Let’s Talk About So You Think You Can Dance Season 15 Episode 5

FOX series So You Think You Can Dance is back for it’s 15th season. The competition show starts with a series of auditions across the country where dancers are chosen to be sent forward to a semi finals at The Academy before making the actual top 20 performers.

Continually one of the most enjoyable reality shows (FIGHT ME), contestants often will go on to be featured prominently in national tours (like Lady Gaga) and films like The Greatest Showman.

Judges for this part of season 15 are former So You Think You Can Dance contestant Twitch, actress/singer Vanessa Hudgens, ballroom champion and Hot Tamale Train conductor Mary Murphy, and series creator Nigel Lithgow. Longtime series host Cat Deeley is back as well.

If you want to know what happened and who we saw last week, you can catch up here.

This week, THE ACADEMY KICKS OFF, and we’ll be updating as the episode airs:

• The episode begins with a quick catchup of the road thus far, the 70 dancers who made it to the academy who will whittled down to 20
• Hip hop will be with NappyTabs, Jean Marc is of course heading the ballroom section, Emmy nominee Travis Wall will also be choreographing a part, and so will Mandy Moore (choreographer not the singer)
• Darius is first up with his solo, with a crazy awesome mix of modern ballet with elements of hip hop
• Jensen (ballroom dancer) is sister to Lindsay Arnold from season 9 of SYTYCD, and she’s next up with her solo. It feels like she’s loosing steam with this, not going all out
• Some great montage bits of solos are shown, some of our favorites from the previous 4 episodes
• The first round of cuts happens, 15 contestants do not make it through
• The end of the first night has the contestants learning the hiphop routine from NappyTabs (Tabitha and Napoleon)
• Oh no the first injury! A rolled ankle
• The first group performs the hiphop choreo and Nigel stops them before they finish, but it’s to tell them they’re all through.
• The next group, mixed bag of good and not so great.
• “There’s two things Philippinos can do- dance and karaoke,” says Napoleon.
• The groups get progressively worse, being sent through on their solos rather than this group routine
• I can’t help but giggle watching tapper Edward perform, he’s just the cutest damn thing
• Ballroom time with Jean Marc- nice to see him dancing!
• His advice is pretty great- if you forget, look to your partner, and fake it til you make it.
• You know, not a bad try for folks who aren’t used to the style
• Ooooh Ms. Estranga/Jay is out of drag and ALLLLLMOST had it, but could not manage to catch his partner
• They have Jay try again, but with a Ballroom partner. He can’t really partner, and they probably did it to show him he could not keep up with the professionals.
• They KEPT him. Wow.
• Can’t wait for next week!

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So You Think You Can Dance airs on Mondays on FOX.