So You Think You Can Dance

FOX Reality
So You Think You Can Tap? Canada Can
Abbey Simmons
Abbey Simmons
Senior Writer, BuddyTV
According to Nigel Lythgoe, after last night's all tapper extravaganza, we've seen the last group tap routine for this season of So You Think You Can Dance. As Nigel explained, "tap is just too hard of a skill to teach to a non-tapper." So what say you, Mr. Nigel Lythgoe, to So You Think You Can Dance Canada's Tara-Jean Popowich and Everett Smith doing a...gasp, tap heavy routine?

That's right, our neighbors to the North just finished their season of So You Think You Can Dance Canada, where they challenged a non-tapper to tap. In Week 5, SYTYCD Canada winner Tara-Jean and her partner tapper Everett drew "theater" as a genre, which involved a slew of tapping. Just watch for yourself:



So what is it about America's Top 20 that necessitates a tap ban? Is Tara-Jean just that much better than any of the Top 20 girls? Is Canadian dance training superior? Like most of the American Top 20, her background is in contemporary dance and she seemed to handle tap just fine. Surely it's not because of the Canadian audience or judges reaction. They went nuts for the routine and especially the tap section. In fact, comment after comment was about how much the judges enjoyed the tap portion of the routine.

So You Think You Can Dance is about challenging dancers both in and out of their genre, so to ban a specific style because it is too hard seems counter-intuitive. Not to mention completely unfair to the three tappers who did make the finale. Surely the same "it's too hard" argument could have been made for classical ballet last season, but somehow Melissa Sandvig and partner Ade managed to dance a pas de deux.

Hopefully Nigel and So You Think You Can Dance remembers our neighbors to the North, in time to sneak a little bit of tap into season 6. It would be a shame (and a sham) if they didn't...at least without a better excuse than "it's too hard." Tara-Jean seems to have disproved that excuse with aplomb.


--Abbey Simmons, BuddyTV Staff Writer


(Image Source: SYTYCD CA)