Today is:
"So You Think You Can Dance" Leaves the Small Screen and Hits the Road
Loyal fans of "So You Think You Can Dance" know that the show just finished its third season on Fox and the dance competition is more popular than ever. For years, being a dancer was one of the most thankless jobs in the entertainment industry. The countless hours of training and learning dance numbers for Broadway shows, music videos, and concert tours often went uncomplimented by critics and fans because all of the attention went to the main performers. Bravo to Fox for creating a place where it is all about the dancers. Millions of people tuning in have proved that this series is long overdue.
Guests like Fergie and Hillary Duff couldn't wait to appear on the show!
The show spends weeks auditioning any body and everybody who thinks that they have what it takes to be America's favorite dancers. Traveling across the country to find the best of the best, twenty dancers are selected to appear on the show. Once the group heads to Hollywood, some of today's top choreographers put the dancers through the paces. The masters teach the students breath-taking, jaw dropping routines that feature an array of dancing styles from hip-hop to ballroom and beyond. Though there are three judges to critique performances and offer suggestions, it's ultimately up to the viewing audience to keep their favorite dancers in the competition.
This season's winner was twenty year old, Sabra Johnson, from Roy, Utah. Sabra won a $250,000 cash prize and the title of "America's Favorite Dancer." The second runner up was Danny Tidwell with third and fourth place going to Neil Haskell and Lacey Schwimmer respectively. Lacey was no stranger to the show as her brother Benji won last season's competition.
This season's judges and choreographers chose their favorite numbers to be showcased in the finale.
Though the show has wrapped for this season, the fun and excitement is continuing on a 49 city tour across the country. Dancers on the tour include the top ten finalists (Kameron, Jaimie, Lauren, Neil, Sabra, Pasha, Dominic, Lacey, Danny and Sara) with Hok and Anya also on the road as alternates. Remaining tour dates are as follows:
Oct 12 State College, PA Bryce Jordan Center
Oct 13 Huntington, WV Big Sandy Superstore Arena
Oct 14 Greensboro, NC Greensboro Coliseum
Oct 16 Hampton, VA Hampton Coliseum
Oct 17 Charlotte, NC Charlotte Bobcats Arena
Oct 19 Tampa, FL St. Pete Times Forum
Oct 20 Miami, FL American Airlines Arena
Oct 22 Duluth, GA Arena at Gwinnett Center
Oct 23 Greenville, SC BiLo Center
Oct 24 Nashville, TN Sommet Center
Oct 26 St. Louis, MO Scottrade Center
Oct 27 Kansas City, MO Sprint Center
Oct 28 Minneapolis, MN Target Center
Oct 30 Columbus, OH Schottenstein Center
Oct 31 Cleveland, OH Wolstein Center
Nov 01 Toronto, ON Air Canada Centre
Nov 03 Detroit, MI Joe Louis Arena
Nov 04 Indianapolis, IN Conseco Fieldhouse
Nov 05 Chicago, IL United Center
Nov 07 Milwaukee, WI Bradley Center
Nov 09 Cincinnati, OH US Bank Arena
Nov 10 Lexington, KY Rupp Arena
Nov 12 Grand Prairie, TX Nokia Theatre
Nov 14 San Antonio, TX AT&T Center
Nov 15 Houston, TX Reliant Arena
Nov 18 Glendale, AZ Jobing.com Arena
Nov 19 San Diego, CA San Diego Sports Arena
Nov 21 Los Angeles, CA Nokia Theatre
Nov 23 Oakland, CA Oracle Arena
Nov 24 Sacramento, CA Arco Arena
Nov 25 San Jose, CA HP Pavilion at San Jose
Nov 27 Portland, OR Rose Garden
Nov 28 Everett, WA Everett Events Center
Nov 30 Reno, NV Reno Events Center
Tickets for the show are available through
www.Ticketmaster.com
and
AEGLive.com
Be sure to go there soon and get your tickets if they are still available for the city closest to you!
Stay tuned to
FOX.com
to find out when auditions for Season Four will begin. The show will air in Summer of 2008. In the meantime, to get you pumped for the tour, "EnterTeenmentNews.com" spoke to Lacey and Neil about the show and what it is like being on the road. Read on to find out more!
Lacey Schwimmer
For some people, everyone in their family played football, or went into Law Enforcement. In Lacey Schwimmer's family… everyone danced. "I was basically born into a family that was dancers," Lacey tells us when she calls from a "So You Think You Can Dance" tour stop. "My grandparents were dancers and taught my Dad. My Dad and Mom met at a dance class my Dad was teaching. My brother started dancing so I was just kind of around it my entire life. It's something that I have always just witnessed."
Because it was the family business, the independent entertainer did consider finding a more unique talent all her own. "When I was little, I always tried to be different then anybody else around me and it still kind of follows today. Everyone in my family danced so of course, I didn't want to dance," she confesses. "I tried singing but that didn't work out so well. So I started dancing." Admitting that taking classes from her parents sometimes posed additional problems ("It's really hard having your parents as coaches," she says. You get into fights a lot easier than normal parents would. It's just difficult taking criticism from them.") she's also quick to point out that they were great teachers. "It worked and I'm here today so I have to thank them for it!"
After she decided to give dancing a try, it consumed most of her childhood. "My Mom directed plays a lot when I was younger. She did plays at schools or whatever theater companies there were. So I was around that quite a lot. I'd always be put into the plays or I'd audition for the plays. I did theater A LOT growing up. Acting, singing and dancing has always been a really big thing in my life. My parents owned a studio out in Redlands, so I was always around that as well. I started traveling when I was six years old to Europe doing family shows and touring over there. I've been around it my entire life. It's nothing new to me."
All of that training came in handy when Lacey decided to try out for the third season of "So You Think You Can Dance." By the time her audition rolled around, she was incredibly familiar with the show. Her brother Benji won last season's competition. In fact, she almost could have competed against him last year. "You know what's funny is… I was supposed to audition with my brother," Lacey explains. "We came to find out that I was actually like twelve days too young to actually audition."
Not letting the setback keep her from pursuing more opportunities to learn and compete, she filled her time with other dancing competitions. "I went to a competition where I won the United States title in Latin that same weekend that he auditioned. So it was kind of cool. He made his audition and I got my thing."
"I think it's better that we weren't on the same season together," she continues. "I think that would have been kind of, a little bit strange. I think coming into it this season, I was kind of nervous just because my brother did win and I knew that it wouldn't be the best thing for me to do, but I had to do it." Proving that she had exactly what it took to win American over, Lacey placed fourth in the competition. Not bad, considering how many thousands of people auditioned.
Lacey is having a blast out on the road with the other finalists from the show and we asked her what moments she most looks forward too during the day. "The first one would have to be the catering. I love the food! That's one big part of my day. I'm like 'Ooo, yea! It's dinner time!' I get excited about that! Also, there's massage and chiropractors here so that's always good to look forward too, even though we're in pain most of the time. We get to relax a little bit. Also, the first moment that you walk onstage… it's just really cool. It's unreal. I can't really describe it."
Her hobbies are like most girls her age. "Before the tour, I used to go see movies a lot and I listened to music and go see concerts and all that. And of course, shop! I think every girl shops. And now, we really don't have time. So when we get the chance, we try to sleep. We try to watch movies. For the most part, I think we look forward to our days off because that means we can sleep in, go shopping, watch a movie. I do all the normal things that everybody else does."
Once the tour finishes up, she's not sure what her future will hold but she's wishing for a career in the entertainment industry. "I hope to do, acting or theater or something else in the entertainment industry," she says emphatically. "I know that I'll be teaching, that's a given, but I want to go into other forms of entertainment as well!"
Having had so many great moments and routines on the show, it won't be hard for Hollywood or New York to take notice of this talent who has been performing since she was barely out of diapers. She encourages anyone out there who has the same dream to go for it. "If they love it, then they have to keep going for it!" she states. "No matter what anybody says, if they're a bad dancer or they don't have good technique or whatever the case may be… if you truly love it than do it! That's what happened with me personally, I quit a few times because things in my life weren't exactly right at the moment but you keep going and you keep having faith and you'll succeed!"
Neil Haskell
Neil Haskell wowed the judges and the viewing audience by showcasing his gymnastics skills along side his dancing abilities. If he looked like he had been doing it for years it's because…. well, he has!
"I first started because some of my friends were doing it and I just decided to get into it because I just wanted to hang out with them more," Neil recalls of his early dancing days. "I was in preschool," he states of his early start. It would be years later that this performer would consider dancing as a profession. "I realized it was something I wanted to pursue as a career probably some time in high school. But it was definitely something I wanted to do my entire life!"
His friends and family backed the decision 100 percent! "They were absolutely supportive," Neil says. "Everybody definitely appreciated it and respected it and was really happy about it all the time."
With his family and friends behind him, Neil started getting serious about learning more about his craft. "I did a lot of dance class and dance competitions and all that growing up. And then I was doing high school musicals and stuff," he says about how he honed his skills. "Then I went to school for dance in Pittsburgh. I went to an audition and actually got hired for Pittsburgh's CLO which is like a nationally renowned Summer stock. I got hired for that which was pretty cool and that started my professional career out as a theater performer. About a month after that contract ended, I got hired for my first Broadway show."
Neil was no stranger to Broadway having seen several shows that inspired him. His favorite though is the one based on music by Billy Joel. "I'd say the one show I saw that definitely gave me that kick forward into being like 'I want to do this is' is the show 'Movin' Out' on Broadway. It's such an amazing show! Everybody in it was just extremely talented. It was an inspiration to watch!" he says. "It was very cool!"
Having seen "So You Think You Can Dance" a couple of times, Neil gave trying out some thought. "I knew about the show, I had watched it a couple of times before. I was never like an avid watcher though. I liked the show when I watched it; I just never had time to watch it. I knew there was an audition coming up so I just looked online, found it and went to it."
It proved to be a smart move for the Buffalo, New York native. After finding out that he was chosen for the top twenty, Neil wasted no time getting ready to compete. "I just did what I normally did. Just took a lot of dance classes. I started watching old You Tube videos of the show and just saw what it was all about."
On the show, dancers are paired up for duet dances. We asked if this was tough because you are essentially competing against your partner. "Well at that point in time, when you are onstage with them or working with them, you can't think about it as you're competing against them because that would be such a negative thing to be doing and it wouldn't help the partnership out at all," he explains. "What you have to do is just dance with the person, make them look as good as possible, because if you make them look as good as possible, you're going to look excellent as well. So you can't really think about it that way. You have to think about it as we're a team. And for the finale, when it was all four of us competing against each other, we were also dancing with each other. You had to work together. I guess solos would be a big way to separate yourself from them. So you'd have to perform with them and make them look as good as possible during the duet dances and then during your solo, make yourself look as good as possible."
Neil and his partners made him look good enough to place third in the whole competition and land him a spot on the tour. "It's going really well," he says about being on the road. "We've done about 8 or 9 cities, I guess. We have like 41 more. Then we're done at the end of November. We're crammed tight with shows, fun audiences and fun performances."
Ironically, it's being on the road that has provided Neil some much wanted stability in his life. "The good thing is that there's definitely a place to just keep our stuff for now," he says when asked about the perks of leading a rock star life. "We can have a bunk and just keep our stuff in there. It's good because when we were on the show, every Thursday we had to be ready to get out of the apartments that we were living in and go into a hotel and then leave the next day. So you had to have all your stuff basically ready to be packed up or packed up every single Thursday. You didn't really know how long you were going to be there, if you were going to be able to set up and make it more like a home type of thing. Now that we're on the bus we have a place to keep our stuff and just leave it there for the next two months and then after that… we'll be back to normal."
So, for all of you wondering… what exactly does Neil keep in his bunk? Anything to keep him from getting homesick, perhaps? "I definitely brought a picture of my girlfriend just because I miss her!" he says in a most sincere voice. But that's about it from home. "I wasn't really going to get homesick. I've been away from home for about a year now, living in New York. Other than that, my bunk just has some of the stuff that some fans gave me… that's basically it."
Neil says that the "Angel/Devil" routine is his favorite!
And last but not least, Neil gave us a rundown on the routine his life has become since kicking off the tour on September 21. "We will hopefully be getting in to the city that we're going to be performing in anywhere between two in the morning or five or six in the morning. So we'll get into the city then and check into our hotel. Sleep until 12:00 or 12:30. Get onto the bus and go to the venue at around 12:30ish. Get to the venue, eat lunch, rest a little bit more. Do some press. Do some interviews and then start warm up around 4:00 or 4:30. Then start the show at 8:00. After the show we shower and get ready to go meet some people. Go outside and sign autographs for two hours until 12 or 12:30ish. And then do the whole thing over again. Drive to the next city."
We can't tell you how much you will enjoy watching Lacey, Neil and the other dancers bring these routines to life on stage. Check out the tour if at all possible and see for yourself what the buzz is about. Even if you can't dance… you can have a great time watching those who can!
P.S. - If you missed the show when it aired on Fox or the MTV marathon, a lot of the performances can be found on You Tube. Fall in love with everyone and their astonishing dance numbers there!
Photos Provided By: FOX
