I thought I would jot down a few of the highlights from today’s conference call with Miranda Malelski and Robert Taylor Jr., the tow dancers who were eliminated from So You Think You Can Dance this week.
Common themes: Miranda is very disappointed that she never got to dance in her style, and Robert feels that the lack of flips and tricks in his “old school” style of hip hop dancing could have hurt him with the judges.
Surprisingly, Robert feels that he never danced close to his style either, despite having danced a Napoleon and Tabitha hip hop number during the 1st week of competition. “You have people say that I had hip hop, I had my genre, but to be quite frank with you, the kind of hip hop that was done was leaning more towards street jazz. Street jazz is not my thing.”
“My hip hop is defined as more of the elements of hip hop which incorporate locking and popping and weaving and cutting, ” explains Robert. “For me, it was difficult, I give so much kudos to my partner Miranda, she actually helped me in that [style], and she looked so great doing it. I’m going to be honest. I had to keep up with her.”
While street dancing isn’t Robert’s thing, it turns out Broadway dancing is, admitting in the interview that he studied “a little bit of musical theater” and toured with a Broadway company of “Hairspray”. He said that the Tyce Diorio piece he performed with Miranda this week gave him a chance to show America that he does have a musical theater side.
Although Miranda was upset that she couldn’t perform in her own style, she says, “That’s the name of the game and I’m proud of everything that we did on the stage.” She would have loved to have pulled a Travis Wall routine out of the hat.
But there was an upside to dancing outside of her style. “Getting hip hop and actually doing a hard core hip hop routine definitely helped me grow, ” said Miranda, “Hip hop is one of the things that I want to get more into. I’m going to start taking classes and start going to hip hop auditions, because I really found that I loved it. Nappy Tabs told me I was really good at it, which was awesome to hear from them. The fact that I excelled in it and loved it at the same time is just perfect for me.”
She also feels that Nigel Lythgoe was the only judge who believed in her. The split decision, she feels, was Nigel vs the other judges who wanted to eliminate her. “You had my vote and were amazing up there tonight, ” Nigel told Miranda after the show, “You’re going to do amazing things.” Miranda says, “It was really amazing to hear that I had the executive producer’s vote.”
Both Robert and Miranda felt they truly danced for their lives last night.
“They didn’t give me any critiques on my dancing, ” says Robert, “All they said was ‘We said you have the biggest personality, but yet we always find you in the bottom 3’. I felt that I really did dance for my life.”
Robert always considered himself the underdog throughout the entire competition because he has no tricks. “I was always expecting to be in the bottom, and I was expecting to go home.”
“I feel like I took it there.” says Miranda of her performance last night, ” I don’t know if they considered that or not. I didn’t get any feedback from them as to why they did what they did. I’m left a little bit hanging.”
“The night before [Nigel] said I was the most improved, which was kind of weird to me, ” says Miranda, “This show is about growth. It was definitely hard hearing that the night before and then all of a sudden you’re gone.”
On Nigel telling Chris that he liked his Nappy Tabs “Woody Woodpecker” routine when in fact, it was Robert and Miranda who danced it. “I wanted to laugh, but it was such a serious moment that I had composure at the same time. I also wanted to say, “that was meeeee!” but I just wanted to keep character and just let it ride by. Maybe it was just an honest mistake on Nigel’s end.”
At one point during the interview, when Robert said he would have loved to do some choreography by Poppin Pete, Miranda piped in to say that she was best friends with Poppin Pete’s son. Robert was all “Get out of town!” It made you wonder if these two ever had a conversation outside of the dance studio. Heh.
“I’m just a bit sad that America didn’t get a chance to see the other things that we could do, ” says Robert, “We had some left in us. All we did were things outside of our genre. I might be the first one on the show to show what it is to have the feeling and the elements of hip hop. I don’t do tricks. If I had tricks I’d still be on the show.”
Nigel Lythgoe confirms he was the lone vote for Miranda, post show
Via Reality Rocks
