The sixth season opener of “So You Think You Can Dance” focuses on talent, not on spectacle

“So You Think You Can Dance” opened its sixth season at the Orpheum Theatre in Los Angeles, CA, the movie capital of the world on Thursday night. Judges, Nigel Lythgoe, Mary Murphy and Adam Shankman took their seats preparing for a very long couple of days of watching dancer after dancer tryout for one of the two hundred spots that were available to move on to one of the toughest weeks of their lives in Las Vegas, NV. From these two hundred contestants, only twenty dancers will be lucky enough to make it to the big stage to compete for the title of America’s Favorite Dancer. A very daunting task for any judge indeed, and Lythgoe said that this season they were looking for near perfection.

The one big noticeable difference this year during tryouts was the fact that the judges were actually having fun with the contestants. Even if the dancer was mediocre to downright bad, the judges would make light of it. You would see them singing to the song or swaying back and forth in their seats in unison or just smiling and laughing. Instead of telling the dancer they were terrible, they would just tell them they need more practice and to keep trying.

The other refreshing thing to see was more screen time being devoted to the good dancers. The standard fare in the past five season openers was to have us sit through the really bad to the really bizarre dancers, saving most of the good dancers for the Top 20 show. They changed this up on this opener though, devoting more coverage to the truly brilliant dancers with only a smattering of the downright laughable sprinkled in. This made the show much more enjoyable to watch, and hopefully they will follow suit in their coverage of the auditions in the other cities in the coming weeks.

Season 6 appears as if it could be the season for tap dancers as well. Ryan Kasprak who had tried out in Season 5 with his brother Evan, who went on to win third place in that competition, was back along with fellow Season 5 veteran Bianca Revel, who treated the audience to a tap battle that proved to be one of the most entertaining auditions ever seen on the show. Closing out the show was another amazing tapper, Phillip Attmore, who had previously been on tour along with Ryan dancing in the phenomenal production of “Fosse.” All three tappers made it through and received their tickets to Vegas. Yes, perhaps this will be the year of tap.

Next week we follow the tryouts for the first time ever to the Valley of the Sun, Phoenix, AZ.

“So You Think You Can Dance” airs every Wednesday on FOX.