Recap: Top 10 Performances

With Debbie Allen on the judges’ panel, this episode rocked! There were many highlights. Read on to hear our thoughts.


Booked on the hot tamale train:

Top 5 girls’ Bollywood routine

They were definitely Bollywood bombshells. Jeanine really caught our eye with her amazing stage presence. But everyone else killed it too. We heart Bollywood this season. And apparently so do the judges. Nigel called it “hot, spicy tandoori” (hilarious, right?) and Mary exclaimed, “Bollywow!”

Jeanine and Jason

!!!!!!!!!!!

Can they dance together every week? We LOVE these two together. Like Mary, we were speechless, and we also got chills and mild tears (err—jk). The passion and technique in the number was explosive. It was the best contemporary choreography on the show since Stacey Tooky’s piece (a round of applause for Travis Wall!). Debbie Allen said “This is a magical pair” and that she can’t wait to see the piece again on the tour. Yeah, us too!

Brandon and Melissa

This was definitely Tyce Dioro’s best routine of the season, and we can’t wait to replay it over and over again. We saw Hair and featured it in our July/August issue, so we can attest that Brandon and Melissa totally nailed the hippie vibe of the real show. It was fantastic—between her ballet lines and his gymnastics—a real showstopper.

Taking a later train:

Evan and Kayla

They had a major challenge: she’s way taller than him. They overcame it in the Vietnamese waltz. Overall, the lifts were awesome, the lines were clean (go Kayla!) and they looked cute together (who doesn’t look cute with Ev?), yet it wasn’t mind-blowing or fiery. Debbie Allen’s reaction to this routine was the best quote of the night: “Darling, you handled your big woman!” Loves it!

Ade and Janette

Ade totally rocked in this Nappytabs hip-hip number! He got groovy! Janette, as always, gave a strong performance, but her lines were more jazz than funk. To learn more about the funk styles, check out this awesome urban spotlight.

Top 5 guys’ African dance routine

Nigel: “Evan you looked like a dancing milkshake” Ha! Lot of great one-liners on this episode, right? The number was a fun, and it looked extremely challenging. Good job boys.

Missed the train:

Kupono and Randi

These two seemed to struggle through the paso doble, and their performance was lukewarm. Yes there was some passion, but it was also kind of clumsy. We agreed with Nigel that while they did a number of things they did well, it wasn’t authentic or particularly moving dance. —Lauren Levinson