A Little Tea or Something

You’ve seen them:  the stickers that masquerade as international code emblems, only they’re not—like this one, from Hilton Head, South Carolina.  Not long ago a dear friend of mine posited that the “fake” stickers were trendy and just plain dumb.  She in fact saw a man getting into a car with one of these white stickers on it, the letters “D-M-B” in black; assuming she’d found a kindred spirit, she stopped him and said, “Oh—I LOVE the sticker—does it stand for dumb?”  He gave her a confused look and replied, “It stands for Dave Matthews Band.” 

Well, then.  At least it’s a reasonable jump from DMB to Dave Matthews Band (although I think dumb is better).  But one of the most dreadful competition-style television reality shows currently airing—So You Think You Can Dance–fares much worse in the acronym department.  The show’s creators, who also bring you the wildly successful American Idol, were clearly not thinking of this.   I won’t go so far as to say it’s the worst reality show in Fox’s prime time lineup these days.  (To wit:  Are You Smarter Than a Fifth-Grader?, for example, which could rightfully be called, Can You Remember All the Factoids Your Fifth Grade Teacher Made You Memorize And Then Regurgitate Them Before A Live Studio Audience Without Any Preparation, While Standing Next To An Actual Fifth Grader Whose Job Is To Make You Look Stupid?)  But I digress.  S-Y-T-Y-C-D is just plain D-U-M-B.

Danny Tidwell; photo Christopher Jean-Richard for the NY Times

I followed the show last summer because Danny Tidwell was a competitor: Danny is a former member of both American Ballet Theatre and Complexions Contemporary Dance.  ABT is a top-five powerhouse ballet company, and Complexions is an uber-athletic and highly respected contemporary dance company, each of them internationally acclaimed.  I thought Danny surely had an excellent shot at winning, and I hoped he would—a handsome, classically trained dancer winning a popular competition might actually help bring ballet to the fore in the pop culture world. 

But what emerged over the course of weeks following the selection of the final contenders was out-and-out war waged on Danny by the judges.  I actually came across a New York Times article about this before I realized what was happening, as I had missed a couple of shows; the judges were dissing Danny because of his ballet pedigree—they decided he was pompous and needed putting in his place.  I was glued to the television for the show’s next broadcast so I could see for myself what was happening.

Each week the contestants are judged by a panel of dance “experts.”  Two are anchors:  one the sardonic Englishman Nigel Lythgoe (as seen here, who is also one of the show’s creators and presumably its answer to Idol’s Simon Cowell), and the other, quite possibly the most obnoxious human being alive, Mary Murphy—a toothy ballroom dancer whose cackle could drive rivets into an aircraft carrier.  The rest of the panel is comprised of rotating guest judges who are choreographers representing various genres of dance:  contemporary, lyrical, jazz, hip-hop, krump, ballroom, and musical theatre (note the absence of ballet).  The competitors are asked to perform different works representing these categories at various times over the course of the competition, ostensibly to demonstrate their ability to step into different styles.

So imagine, if you will, a person who has at least maybe heard of a battement tendu, critiquing Danny Tidwell’s performance.  The situation recalls that one awful tenured professor you had who somehow made the cut, but whose grammar was worse than your own; because of the spot you occupied in the academic hierarchy, you could not point out that the corrections she gave on that paper you wrote were in fact rife with egregious syntactical and grammatical errors.  Cringe.  When I watched Danny step up to the mic to take his lickings from the judges, I was embarrassed—for the ignorance of the judges, and for Danny.  Some of us in the ballet world began to wonder why on earth Danny would engage in this kind of self-flagellation; I still don’t know the answer to that.

Last season the show went on, week after dreadful week, and Danny made it into the finals.  In the end, though, he was trumped by a far less experienced contemporary dancer whose performances were so forgettable to me that I had to look up her name for this post (Sabra Johnson, at left).  The final smack in Danny’s face:  Sabra claimed to have trained as a dancer for just four years.    The judges like to offer sage advice to the competitors they cut:  You need more training, young lady.  You need to get to class, young man.  But the show delivered a subliminal message loud and clear last season, and it was this:  for all you hard-working dancers out there who have doggedly trained (especially in ballet class) for years and years, your training is meaningless.  As long as you can throw your plump tush and chunky thighs around to upbeat music, you can become a professional dancer!  I’m sure that message was not lost on the show’s non-dancing viewers, either; I can just hear Mary Murphy yawping her trademark “WOO-HOO!”  I swore it off then and there.

Until this season.  My husband heard the television from an adjoining room, and said, I thought you said you were not watching that show again this summer.  Rats.  Caught red-handed.  One of my charges as director of a ballet school is to teach my young students and their families how to be intelligent consumers of high-quality dance performance, and there I was, mesmerized by this ridiculous show and its ridiculous auditioning of ridiculous candidates by ridiculous judges.  Again.  In the first show I watched there was nothing noteworthy; just the usual gaggle of hopefuls, in the usual array of revealing tops, tight-fitting shorts, and bare feet, with long hair flying, dancing to completely predictable music, in the hopes that their seconds-long prepared pieces would be good enough to send them on to the next round.  These people pack the theatre in droves and cozy up to the mic after each audition to breathlessly pant their hard luck, I’ve-given-up-everything-over-the-last-year-to-be-here-and-I’ll-just-DIE-if-you-send-me-home stories.  The judges respond in kind, with platitude after platitude: I-sincerely-believe-that-was-the-best-male/female-ballroom/hip-hop/contemporary-performance-this-show-has-ever-seen.  (And of course, there were also those pitiful souls who should never have been granted access to the theatre, but whose pathetic showings bring ratings, and at whose expense the judges carry on and on….) 

So I stuck it out for a couple more uneventful episodes.  And then a young performer grabbed my attention when I heard the word, Juilliard.  Seems as if this young man auditioned last year, but was inexplicably cut; the producers roll footage of him spewing profanities as he leaves the theatre.  His name is Anthony Bryant (in the photo above), and  he is back, hoping for a better outcome, or perhaps some self flagellation.  Nigel raises his hand to cue the music, and the young man begins.  He dances beautifully, his classical technique a beacon shining through the fog of dance drivel.  

As I watch him I keep thinking, he’s gorgeous—surely he’ll be put through to the next round.  When he comes forward for his critique, the judges screw their faces and begin squirming in their seats.  What is the matter, I wonder?  Is someone ill?  Has the dancer just removed his clothes off-camera?  Then it dawns on me:  they are searching for words to put this man in his place.  Which is ultimately precisely what they did; Anthony was cut in the next round.  The platitudes were reserved for a female dancer who followed him with an utterly pedestrian performance.   I am not ashamed to say I threw something at the television just before I stomped out of the room.

I have now officially had it with SYTYCD.  Give that show a sticker.

Filed under: American Ballet Theatre, American Idol, Complexions Contemporary Dance, Danny Tidwell, SYTYCD, ballet school by deb