So You Think You Can Dance Episode 2.02

Wednesday, May 31, 2006

So You Think you Can Dance began its second season last Thursday night with auditions in both New York City and Charleston. Tonight's episode takes us to audition in the city of Los Angeles. Judging the auditions in Los Angeles are Mary Murphy and Brian Freedman. The morning auditions were a mess. We see two of the dancers that didn't make it through, Jules Sanchez and Erica Szymanowski.

Erica was cute and she took the rejection well, but Jules shared some words with Nigel. He had seen Jules before back on the first season of American Idol. Jules knew this might earn him some comments going into it, but I don't think anyone thought Nigel would call him rude. Usually it is the other way around. Perhaps Nigel woke up on the wrong side of the bed that morning. The first to go straight through to Vegas is Donyelle Jones.

The after auditions faired better than the morning. Several dancers make it straight through to Vegas, but we don't see any of them individually. The next we end up seeing is swing dancer Benji Schwimmer. He asked by the judges to stay and do some hip hop. The next two we see, Corty Schaffer and Dinopoli Ngyyen. Corty came in with an alright tap performance, but her facial expression through the judges off.

Next we see the six man crew with Ryan from last season's show there to support him. The four that came to audition, Hokuto Konishi, Chris Cuenza, Steve Terado and Victor Kim, all make it through. In fact, by the end of the first day, the twenty that were asked to stay for the choreography portion all are asked to stay. The second day starts bright and early with first up, Ivan Koumaev. He was happy to be there to audition since he had heart trouble and surgery when he was younger. He made straight through to Vegas even if Brian thought he had big ears. The next person up, John Arviso, was a classically trained ballet dancer, but he looked anything but. Both Mary and Brian were quite harsh with their critique which caused Nigel to question their harshness.

Things at this point went from bad to even worse, if that is possible. We see Danny Cabrera who doesn't appreciate at all what the judges have to say about him. Next we see Xufei Wang, and she came in off the street to audition when she saw it happening. The judges were less than impressed with her, and Nigel even told her she had wasted their time. A few others were shown including Henry Graham and Nicole Yates. Henry made it straight through to Vegas. In all, thirty-five dancers made it through to Vegas from Los Angeles. Tomorrow night, we'll see the eye opening Chicago auditions.