So You Think You Can Dance: Basking In The Finale Glow

America once again crowned its favorite dancer of the FOX summer smash So You Think You Can Dance last week, and the victory of this year’s champion was a surprise to no one except her. 19-year-old art student Melanie Moore was clearly the one to beat throughout the hit series’ eighth season, winning over viewers and judges alike with her impeccable technique and infectious charm. In spite of her obvious popularity, Moore told Poptimal she never assumed the crown was hers until host Cat Deeley announced her name.

“Actually, I was really surprised,” Moore admitted, beaming with both shock and delight minutes after her win. “I think that it could have been anybody’s game. And a lot of the time, the frontrunners don’t win, so I wasn’t expecting anything at all.”

Judge Mary Murphy, enjoying her return to SYTYCD after taking a season off to recover from thyroid cancer, said Moore’s win was inevitable from the beginning.

“I think Melanie has the most outstanding technique over the others. Now, they were all good, but if you had to just analyze on pure technique only, I think she was the strongest dancer out of anybody in the Top 20,” Murphy declared. “What she has on top of that is the X factor [and] the fact that she didn’t crack under pressure … I think she’s just seemed to make everything look effortless.”

Executive producer and fellow Dance judge Nigel Lythgoe had a harder time predicting the season’s outcome, but revealed he had narrowed his field to two dancers by the finale.

“I didn’t have a ‘favorite’ … because I kept jumping between Sasha and Melanie,” Lythgoe said. “So, one of my favorites won tonight, and the other came second. I did really well in the sweepstakes,” he joked.

Runner-up Sasha Mallory enjoyed her life-changing run on the series, garnering her own legion of fans that included her sister Natalia, with whom she auditioned in Los Angeles and advanced to the second round in Las Vegas. Having her family in the audience during the finals to cheer her on and celebrate her journey during the season, Mallory said, was all the victory she needed.

“They’re so proud of me. There’s no sadness, at all,” Mallory confirmed. “They’re so happy I made it this far. You don’t have to win to be a winner.”

Fellow Top 4 dancers Tadd Gadduang and Marko Germar couldn’t agree with Mallory more. For Germar in particular, his harrowing injury pre-Dance helped him focus on the bigger picture outside of winning the show and simply appreciate the experience for what it was.

“Going through what I went through, me getting shot, definitely prepared me to conquer anything that’s less crazy,” he said, taking a thoughtful pause. “Being put on the edge of your life, everything else seems mediocre.”

As for Gadduang, he’d entered the show knowing full well not to psych himself out with Dance’s signature practice of keeping its contestants on their toes, both literally and metaphorically. By expecting a full tilt boogie of hard work, he said, the pleasure of the experience was always in full view.

“It was exactly what I thought it was going to be,” Gadduang said. “The show is built on surprising you, so the whole time I just wanted to have fun.”

Gadduang relished in his title as the season’s token “B-Boy,” or breakdancer, but surprised the judges and himself when his versatility in other genres opened his eyes to aspects of dance he’d never seriously considered before.

“In high school, I’d always tell my friends that after all this hip-hop dancing and stuff, my body’s not going to be able to handle it. So [I said] if I’m ever married, my wife and I are going to ballroom dance together,” Gadduang revealed. “So, getting the comments I got from the judges for my waltz, and just how Nigel said the ‘B’ in ‘B-Boy’ for me stands for ‘Ballroom,’ that was cool. It was surprising, because I never realized just how much I liked ballroom.”

The stringent physical requirements and adaptability expected of Dance contestants ensure no weak links sneak into the lineup. Unlike similarly staged reality competitions, all the contenders on So You Think You Can Dance are famously brimming with skill and work ethic, making the show’s narrative arc all the more compelling to watch.

Murphy agreed, saying the series is unlikely to experience a “Sanjaya effect,” and hopes Lythgoe incorporates SYTYCD’s judging template in other shows to prevent their worthy contestants from being potentially overshadowed by any random fluke or passing trend. In fact, Murphy revealed, Lythgoe has already taken this notion under advisement.

“I think Nigel may do a system like [SYTYCD] on the next American Idol … that for a certain period of time, anyway, the judges have a say. Not that America loses their say, they’re going to vote for their favorites and people will fall down into the bottom and they’ll then be taken off by the professionals, who they think needs to leave,” Murphy disclosed. “That’s so great, because I think it keeps the level of integrity very high on a show like this.”

With such an impressive array of dancers to choose from season to season, however, the title of “America’s Favorite Dancer” really does come down to one’s personal preference, which is where the judges’ professional eye comes in handy to make the ultimate decision. Emmy-winning Dance choreographer Tyce Diorio agreed, saying the task of the audience trying to decide the “best” out of a group of people equally talented but varied in expertise is impossible.

“It’s ‘America’s Favorite Dancer,’ so just pick one,” Diorio concluded. “Apples and oranges – both shiny, bright, gorgeous and beautiful, just pick one that you like. Both are magnificent.”

Lythgoe acknowledged that the culmination of various extraneous factors, in addition to the dancers’ likeability factor among viewers, make it hard to predict a definitive winner, even in the case of this season and Moore’s overwhelming lead.

“It was a difficult one,” he said. “There’s no guarantee that if we reran this next week with different routines that Sasha wouldn’t have won.”

With the So You Think You Can Dance nationwide tour kicking off September 17, the dancers aren’t leaving the show too far behind in spite of the season’s end. However, their thoughts are already focused on what the future holds.

For Moore, her plans to return next season as an All-Star are set in stone whether the producers are aware or not.

“I’d better be coming back as an All-Star! I’d better be coming back!” Moore announced, with winking intensity. “I will be assisting, I will be here, I don’t care what I have to do, you don’t have to pay me! I’ll be here, I don’t care!”

Looking ahead of her role as reigning Dance champ and hopeful All-Star, Moore expressed a wide-eyed desire to punctuate her artistic background by continuing her education and expanding her dancing career beyond the stage.

“I really want to go back to school; I think that I just have so much left to learn,” she said. “Who knows, maybe getting into choreography or something like that, I don’t know, but I really just want to do everything.”

Mallory revealed an ignited interest in exploring her thespian side, but above all else remains open to whatever her career has in store, as long as dancing is involved.

“I definitely feel like I’ve become more aware of my acting skills. With dancing, I never really thought of acting as a serious note because I’m such a goofy person and I laugh at the sight of a camera,” Mallory chuckled. “But I really want to get into it, try and see if I can memorize lines and act, so I’m going to take a few classes and see how far that takes me,” she said, before taking a moment to consider the grand scheme of things. “I just want to travel and dance. I don’t know exactly what my future holds, but I know there’s a lot of dancing in it.”

Gadduang is looking forward to hitting the road with his fellow dancers on the tour, and taking to heart the learning experience his non-performance hours will bring.

“I live to dance, but it’s the times outside of being on stage that I really, really cherish,” he said.

SYTYCD choreographer and judge Lil’ C understands the transitional period the dancers are in, and offered advice he revealed he still has to remind himself to take as he enters new phases of his own career.

“Always, always be a student. The real master is the person with the appetite of the student,” he offered. “A victory like this can definitely sometimes hinder somebody because it’s like, ‘Wahoo, I made it!’ And then it’s like, ‘Oh, this is it? I’ve hit my ceiling.’ … So you have to stay hungry; bask in the moment, but don’t dig your grave there.”

With a fantastic season under their belts and tour preparations already underway, this season’s crew of captivating dancers won’t likely find either a moment in which to bask, or a proverbial ceiling to hit.

 

For more Poptimal coverage of So You Think You Can Dance, click here.

Photos courtesy of Keith Kuramoto for Poptimal and FOX.

Additional reporting by Gabe Callahan for Poptimal.

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