So You Think You Can Dance Canada - Top 12

Final 12 dancers. After the elimination tomorrow night the couples, who have danced together since they became the Top 20 (save for the one occasion when the elimination of Bre and Kevin broke up two pairs and resulted in Natalli and Francis becoming a couple) will be broken up. From next week on the dancers will be paired by a random draw.

I didn’t know this was coming and, though I know it’s fair in a competition where the best individual dancer, not the best pair, wins, I’m still disappointed. It’s just human nature to identify with what we watch, so like all the rest of you I’ve been wondering:

Will Francis’ sweet girlfriend, who we met in the audition rounds and watched get eliminated after making the top 200, take him back after witnessing the eyebrow-singeing heat between him and Natalli?

Can Vincent and Lisa overcome the impediments our society still places in the way of interracial love?

When are Myles and Lara going to make it official and will they live near her parents or his?

How will Nico find life in communist Cuba? And will Arrasay’s father ever forgive him for taking away his little girl?

Getting on with the show – choreographer Melissa Williamson (probably my favorite, except for maybe Lil “C”, the guy who did Lara and Myles’ Krump routine – still cracks me up when I think about it.) is judging this week, replacing Mary Murphy. The National Ballet’s Rex Harrington (wasn’t there a character with the same name on GM? Y&R? Melrose?) is back for a second week and stand-bys Tre and Jean Marc anchor the line-up.

Leah is in a spaghetti-strap knee length grey and black dress with an interesting reach-around palm silhouette pattern. (Speaking of which – what did you think of that black and red concoctions Michelle Obama wore on election night? I hated it – made her look blurry around the edges, like the transporter was still in the process of beaming her down.)

First up: Natalli and Francis doing a Gustavo Vargas choreod Salsa. Like – is there any doubt this is going to be hot?

And, oh, the outfits. Natalli is wearing a swag bikini. The underframe is as close to a thong as you can wear on non-cable primetime, with 10-inch purple swag attached, front and back – the sides aren’t bare; they are naked. The top is the same – swag covering her breast like a single large pastie. When she spins it is like the clouds parting. As for Francis, he’s in a snap-brimmed straw that wouldn’t have looked out of place in the Superman sequence from The Godfather II, with a V-neck white tee, jeans and sneakers. Great look for him.

They dance to Hasta Que Se Rompa el Cuero by Sonora Carruseles. While I couldn’t take my eyes off Nat the first time, on replay you can see that Francis has a better command of the dance than she does. Vargas choreod 4 lifts and Francis nailed them all. There is tight, close-in synchronized hand and arm work and Natalli gets a little tied up at one point. She fakes her way out of it with a Marylin Monroe O-mouth oops look and Francis rescues her without missing a beat. Not perfect, but who cares. Looking forward to the best dancer as opposed to the best pair, this routine was argument in Francis’ favor.

Next are Allie and Danny doing a Luther Brown choreod Hip Hop routine to Flo Rida’s In the Ayer. She’s wearing big hoop earrings, a white tube top, red leather jacket, jeans with chain loops hanging down on both sides and white sneaks. Danny’s got a ball cap on sideways, black leather jacket, white tee, jeans and sneaks. Allie’s auburn hair has been ironed straight as the crease in a lawyer’s pants and the baby fat of her exposed midriff is way more erotic than bulging abs.

The routine is snappy and invigorating – lots of arm pumping in the ayer – but they seem to get lost about halfway through and have to fake their way back into it. Rex felt they were too cute and innocent when they needed more “gangster.” Melissa agrees they needed to hit it harder. Tre and JM are kinder, complimenting the fun feel as a redefinition by the dancers of the genre in a way that fit their personalities.

I’m with Tre and JM on this one. I think they brought a welcome sense of fun to a genre that too often degenerates into embarrassing displays of jive-ass humps drowning in there own testosterone. You come from the neighborhood I grew up in, gangster isn’t a cutesy-pie term for a dance style – it’s a name for the scum you struggle to rise above before it sucks you into the mud.

Lara and Myles do a Foxtrot choreod by new guy Danny Quilliam. He is surprised by how short the pair is in real life as compared to how they look on TV. I never thought they looked tall on TV, so now I’m wondering whether they’re midgets or what.

They dance to Michael Duble’s version of the Sinatra warhorse, Summer Wind. Lara wears a flowing, white, ankle length dress that uses more material than you’ll find on a fully made king-sized bed. The dress has a floral pink print and the hem attaches to her wrists. This creates a billowing cloud at the slightest turn. Myles wears a white shirt and pants ensemble of a loose India-influenced cut. The result of the costuming is that the two dance in their own self-contained cloud of swirling pink and white. Romantic in the extreme.

Lara does an effortless leap and Myles catches her as they turn and it is, as Leah says, “lovely.” Rex compares them to Fred and Ginger. Melissa says they get the growth award, Tre compliments Myles’ frame. Jean Marc concurs, amazed at the strength of the classic ballroom frame coming from a B-boy.

Izaak and Kaitlyn do a Jive routine choreod by Dimitry Chaplin, who warns that Jive is one of the fastest dances out there and the main thing is not to blow your lungs out in the first 30 seconds.

The song is on odd choice, Untouched by The Veronicas, a Flock of Seagulls-ish bit of New Wave fluff. The start includes a kiss, which is smart – gets the two right back into the intimate touch groove they finally established last week. They lose some momentum on a behind the back spin around but pick it up fast and rock. Kaitlyn does a leap into the one leg over the shoulder position they used to great effect last week and this time they come out of it with a swooping head down to the floor spin that draws gasps from the studio audience.

Rex, however, is unmoved. He found the footwork was slower than it should be. Melissa points out the misses (there were a few). Tre, on the other hand, calls it Izaak’s best so far but then says it "is still not enough." Jean Marc says it wasn’t precise and takes them off his Very Insane Dancers list. Ouch.

Arrasay and Nico pick Jazz. Paul Becker is doing the choreo and, after his spectacular work on as personal a piece as it gets last week, I’m eager to see what he comes up with. The song is James Brown’s It’s a Man’s Man’s Man’s World, which is a great choice for this super-sensuous couple.

Arrasay is in her red chemise once again, Nico is in a suit, the tie undone. The piece starts with her taking his coat off from behind. They slow dance; lots of big moves and space, then rushing together. The crowd hoots and hollers like an office party of receptionists at a male strip joint. Rex calls it the best routine of the night. Melissa agrees, Tre sighs, says they are the leaders of the competition. Jean Marc calls them magic. For the second week in a row Becker impresses.

As dancers, these two are going to miss each other the most of all the couples. And Canada’s going to miss them. Every week, they up the bar.

Vincent and Lisa go last, doing a House routine choreod by newcomer Sho-tyme to Crystal Waters’ 100% Pure Love. Tre will later tell us that House is a genre that takes elements of many genres – hip hop, break, jazz and others – and puts it all in the feet. I loved it but didn’t care for the costuming. Vincent and Lisa are mature dancers. pushing 30. Dressing them like teenagers seemed to me a show of disrespect.

While the choreo was beautifully fluid, these two are dancing outside their strength for the second week in a row. About halfway through they seem to get lost and have to improvise some before they get back into the routine. I fear for them in the voting.

So that’s it. Lisa and Vincent, Izaak and Kaitlyn, and Allie and Danny for the bottom three, Izaak and Kaitlyn to go. I batted 100 last week.