This morning I had the pleasure of chatting with Ashley Valerio, the latest dancer to be eliminated from So You Think You Can Dance. While we got to see woefully little of the dynamic dancer, Ashley impressed the judges with her persistence. Before making the Top 20 of Season 5, she'd tried out four other times for So  You Think You Can Dance.

Ashley and I chatted about how she managed to work with the choreographers she was most looking forward to during her short time on the show, what it was like to dance as a Crash Test Dummy, and her words of wisdom for Kayla now that she's paired with her former-partner Kupono.


Listen to my interview with Ashley, including her laugh out loud goals for her post So You Think You Can Dance life and "Tweeter":


Here are some of the highlights from our interview:

On her Favorite So You Think You Can Dance Contestant:

Sabra. I met her Season 3 when I auditioned, and she was just very down to earth and I thought she was an incredible dancer, who could do anything. But most importantly, she was herself.

On How So You Think You Can Dance Try-Outs Changed:

I feel like every season, people just kept getting better and better and the competiton kept getting harder.

On How She Lucked out with Choreographers:

I worked with the two people I most wanted to work with: Wade Robson and Mia Michaels.

On Her Cerebral, Stunning, Crash Test Dummies Dance:

I just felt like it was something completely out of my comfort zone and it was movements I wasn't used to. Usually when you dance, you have lines, but we had to dance like characters.

On Her Crash Test Dummy Make-Up and Costume:

I was dying. Everybody got to be all cute, all the girls got to have their hair down and I had my hair up in a white bun and with a white face.

Her Words of Wisdome for Kayla on dancing with Kupono:

Just be nice to him, he's a sensitive soul and just enjoy his personality, because he's a great person.



--Abbey Simmons, BuddyTV Staff Writer
(Image Courtesy of FOX)