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Are injuries ruining “So You Think You Can Dance” ?
Another day, another dancer injured on “So You Think You Can Dance”.
Billy Bell sat out this week’s competition rounds on the TV dance show with a hurt knee, joining ballet dancer Alex Wong and contemporary dancer Ashley Galvan on the growing list of contestants brought down by injury in rehearsal.
It’s the biggest injury toll in the show’s five-year history. So what’s going on? Even executive producer and judge Nigel Lythgoe isn’t sure. But at least he is honest.
“There is something going wrong this season. I don’t know what it is but we’re going to bring people in to help us do warm-ups, or something,” Lythgoe said, adding that next season the show could mount a “Survivor” style dance-off featuring the injured early leavers.
A third consecutive injured dancer suggests the problem has gone beyond a joke. Not only have injuries removed arguably the most scintillating competitor — Miami ballet dancer Alex — from the show and the public, they have sidelined contestants and forced the remaining dancers to switch partners at the last minute or dance alone.
Worse still, some of the injured are now out of any dancing at all for months and months — and in a career that is short, that is never a a good thing.
Are the top 10 — who sometimes have three routines apiece each week — being pushed too hard? Are the choreographers getting too ambitious in their efforts to repeatedly top their last triumph?
“Dancing” loses its DeLay
Apparently, battling bug infestations and stubborn members of Congress is easier than making two bum feet do the Cha-cha-cha, as Tom DeLay has bowed out of “Dancing with the Stars.”
Of all the contestants on this season’s “Dancing,” DeLay definitely got the most attention when the cast was announced. But it turns out, he may not be missed all that much.
A poll from entertainment website PopEater.com found that 68 percent of respondents are not sad to see DeLay leave “Dancing.”
DeLay, a former bug exterminator and U.S. House of Representatives majority leader, said on Tuesday’s show that he is leaving because of stress fractures in both feet. “Dancing” is notorious for inflicting injuries on its cast members, inspiring talk that the show suffers from a “curse.” In truth, it’s just a program that demands a lot from cast members, who often come in physically unprepared.
It doesn’t look as if DeLay, whose nicknames over the years have included “Hot Tub Tom” and “The Hammer,” is leaving with any hard feelings. When he joined the program, his professional dancing partner, Cheryl Burke, teased the Republican DeLay by saying, “Tom is very conservative, so a lot of hip shaking is not up his alley.”
But speaking to US Weekly magazine after DeLay announced his departure, Burke said, “He taught me that politicians can dance!”
DeLay jokingly lamented, “I haven’t made her a conservative yet!”
I think it was neat that a major politician chose to be on “DWTS”! I have loved the show since it first came on and it’s appeal is that it attracts “stars” from all walks of life. It’s never good when the contestants are injured, and I and my husband especially hate that Cheryl won’t be dancing anymore this season. She is such an awesome dancer and she is just gorgeous too! She can make anyone look like a great dancer!
Ummm… you obviously don’t watch the show or read many articles about SYTYCD or you would be aware of how easy the jusges are on Jose. He is a charming young man with a great smile– as the judges have told us over and over again. They have given him very little criticism with the exception of 1 week when he was terrible– and even then they were pretty mild with him. They were more concerned with saying something that would make him frown thatn they were about actually critiquing his dancing. They’ve been much harder on the other dancers and he’s often been given a pass and just told what a great smile he has.