Season 8 winner, Melanie

Congratulations to Melanie! She was announced as “America’s Favorite Dancer” on the So You Think You Can Dance finale.  While not one of my favorite seasons of SYTYCD, there were some truly talented dancers on the show this year. Melanie, for instance, was a revelation: always grounded, with beautiful extension, and lovely control.

 Tomorrow notes on the finale!

On September 25th, the U.S. Postal Service will release four stamps featuring art work from Romare Bearden. Bearden produced art over a 50-year period, and is perhaps best known for his collage work.

You can learn more about each of the designs here.

The titles of the works, from left to right are: Conjunction (1971); Odysseus: Poseidon, The Sea God—Enemy of Odysseus (1977); Prevalence of Ritual: Conjur Woman; and Falling Star (1979)

Columbiana will be released on August 26th. The fact that Michael Vartan is in the movie makes a direct connection to me to Alias, in which Vartan played a key role.

Thank you Margaret Richard. And the music – it’s classic.

A friend reminded me of the sheer beauty of the melancholy and reflection of this song. The pure music – as Adele says, she makes music for listening, not for eyes.

Thank you Adele.

An Afrojazz routine that seems to me mainly an excuse to put people in inappropriate ethnic body paint, with some African dancing and without context.

I am also confused as to why the womyn now appear on stage in little more than bikinis. As a former (amateur) dancer, I understand how important it is to be able to see the lines of the body, but still. Really? Across the board, the dancing seems far more sexualized – and has been increasingly sexualized through the seasons (side-eye, to Benji Schwimmer’s sister). Jordan, one of the dancers actually did a stripper pop, which is just more of the same – she gave a very similar audition. The response from Nigel, his open leering, that’s not entirely about technique is what is so telling. Jordan’s technique, you can see from her balance, extension, and control (it’s very easy to loose balance) but, hmmm, yeah. I wonder how this performance would be perceived if she was a darker-skinned womyn?

Kat Deely made one slip, confusing Robert with Mitch – unexplainably the two Black men were asked to re-do their solos. I also find it interesting that only Brown folks or folks who were not identifiably white, were selected to be in the bottom set of couples. Thankfully Sasha was not included in this group.

In a huge surprise, the judges decided not to let anyone go. Instead, next week, two couples will be eliminated.