EMMY Nominations for Outstanding Choreography 2013

As per usual, multiple SYTYCD choreographers were nominated in this year's EMMY awards. The nominations were announced this morning. Below are all the routines nominated by their respective choreographers; remember that all these nominations are for Season 9 choreography :)

Travis Wall

Where The Light Gets In
Dancers; Amelia Lowe, Alexa Anderson, Janaya French, Amber Jackson, Eliana Girard, Tiffany Maher, Janelle Issis, Lindsay Arnold, Witney Carson, Audrey Case

Unchained Melody

Dancers; Matthew Kazmierczak, Audrey Case

Without You

Dancers; Alex Wong, Eliana Girard

Tabitha and Napoleon D'Umo

The Love Cats

Dancers; Amelia Lowe, Will Thomas

Circle of Life

Dancers; Comfort Fedoké, tWitch Boss, Marko Germar, Allison Holker, Alex Wong, Melanie Moore, Kathryn McCormick, Ade Obayomi, Eliana Girard, Chehon Wespi-Tschopp, Cyrus Spencer, Tiffany Maher, Witney Carson, Cole Horibe, Lindsay Arnold, George Lawrence II, Audrey Case

Beautiful People

Dancers; Eliana Girard, Chehon Wespi-Tschopp, Tiffany Maher, Cyrus Spencer, Cole Horibe, Witney Carson, Will Thomas, Lindsay Arnold, George Lawrence II, Audrey Case, Matt Kazmierczak, Amelia Lowe, Dareian Kujawa, Janelle Issis, Brandon Mitchell, Amber Jackson, Daniel Baker, Alexa Anderson, Nick Bloxom-Carter, Janaya French

Sonya Tayeh

Possibly Maybe

Dancers; Cole Horibe, Allison Holker

Turning Page

Dancers; Tiffany Maher, George Lawrence II

Sail

Dancers; Tiffany Maher, Audrey Case

Mandy Moore

Wild Horses

Dancers; Lindsay Arnold, Cole Horibe

The Power of Love

Dancers; Tiffany Maher, Ade Obayomi

Finally, Allison Holker was also nominated along with Derek Hough for a number she did with Dancing With the Stars;

Dancers; Allison Holker, Derek Hough, Melanie Moore, Kathryn McCormick, Jessica Lee Keller

Congratulations to all the choreographers for their outstanding work and for their nominations in such an enormous awards ceremony! I'm a little surprised that Christopher Scott wasn't nominated for anything, especially the "Architect of the Mind" Routine with the entire Top 20 - that was magical. Based on these routines, I would pick either Sonya or Travis to win; but honestly, these are all gorgeous performances. 

Elimination Format Changes + Nigel's Twitter

First of all, due to the general huge outcry from fans last week re: the elimination format, Nigel apparently had a get-together with his producer buddies and they decided to go with the Season 9 format of eliminating people at the end of the show. I know I have a super unpopular take on the entire situation, but I actually liked that they cut people right away, because it makes way way more sense at the end of the show when they dole out numbers for voting and stuff. Obviously, the ideal situation would be to have an entire elimination show, but I guess FOX isn't having it.

Here's the tweet from Nigel that stated this;

There you have it... And apparently they'll only be a Bottom 4 this coming Tuesday, unless he tripped and pressed the 4 instead of the 6 or something. I just feel bad for Brittany and Carlos, who had to be the guinea pigs for the new format before it was absolutely skewered by the fans.

The guest judge is apparently some big surprise...

How is "He/She has a birthday some time this year?" any kind of a clue at all? Unless he was trying to be funny. According to The Futon Critic, Tuesday's guest judge will be Erin Andrews (http://www.thefutoncritic.com/news/2013/07/02/so-you-think-you-can-dance-voting-results-for-july-2-91100/20130702fox03/), who I had no idea who she was until I googled her. Apparently she's hosting FOX College Football for FOX sports, which would make a ton of sense for her to land a guest judging position, but she doesn't really line up with Nigel's cryptic tweet (especially because "Erin" doesn't start with a consonant). Erin Andrews re-tweeted this though, so it's not like it's some huge surprise anymore;

Not super happy about their choice of guest judge, but I suppose that it wasn't really their choice if she hosts some show for FOX. 

Today's last tweet comes from Dmitry after Nigel's murdering of his choreography last week;

I won't even go to how annoying it is that Dmitry said "2" instead of "too" (I suppose he could have been surpassing his 140 characters, but still). He was probably obligated to type out this tweet to save his buns if he wants to get another choreo gig with the show. I just feel so bad for Dmitry because it was so, so embarassing to have basically your boss call you out on national live TV like that. Whatevs. 

Season Format + Top 10 Early Predictions

Alrighty, so I'm still not 100% positive about the season format, but with Nigel saying gems like this...

"We don't need to [change]. The dancers bring the changes," he says. "The dancers are the ones that create the magic for this series, not the format. It's the talent. And again, this season, Season 10, the talent is magnificent."

... I think it's pretty safe to assume that they're going for a one-episode-per-week format for Season 10. That, coupled with the 2-hour Top 20 show they've scheduled for this Tuesday (FOX 8/7c), pretty much solidifies this fact for me. This makes me SO SO SAD for a multitude of reasons, but mainly because Season 9 felt like a bit of a dud because we weren't able to connect with the dancers on an personal a level as with seasons before. We know so much more about the dancers in seasons 1-8 than we did in 9 that it's almost ridiculous. The only person who really comes to mind who was able to bring their personality forward in a huge way last season was Will Thomas; we got some backstory on Chehon and Eliana's training and Cyrus' lack thereof, but honestly, that's about it.

In any case, the Season 10 Top 20 dancers seem extremely personable and (generally) seem to have very extroverted personalities. So I'm able to compile a list of early Top 10 predictions before even seeing their partner work; obviously after a couple weeks of partnering I'll update my predictions, but here's what I have for now based on fanbase, talent, versatility and overall personality and image;

1. Nico (Contemporary)
2. Amy (Jazz or Contemporary or whatever- they seem to be billing her as different genres at multiple different intervals)
3. Makenzie (Contemporary)
4. Jade (Animation)
5. Malece (Contemporary)
6. Aaron (Tap)
7. Jenna (Ballroom)
8. Tucker (Contemporary)
9. TOSS UP; Paul (Ballroom) or BluPrint (Animation)
10. TOSS UP; Hayley (Contemporary), Alexis (Tap) or Mariah (Hip Hop)

Obviously the contemp group seem to be pulling the largest fanbase right now (which usually happens, so no surprise there), and they usually do pretty well versatility-wise. I'm struggling with the ballrooms, because they never seem to get very far at all, especially men (Witney Carson and Lindsay Arnold were surprising exceptions last season), but if anyone will make the Top 10 out of all of them, it's Jenna. I can't see both animators lasting past the Top 10, and I'm not really sure who will do best out of the two, but I'm giving Jade the slight edge right now because of personality. And it's a complete toss-up for last spot for the girls; I have absolutely zero idea out of those three who could pull the biggest numbers. It's all a matter of time.

Partnering should leak in a couple of days, so stay tuned. I only hope they'll match them fairly and not put Amy/Nico or Malece/Nico or something together - I adore Melanie/Marko as much as the next person, but Season 8 was completely useless basically from the get-go because it was pretty obvious Melanie would win it all. So here's who I would match, if I were the SYTYCD-Producer-God.

1. Mariah (Hip Hop)/ Tucker (Contemporary)
2. Jenna (Ballroom)/ Nico (Contemporary)
3. Amy (Jazz)/ Aaron (Tap)
4. Malece (Contemporary)/ Fik-Shun (Hip Hop)
5. Brittany (Ballroom)/  Carlos (Contemporary)
6. Makenzie (Contemporary)/ BluPrint (Animation)
7. Alexis (Tap)/ Jade (Animation)
8. Hayley (Contemporary)/ Paul (Ballroom)
9. Jasmine H. (Contemporary)/ Alan (Ballroom)
10. Jasmine M. (Jazz)/ Curtis (Tap)

I struggled a bit with the Jasmine H./Alan pairing, but hey, what can you do. So stay tuned for the actual pairings...

Season 10 Format Updates

Welcome to SYTYCD Fans! I'll blog and update about the upcoming Season 10 as often as possible... And of course will continue to do so as the season starts ;)

All right, so the format of the upcoming season is always a bit of a toss-up (Season 7 had a Top 11, and just recently Season 9 had just one slot a week, so no elimination show) and it still seems up in the air at this point. Nigel recently tweeted this, which seems to confirm this;

So... Yeah. If he's tweeting so liberally about it, here's to hoping there'll be a results show this season? Last season formatting seemed like a big of a gong show, to be honest, and it just seemed completely overwhelming for both the producers and the dancers to have all the performances and the eliminations in one night. So... let's hope he gets his way. I'll be the first to admit I'm not Nigel's biggest fan, but definitely rooting for him now, haha :)