing where they have viewers vote via twitter for certain dance crews to come perform on the show, which was for some reason synced up with Justin Bieber? Yes, the Biebs was there in a pre-taped segment introducing the crews and offered nary a vocal inflection.

Anyway! Let's get on to the tryouts. This week featured New Orleans and some of Chicago's auditions. I've just gone through chronologically focusing on those that the show focused on. Not too many dancers featured just to be featured so far, which is nice. We'll see if that holds as these auditions keep trucking!

First up...

New Orleans! With judges Nigel, Mary, and Wayne Brady.

Shelby Rase - Drama face! Contemporary. Not sure how much actual dancing? Certainly graceful. Judges are rather effusive. First bring down of a family member, oy vey. Something called a bottle dance from the dad? She gets a ticket to the next round, which I guess is now in LA instead of Vegas? Now I can't say they make it straight through to Vegas!!

Tanisha Belnap - Ballroom. Nigel goes full smarm before she even dances. Overly sexy dance, perhaps. Not seeing a ton of fast footwork. Cool flip move, though. She's through to the next round.

Shelby and Shane Skipper - New Orleans bounce brothers. Certainly entertaining, but can they do other styles? A lot of leg work, sort of pop and locking but not quite. A lot of positive talk, but only Shelby aka Skip gets to go to choreography. But, he doesn't make it through, deciding he's not quite cut out for it.

Megan Marcano - Homeless for much of her life. Contemporary or would it be jazz? I can't always tell. She's got a cute sort of quirky style to her, so maybe that makes it jazz. Ticket to the next round.

Trevor Bryce - I'm not sure what to call this kid's style. It's like quirky ballet hip hop or something. He's actually pretty good, sort of mesmerizing, though I'm not sure I want to actually tell him that, as I can detect a certain vanity there. BUT, the performance was really well-done and thought out to go with the music. 

Courtney Barnes - Mr. Fabulous. Not sure what to say, he certainly had some some crazy extensions in there. Wayne says what I'm wondering - can he do the choreography? He's more personality than substance, but they'll let him do the choreo. But he doesn't do that great at it, so he's not through.

Novien Yarber - He's got some good moves, but does seem a little hesitant on some of them. Overall a strong contemporary style, and they send him straight through without any discussion.

Caleb Brauner - Dad danced with him during his audition last year, has since passed away. Automatically makes me want to root for this kid, sheesh! I enjoy his kinda off-kilter style, very much a showman nature to his work, and room for growth, which is always good on this show. Judges say he's not quite at the level of other dancers, but let him go to choreography. Alas, he doesn't make it through. Sad!

Jacoby Jimmerson - Zumba instructor with a few extra curves. He has rhythm but definitely not at the level of dancers on the competition. No ticket for him.

Brooklyn Fullmer and Marcquet Hill - Ballroom duo. Honestly they were just okay for me, nothing too amazing. He seemed a bit better than her. Judges are pretty positive, though. They go through to the next round.

And now it's time for the next city...

Chicago! With Nigel, Mary and Jenna Elfman as judges.

Nick Garcia - Latin Ballroom. He definitely seems to know what he's doing, though it is hard to judge him without a partner to dance with. He gets a Mary scream. Through to next round.

Rudy Abreu - BFF with above Nick. His style is different though, more masculine jumps and such, not so much the ballroom. Feel like he's telling a story. These two guys could be that whole thing at the end of the next round where they only have one spot left and have to choose between the two deal. 

Caleb Brauner is back! He seems poised for the story edit on the show now. He does something more serious this time around, and it was a whole other level, in a good way. They send him to choreography again. And this time he makes it through, of course!

In case you were wondering just what the two crews featured on tonight's show were...

Poreotics - Popping and robotics crew from LA.
Syncopated Ladies - All female tap dancers

The ladies were really leading in the twitter votes. I'm a bit confused as to what happens now - do more crews get voted on in subsequent audition shows or is it just between these two groups? Hmm.

Anyway, that's all for tonight! Do you have any favorites so far? Are you looking forward to more Caleb or already dreading the time being spent on him as a sign of things to come? Sound off in the comments!

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