Everyone was happy and excited for Bailey Hanks, winner of MTV’s Legally Blonde reality competition. She beat out the other legal blondes and landed her leading role, which she premiered last Wednesday. The other contestants went home, heads hung low, bitter and defeated, right?

Well, not so much.

Surprise! You’ve Got Contracts!

As it turned out, the producers had jobs in mind for all four of the top contestants in the show.

• Rhiannon Hansen will play Margot, Elle’s best friend, in the touring company of Legally Blonde
• Autumn Hurlbert will join the Broadway cast as Elle’s understudy
• Lauren Zakrin will not only join the touring company in the ensemble but also act as a second understudy for the Broadway show.

So all four top contestants won contracts, and all four seem to be pretty happy about it. “I couldn’t be at a better place; this is better for me now and this is where I’m supposed to be,” Rhiannon told the Deseret News.

I think this is a piece of brilliance on the part of the producers, and could change the way people get cast in these shows. They came out of this with (I’m presuming) a profit from the MTV show, four solid leads for their main star, and everybody’s happy.

Could this be the end of the Cattle Call?

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Lance Bass. Kellie Pickler. Lou Ferrigno. Warren Sapp. These are just a few of the names being rumored as the new contestants on Season 7 of Dancing with the Stars, which has a two-night premiere starting tomorrow on ABC. Some of these are hardly surprising – with the recent HULK movie, Lou Ferrigno seems a natural choice. Some rumors just seem too good to be true: Lance Bass may be performing with a male partner, for example.

One rumor I do not believe is the idea that Paula Abdul might be one of the contestants – as a judge for a competing network show, it would just be too much a conflict of interest. Either way, it will certainly be a high-energy show as they try and steal some of the audience, thunder, and emmy-nominations from So You Think You Can Dance.

I’ve got my couch ready. Do you?

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It’s not a big bone, it’s just a little one, an accusation of hyperbole and misleading compliments. It’s simply this: she recently compared Will’s rendition of Tyce Diorio’s contemporary dance piece to something approaching the skill of Desmond Richardson.

I almost hesitate to bring it up, simply because it seems a bit like sour grapes. It’s not, really; it’s more a cautionary word to people who may think that because they watch shows such as SYTYCD, they aren’t missing anything when they fail to buy tickets for their local ballet or contemporary dance company.

A Talented Beginning…but a Beginning, Nonetheless

Let’s not forget something: the dancers you see on the screen, pouring their hearts on the stage, are at the start of their dance careers. As Sabra showed last year, sometimes a loud scream of passion at the right time can move an audience like nothing else…but that energy of youth only goes so far. These are Dancers in the Rough, diamonds waiting to be cut and polished and then take their place in the great tiara of dance…ok, so that metaphor may be a little stoned. But do you see what I mean?

You Ain’t Seen Nuthin’ Yet

What makes it even worse, in my opinion, is that Mia’s comment may have just gone unnoticed by most. People will just shrug and say, “Desmond who? I dunno, he’s some guy who dances like Will…” They won’t realize they’ve seen him in movies like Chicago and Across the Universe, or was part of the OBC of Fosse, where sure, he got the Tony nod, but more than that he helped shape the vocabulary of modern movement for an entire culture.

This man is important. This man is more than talented, this man is not a Mozart of Dance, he’s a Leonardo Da Vinci of Dance. And Will is…talented. He has a beautiful body, and grace and expression and he and Jess did a fine, fine job.

But compare the dances – watch Desmond, first, then watch Will. And tell me if that’s really a fair comparison for anything other than the most superficial of reasons.

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• Mary Murphy: “Even though it’s slow, it still has to make us feel something. I didn’t,”
• Nigel Lythgoe: “It didn’t grab me. It was a bit like hip-hop on sleeping pills.”
• Napoleon D’Umo: “…you’ve just got to get down and grimy a little bit.”

Notice how they didn’t say anything bad about the technique, or the costumes, or the pacing, or really anything about the dance because the fact is, Kourtni and Matt did a great job with the moves.

That Je ne sais quoi

The fact is, chemistry is not something you can really fake. You can foster it, I think, by being open to connections between yourself, your partner, and the audience, but when it’s there, it’s very there. Why is it that Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt are so riveting – moreso than with other stars? Because while good actors can make you care, actors (and performers) that care about each other can let you see that, as well.

See for yourself if you thought they had it, or if you can identify what it was they didn’t have:

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OK, now that you’re done chuckling, I have to say that that last part is actually true, and it’s part of why I like working here: the people are great. But then occasionally an email comes to my inbox with a more unusual sponsorship tie-in to a show that I cover.

Like, So You Think You Can Dance. Which, of course, leads the mind naturally to…fabric softener.

Snuggle Up to Your Happy Dance

I don’t know about you, but I think this guy can dance.

He’s the winner from the first week of the “Happy Dance” sweepstakes, which is sponsored by Snuggle Fabric Softener. You, too, can videotape and upload your own Happy Dance to the SYTYCD website.

Why would you want to do that? Besides becoming world-famous as your happy dance is featured on entertainment blogs (sic) you can also get into the running for an all-expense paid trip to Los Angeles for the finale of the show. But more than that, you have a chance to share in the enjoyment of competition, and even have your video featured on a sponsored segment during the So You Think You Can Dance season.

That’s right. Have your dance shown to millions of tv viewers. How could you pass it up?

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You can read some of her thoughts over at RealityWorld, where she sounds a lot like a professional athlete, thanking those who helped her get this far and vowing to continue the journey. That’s not to make light of what she says; in fact, more dancers need to hear what the show’s producer said when she called her time on the show a “humbling experience”: “he said, ‘No, it’s an experience. You didn’t really need to be humbled. It was just an experience and you’ll keep going on.’”

But I really thought she showed some insight into her rebuttal to Mary Murphy’s criticism of America’s Best Dance Crew. She very astutely points out that the two shows are totally different in design and aim; ABDC would never have ballroom dance on it, and, as she puts it, SYTYCD “doesn’t really get to explore our own creativity until we’re in the bottom.”

Perhaps there’s a lesson to be learned from that.

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Apparently researchers in Australia’s University of New England are exploring whether tango can “boost people’s emotions.”

“While you’re doing tango you can only be in the present — you really have to focus, concentrate, and it doesn’t allow your thoughts to drive into your mind,” says Rosa Pinniger, who is heading up the research. “If people can have a break from their negative thoughts for three minutes, which is the time of the tango, they can realize that… this is what it is, nothing else. So all their problems and their thoughts, they cannot be, they are not invited in the tango.”

Sounds a lot like zen, and she admits that it is a lot like meditation. Also, it may not be for everyone, since it is a social endeavour and depressed people are not known for going out and socializing. Still, if you’ve ever been to a milonga, it does not matter what you look like – everyone moves, everyone dances with everyone else. It’s a group meditation, I guess.

So the question is: would watching a tango on So You Think You Can Dance or Dancing with the Stars be about as effective as watching someone meditate? See for yourself (and let me know if you feel better after). Alex da Silva choreographs for Mark & Chelsie:

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(yes, I realize this falls outside of the time zone idea for the blog-off. But it’s too good to pass up, so let’s call it a “stardate”).

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• That Song in my Head
• Jimmy Ray McGee
• Hide Your Matches

You can hear excerpts and learn more over at JulianneSings.com .

But Wait, There’s More!

Because I love you all so much, and because I visited my friends over at Fred Astaire Dance recently, I can share with you a coupon code that you can use for a free download at Julianne’s site. It will also enter you in a drawing to see her perform live. The one rule is: if you win, you have to take me with you.

Ok, maybe not. But it would be nice. The code is:

ACAAHC26

Have fun!

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Who are you, and what have you done with Simon Cowell?

The easiest place to start is Britain’s Got Talent, the equivalent of American Idol. I even saw the biting and critical Simon Cowell there in the judges chair. But what’s this? Rather than looking disgusted, he looked engaged! Interested! He was actually the friendliest of all the judges for this first act! See if you can guess why:

And in the second one he is just one of many supportive judges, and it just almost seemed spooky to see him being so positive:

Apparently, the key to a nice Simon is to be an attractive, scantily clad British woman. Who knew?

A Civilized Culture

I do have to give kudos to the judges and the audience – I can’t see women who did this kind of act in the U.S. being treated with anywhere near as much respect and cheering. I have friends who are belly dancers, and the odds of a judge knowing that there’s a difference between belly dancing and exotic dancing, and that exotic and erotic dancing is, in fact, still dancing – well, in this country, those odds are long, indeed.

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