DANZ QUARTERLY No 5 September 2006

Of Course You Can Dance!

By Francesca Horsley

Young dancers with a desire to see their names in lights and on the TV screen have another chance to strut their stuff. There is going to be a new series of So You Think You Can Dance?

The enormous success of the last series has prompted TV3 to commission Imagination TV to produce another, expected to screen in a new season next February.

Although run along the same lines, this series, according to Darryl McEwen, executive producer of Imagination TV, will look bigger and flasher.

It will be filmed in a larger theatre, such as Auckland’s St James or the Bruce Mason Centre and they are hoping to attract a higher standard of dancer. “The most important thing is to get the best dancers we possibly can.”

Darryl says they are making a concerted effort to encourage dancers with good technique to audition. While the feedback on the first series was very positive, it revealed that dancers were slightly hesitant about applying. Now that the show has built a quality brand, and dancers can see the opportunities, they will be more confident to enter.

Last series’ contestant, Zoe Watkins, one of the top six finalists, will visit dance studios and schools throughout the country to encourage dancers to audition. “I think in the last series there were a lot of people who weren’t trained in dance but they just liked dancing. Imagination TV wants the standard to be higher, and I think it is definitely possible.”
Zoe, 21, a graduate of the New Zealand School of Dance, went straight from the School to the competition. Since then she has danced in Sydney with Douglas Wright’s Black Milk. “Performing for TV is very different; it’s a great opportunity and a fun experience.”

Darryl said that they plan to have a backstage host to interview the contestants after they come off. They also will have a full time dance coach working to fine tune their dances.

“The difficulty is that some great dancers are not great choreographers. We are not going to choreograph, but we will offer assistance to ensure their solos are as good as can be.”

The age group is open to 16 to 32, and the competitions will be in the same genres; hip hop, ballroom, Latin and Salsa, contemporary and jazz. Auditions will be held in Auckland and Wellington in November, as well as off camera auditions elsewhere in the country, such as Christchurch, Hawkes Bay and Dunedin, with people brought in to Wellington for the filmed audition.

The three judges have yet to be finalized, but Michael Parmenter returns again as head judge, with Shane Cortese as host.

Michael says “It has been great to see the dance styles together; contemporary, ballroom, hip hop and jazz all in the same embrace, so to speak. It is good for young people to see these styles, and see their own particular one, especially hip hop, on the same level as ballroom and jazz.”

He sees that each genre has both strengths and challenges. “The competition is about versatility, and is a mixture of ballroom and studio styles. Jazz and ballroom have just as much technique as contemporary and to be really great at hip hop you really have to do classes as well. You can have natural movement but there are so many techniques and dynamics which you have to study.”

“People who have done contemporary training have covered quite a lot of things; they have done some partnering, even if it is not the same as ballroom, and they can get in and out of the ground and they can do the grunty stuff of hip hop,” Michael says.

“The challenge for them is the aspect of performance. A show such as So You Think You can Dance is very much about the audience. You are trying to win over the judges, the audience, and TV audience at home; you have to be a performer. I love the fact that contemporary dancers have to get out there and acknowledge their audience. Ballroom dancers go out and sell it; hip hop does as well, because there is so much glitz and one-upmanship competition.”

“For ballroom, the challenges are getting down into the ground; it is so much up in the air. They hardly ever use their knees, there is a lot of ankle work but the knee joints are so important in other dance styles. When ballroom dancers have to get down, as they do in hip hop, or even into the ground as in contemporary, they really struggle. Also there is the different use of the arms; in ballroom the arms are fixed and held in a frame, and yet so much of hip hop and contemporary dance the arms are going all over the place.”

Michael says that one thing the hip hop people struggle most with is the different rhythms. “Hip hop is so much into eight beats to the bar, and people find it hard to feel three four waltz time; they haven’t developed rhythmical sensitivity.”

He is delighted to be a judge on the second series. “I guess because of my experience as choreographer, analysing movement and giving feedback as a teacher for 30 years, I found it quite easy, not a challenge at all. I loved it – felt confident in my decisions and judgments. I wouldn’t agree to do it again if I didn’t feel that I was making a contribution.”

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