So You Think You Can Dance: The Best and Worst of Milwaukee

By Lakiya Emerson

The Milwaukee round is the final auditions in So You Think You Can Dance before Vegas. It opened with a hip hop montage that had Nigel giving comments such as, “hip hop isn’t a style it’s a culture.” It was like hearing Simon Cowell talk about the difference between rap and hip hop—totally unexpected.

Michael Kim was the first to audition. He popped and locked his way across the stage looking like a preying mantis. Michael, who had made it to the Vegas round last year but was kicked out because he couldn’t samba, will be returning to Vegas this year.

Next we had the proverbial, “we’re here to support” montage where friends and family are shown sitting with the contestant. It closes with Katee and Natalie, two roommates who have decided to support each other. Both of them make it to Vegas.

Janette and Romulo, a pair of Latin dancers, take the stage next and their series of lifts and drops were combined with some interesting tricks that included Janette bending backwards and Romulo lifting her up and down with his leg. However, Romulo, though he’s great for a trick or two, isn’t such a great dancer. He has to sit back while Janette goes off to Vegas.

They saved the crazy folks for after the commercial break. But first, a tapdancer named Bianca, performed to Earth Wind and Fire and then Moonwalked her way to Vegas.

She was followed by James, who has worked with four or five different choreographers over the course of the year and was fired up and ready to make it to the top twenty. At least that’s where his choreographers assured him he would go. I hope he didn’t pay them. His audition was Footloose on crack—seriously. Mary, with her trademark cackle-guffaw said, “I’m so sorry James, but no”. James tried to talk his way in. Unfortunately for him, this show isn’t So You Think You Can Speak.

Evan gave us a Gene Kelly-inspired set, punctuated by a powerful leap with hyperextension—not too many males hyperextend. All he needed was two counters and some ripped jeans and he’d be channeling Jean Claude VanDamme.

I’m not quite sure what a contestant named Victor was trying to do. He said his performance was all about the conflict between individuality and society. He was dressed like the Pied Piper of Individuality. In fact, I think I might have seen him trapped in my closet.

Chavis clearly loved toe touches. All he needed was a ribbon and a couple of backflips and he would have been doing a bad gymnastic routine. He received 2 stars and no ticket.

Kourtni was a dancer whose mother had been her dance instructor for 15 years. And this mother was no Dina Lohan, because Kourtni, who is almost a dead ringer for Uma Thurman, was amazing. She’s going to Vegas, and Nigel suggested that she could be the lead in Kill Bill the ballet. I agree.

Tom raises goats. They may have been his choreographers. That would explain why kept randomly falling on the floor.

Shelly made it to the choreography round on the strength of her personality and her booty shaking skills. Nigel was highly impressed, but she didn’t make it to Vegas

Susie was a Miami high school teacher who could be a stand-in for the Pussycat Dolls. Nigel called her a bootleg Shakira, but she made it through to the choreography round on the strength of her sexiness. Somehow she pulls it together to get a golden ticket.

Rebecca from Fresno had actually auditioned in Las Vegas two weeks before, but the judges weren’t too excited by her “competition” style of dancing—one too many spirit fingers and she looked like she had Vaseline on her teeth. So Rebecca toned her performance down and re-auditioned in Milwaukee. They love her new style and she makes it to Las Vegas

Have you ever listened to people who are clearly speaking English, but you’re still unable to understand them? That’s how I felt during Brice and hostess Cat Deeley’s interview. Brice, who is from Cameroon, had an abundance of personality…until he started dancing. His dance skills got him to the choreography round, but the judges weren’t too excited about his performance and he didn’t make it to Vegas

A dancer named Cooper opened up hour two of SYTCD. Nigel compared him to Tyce and then promptly sent him to Vegas.

Cooper was followed by friends, Yousenia and Phillip who both auditioned last year. She had made it to the fourth round before being kicked off, but she was inspired by the experience to go home and lose fifty pounds. She looked really great, but during her audition her knee gave out. She proceeded to let loose the ugly cry—you know, the one where your face scrunches up and your words run together? When she got herself together, she gave a very inspirational speech about how SYTCD encouraged her to change her life. I’m rooting for her to come back next year.

Yessenia’s friend Phillip danced phenomenally and then cried over her. He didn’t cry for too long since the judges sent him to Vegas.

Next, Nigel had a Tyra moment.

Raymond, who happens to be a minister and choreographer, performed with a gorgeous girl who was a stand-in. But from the way Raymond was dancing, you’d think it was the other way around. Nigel actually stopped Raymond and told him that he looked like he was dancing with a piece of meat. Nigel says, “I’d like to believe you actually give a sh*t about her.” Raymond is allowed to start over. Unfortunately, Raymond appears to be the Mariah Carey of dance: great choreographer, boring performer. After the second part of his audition, Raymond cries, and is more passionate in defending the meaning of the choreography than he was about dancing it. But he does make it to the choreography round, which does not end well for him.

Raymond was followed by Hau, who was dressed like a Village People aborigine of some sort. He danced—I think. He might have been putting a hex on the stage. I was confused. I think the judges were too.

Lizz tap-danced in the oldest pair of tap shoes I’ve ever seen. They were even duct-taped, but they must be lucky because she made it straight to Vegas.

In the end, 22 Milwaukee dancers will be joining the roughly 200 in Vegas to compete for the top 20 spots in tomorrow’s show.

Balla Bounces Into The HoH Room in Big Brother 9

James dodged a bullet once again on BB9,  and that very same bullet knocked Josh out of the Big Brother  house. On the bright side, the house has another opportunity to get rid of James this week. Adam won HoH and is the first repeat(single) HoH this season. Knowing that Adam and James are boys it’ll be interesting if he sticks with the plan and goes after him this week. I could see him going after Sharon and Sheila, but if he did Sheila would make him feel horrible for doing it. The best bet is to go after James because like I said before nobody will be able to beat him in the final two.

Big Brother 9 Week 6 Nominees/Veto Winner

Adam has decided to place James and Chelsia on the block this week. I figured he’d either do that or place Josh on the block only because he’s never been nominated for eviction. Neither James or Chelsia are campaigning that much just yet. I think they’re waiting to see if one of them can win the POV so they don’t attack the other persons character needlessly.

Breaking News!

As I was typing this up, the Veto competition was taking place so the feeds were down. Now they’re back up, and James is walking about wearing the golden power of veto. This means Adam will have to put up a replacement nominee in next few days and I think he’ll go with Josh. If that’s the person he chooses then Chelsia may have a chance to stay, because Josh’s random outbursts towards the women in the house have rubbed everyone the wrong way. I think I’d put that aside for now; I’d  at least still vote out Chelsia if only to break up the strongest 2 person alliance in the house.

Big Brother 9 Week 6 Eviction and HoH

(Matt)

Time for us all to say goodbye to Matt. It’s a little hard this season to be upset when somebody gets evicted since I never really got that “they didn’t deserve to go” feeling about any of them. Yeah, Matt didn’t really do anything to warrant his eviction, but he also didn’t play the game well enough for us to say he got screwed. The only reason he left is because James felt that he was some sort of of unproven threat… But that’s enough time spent on Matty: he’s gone; lets move on.

(Adam)

I have got to give a shout out to A-Balla, Adam for winning HoH this week. I love when a middle of the road house guest like Adam wins HoH. No one in the house dislikes him, and he hangs out with both James/Josh’s crew and Natalie/Shelia, so if anyone other than him won HoH he was pretty much safe. Adam has been going back and forth between the two major alliances in the house ever since week 3, but once nominations roll around one half of the house will be off limits to him. Hopefully he can deal with the sudden, but always extreme change in temperament that occurs between the HoH and nominees.

Big Brother 9 Week 5 HoH/Nomination/Veto Spoilers

When Wednesday night,s show started I was  sure that James or Sharon would go home. But little did I know, the house guests are complete idiots.

After James was voted out 5-1, the new Big Brother twist siren went off and Julie informed the house that they’d have a chance to bring back a previously evicted house guest. They had the choice between either James or mystery house guest that turned out to be Alex due to America’s votes. To my surprise, everyone but Matt and Sheila voted for James to come back in the house. Why in the world would you vote to bring back the person you just BACK DOORED? There wasn’t anyone who could’ve been in the mystery box that would’ve been bad to have back in the house for the group that worked to get rid of James. That just goes to show why this season’s house guests suck at game strategies.

(James)

Maybe they thought it wouldn’t be so bad because all they had to do was win HOH and vote him out again, but the only problem with that idea is that this game is Big Brother, and as we all know the person who almost gets evicted, gets evicted and returns, or has a friend of theirs evicted almost always win the very next HOH. When BB was going off the air the house guests began the first endurance competition of the season. To make a long story short; at about the 4 hour mark the last two house guests remaining were James and Natalie.

Natalie, who for about 3 hours was talking a mile a minute had finally shut up and it was obvious that she was fading and wouldn’t be up there much longer so she and James made a deal that would keep her safe while making James the new HOH.

James didn’t seem too bitter about being evicted, and you really can’t blame him since he’s back because the house chose to bring him back, and to make it even better he’s the new HOH. To show he wasn’t bitter he asked the Diary Room to give Natalie the pictures she would’ve gotten if she’d won HOH because she said thats the real reason she was hanging on so long. I’m not sure if Natalie ever got her pictures, but I do know that James kept up his end of the deal by not nominating Natalie for eviction. Instead he chose to nominate Shelia and Ryan. Sheila because she was bragging last week about how she flipped the house and got James nominated, and Ryan because he was the one to put Chelsia and him up on the block last week.

BREAKING NEWS!

While I was typing this, the the veto competition was taking place and it just so turns out that the feeds popped back on and James was coming into the house wearing the golden power of veto. Apparently the veto competition involved Guinea Pigs and wood shavings. Right now James claims that he’s keeping the nominations the same and the house seems to be leaning towards evicting Ryan. Hopefully James’ week turns out better than Ryan’s did last week and the person he evicts stays out of the house for longer than 25 minutes.

Big Brother 9 Week 4 Recaps/Spoilers

Its the time we’ve all(or at least I) have been waiting for, the splitting up of the couples. Since I’m pretty late with my recaps this week I’m gonna cover everything that happened this week from the eviction, new HOH, Nominations, Veto winner and the replacement nomination so lets get things started.

It was a sad moment for Allison last Wednesday when she was evicted from the Big Brother house 2-0. Then she was shocked like the rest of us when she was told the couples would be broken up and now the rest of the house would be voting out either her or Ryan. Thats one of those moments when you think you might have chance to stay but maybe, just maybe the house was voting you out because they didn’t like your partner. Well needless to say that was the case the only problem was that the house was voting out Ryan because they hated Allison and with them no longer teamed up they were free to vote out Allison 6-0. Being evicted twice in one night must really suck, but its not as bad as being evicted three times ain’t that right KAAAYSAAAAR!

As everyone attempted to decompress from their recent forced divorces Ryan won the HOH competition in typical Big Brother “I was on the block the previous week” fashion and with that season 9 of Big Brother officially began.

Right off the bat Sheila got as far away from Adam as possible while Matt continued to sleep in the same bed with Natalie despite saying he would get away from her the first chance he got.

Spoilers Below!!

Ryan and Matt have been hanging out all week which  isn’t out of the norm since they would hang out and work out together before now. But of course there are people in the house who failed to notice their friendship up until now and naturally Matt is “sucking up” to Ryan because he’s afraid of being nominated.  With that James, Josh, Chelsia, Sharon, and Sheila decided to get Matt nominated. The only problem is that they decided that AFTER Ryan nominated Sharon and Chelsia for eviction.

Once Chelsia won the power of veto they decided to try and get Matt back doored using scare tactics. Once Sheila found out about the back dooring plan she began distancing themselves from the group because she could see their plan wasn’t going to work.

I’ve always wondered why people try and get the HOH to nominate the people their closest to for eviction with the threat of the whole house targeting them the following week. The only time I remember one of those threats working was when Boogie threatened Chicken George with the coup de’ ta and got him to get rid of Howie.

While Josh and crew were making threats and trashing people left and right they failed to realize that their alliance had broken down just as quickly as it formed and nobody but a select few were still talking about Matt getting back doored. Instead the topic of the rest of the house turned to back dooring James. As with most things in the Big Brother house if the whole house is whispering about something it usually happens. So earlier today at the veto ceremony James was blindsided when Ryan put him on the block as the replacement nominee.

Josh and Chelsia decided they were going to be jerks to the rest of the house and Josh has even decided to try and get punched in the face by Matt to try and send him home that way. As of right now they haven’t really started “going off” on people but if anything really good happens I’ll be sure to update and let you all know.

Big Brother 9 Week 2 Nominations

(Matt and Amanda talking after being nominated)

This week James and Chelsia won HoH and to my surprise everyone in the house for the most part everyone in the house was ok with it. Ryan and Adam even talked some strategy with James last night trying to figure out how to make the girls votes null and void. Also during that conversation James let the two guys know that he made out with a drunken Chelsia and used the “N” word(not in a racial slur type of way). At that point nobody really had any idea who the new HoH’s were going to put up, but once morning came around and everyone sobered up and went to work. The after very little convincing Chelsia and James were convinced to stick to the plan and continue to get rid of the Parker, Alex, and Matt alliance.

Now with Matt and Natalie, and Alex and Amanda nominated everyone else seems to be at ease because regardless of which couple goes their plan still worked. The primary target is Alex and Amanda mainly because of how Amanda gossips and starts trouble around the house, but if by a stroke of luck they win veto Matt and Natalie would also be a good eviction option because they are one of the “strong” couples as Shelia put it.

There was also a food competition earlier today and so far I know that Alex, Amanda and Sheila smell faintly of fish and are on slop. Once they all sit down to dinner and I get a better idea of who else can’t eat.

Below are the videos of James using the “N” word and him and Chelsia making out.