Earlier this year, I headed to the Orpheus Theater to attend the Los Angeles auditions of Fox’s dance-reality show “So You Think You Can Dance,” which launched its 12th season on Tuesday, June 1.
After the auditions concluded, the assembled press got a chance to chat one-on-one with the judges, including dancer/choreographer/producer Nigel Lythgoe and dancer/singer/choreographer Paula Abdul. Lythgoe was also previously a producer on “American Idol,” where Abdul was also a judge.
As actually happened during the tryouts, the judges said they weren’t just deciding based on what steps and moves they saw but also on the potential they saw.
Said Lythgoe:
You don’t just look at what’s in front of you; you look at what you think can become of what’s in front of you. Just because they are this dancer at this moment in time, you can look at that person and go, “Wow, if you had the opportunity to come to Vegas, you could become this dancer, improve this much.” So that possibility is there.
On our side, we’re always trying to be constructive, so we don’t have to do what we used to do on “American Idol,” which was, “Pack your suitcase; you’re going home. Go sue your singing teacher.”
We want to try and say, “OK, you’re goo, but you would be an awful lot better if you did this.” And that’s really important. It’s really tough sometimes, especially when you see them looking at you, like, “How dare you?” You want to say, “You’re not good enough. Goodbye.”
But, because we truly believe that, unlike singing shows, where, if you’re tone-deaf, you’re going to come back next year, and you’re still going to be tone-deaf, and you’re still going to sing badly, with dance, people like [Season 12 mentor and former “SYTYCD” competitor] Twitch have shown that you can come back year on year and improve.
Therefore, we don’t ever want to put somebody off.
When it was time to talk to Abdul, I asked her about what dance means to the soul:
For me, when you hear these dancers saying, “Dancing got me through the hardest times. It got me through illnesses that could have been fatal,” it’s the truth. Dancing, unlike any other art form, to me, heals in so many ways.
It heals depression; it heals your injury, because, once a dancer, always a dancer. The spirit and psyche of dancers are unlike any other performer I’ve ever witnessed. It is for the soul.
On the question of the intangible elements that set a dancer apart, Lythgoe said:
it’s the same with any talent, not just dance. It’s called charisma, whether it’s an a actor, whether it’s a singer, whether it’s a dancer. It’s that little light that comes up and shines out through the eyes — it really does. They’ve somehow found that little switch. Everybody’s got it, but they can’t always turn it on.
Added Abdul:
Those little things are in the quiet moments, when there isn’t any choreography. It’s about what they do at that moment that only they can do. It’s what makes them stand out, that spark you can’t quite articulate. You know you’re witnessing something really important, and that you’re privileged to be there at that moment.
It’s no different than all those years on “American Idol,” when we’d listen to a singer that can hit every note, but the heart wins out 100 percent of the time. Sometimes we want to hear little mistakes that are their own charismatic quality that makes us watch them.
I’d much rather watch someone who has amazing showmanship and charisma and quirkiness than one more technically great dancer.
Here’s a look at an earlier-season audition from “So You Think You Can Dance”:
Image: (l-r) Jason Derulo, Cat Deeley, Nigel Lythgoe, Paula Abdul — Courtesy Fox
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