So You Think You Can Dance Conference Call: The First Eliminated Dancers Speak Out

This week’s conference call with the eliminated dancers felt a little tense, and though they seemed to be keeping their heads up, the three appeared rankled about the way things went down the first two weeks of this season’s show.

The dancers joining the call were Wadi Jones, Nick Young, and Iveta Lukosiute (Missy wasn’t present).

The first topic the contestants spoke on was which dances they found most difficult during their brief stint on the series. For Wadi, the answer seemed easy, and he said the Cha-Cha, with its many rules and strict form, gave him the most trouble. Nick said Bollywood and its intricate hand motions stumped him a bit, along with all the intricate hand motions.

Iveta talked about how honored she felt to work with ballroom choreographer Jason Gilkison, and how impressed she was with all the contestants who took on ballroom dancing (including Wadi’s Cha-Cha).

Nick talked about how it was for him, growing up in his parent’s dance studio and loving both dance and sports. He said he loved every second of it, and being busy and active. He claims to have been judged for being a dancer, regardless, but wouldn’t change a thing.

In answer to the question, ‘were any of you surprised to have been eliminated or were you expecting it’ the conversation started to take a bit of an uncomfortable turn.

Wadi stated he didn’t anticipate anything, because nobody expected what had happened the week before, and nobody expected the bottom three to be who is was either week. He said Ryan and Ricky’s spots in the bottom three shocked everyone.

Iveta chimed in with, “I was surprised because I thought this show was about versatility and showing different genres of dancers of how we were going to pursue our different styles. And I was the only ballroom dancer, Nick was the only tap dancer, and Wadi was the breaker. It was strange to me that on the first elimination they got rid of all of these different styles, so that was a bit surprising to me.”

Nick also voiced disappointment over leaving so soon, thinking he “was going to get a little bit farther than the first week, but maybe there’s a reason that they didn’t cut anyone last week and they cut us this week.”

See what I mean? They definitely feel bitter about the elimination that wasn’t, the one that spared three couples who are all still on the show while these four eliminated dancers go home. Two of them would still be there if the eliminations had proceeded as scheduled.

When asked about that very fact, Nick had this to say. “Unfair might not be the word because they can do whatever they want so unfair or fair, it’s their decision, but definitely a little upset about it now, you know. It makes you think a little bit.”

Wadi chose a zen attitude instead. “Apparently everything happened the way it should have happened and you can’t take any of that back.”

Iveta has better ideas of how the could improve, suggesting “I think if they want it to be fair, I think every couple has to do ballroom and every couple has to do jazz and every couple has to do hip-hop before they eliminated so many people. That’s what I think.”

Iveta also had an interesting answer to the question, ‘do you have to be a contemporary dancer to do well on this show?’ “It’s about your personality; it’s about how you finesse people. I do believe America wants to see different dances and different styles and I don’t think they just want to see contemporary people doing contemporary pieces.”

Totally agree, Iveta. I think you just nailed why you were eliminated, actually.

What do the three of them have planned for the future?

Nick: “I’m not 100% positive what I want to do, but I’m hoping to move out to NYC and kind of start a career for myself out there, but we’ll have to see what happens over the summer.”

Iveta: “I personally am planning to open a studio this year in NYC, a ballroom dancer studio. Actually I have been planning to do that even before I got on the show.”

Wadi: “Me and Tadd and another friend started a company before we actually went on the show and what we do is promote drug and alcohol abstinence for kids and teach them how to handle abuse and how to use dance or art or basically anything they love as an outlet instead of doing drugs.”

Does he have any advice for teenagers who want to start dancing?

“Find what it is you love about it most, and every morning when you wake up just remind yourself of that and remind yourself why you’re doing it. Because it does get hard and it only gets harder and as long as you’re able to find your motivation and push yourself to do what you love that’s really all you need.”

So You Think You Can Dance airs Wednesday and Thursday nights at 8/7c on Fox.