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"The live shows are well under way on So You Think You Can Dance, and things just keep getting better. Tonight, we&amp;#039;re opening with a group number choreographed by none other than Sonya Tayeh (my personal favourite) and Christopher Scott. It&amp;#039;s beautiful and exciting, as her work always is, and sees dancers running to the top of a pyre only to seemingly throw themselves in (and obviously land on mats safely behind the scenes). It&amp;#039;s really, really good. Have I mentioned how much I love this show before? Because I really do. Before we get started, there&amp;#039;s a special announcement. Jade, the show&amp;#039;s resident animator this season, tore his meniscus after aggravating a prior injury and he needs surgery. Since he won&amp;#039;t be able to dance for three to four months, that means he&amp;#039;s unfortunately out of the competition. Aw, what a shame!   Still, the show must go on, so tonight we&amp;#039;ve got two special judges joining Nigel and Mary on the panel, and they are Erin Andrews and Paula Abdul. I don&amp;#039;t know much about Erin so I&amp;#039;m not sure what her qualifications are to judge a dance competition, but we all know Paula is pure pedigree. Should be a good show, so let&amp;#039;s get started!  First, we need to learn the bottom three girls and guys. Jasmine M, BluPrint, Jenna, Curtis, Alexis and Jade all landed in the bottom, and Nigel wants to see all three of the girls dance for their lives. He encourages them to dance in their own personal style to show what they can truly do and they&amp;#039;ll make their decision at the end of the show. Since Jade had to step out of the competition due to his injury, no guys will be leaving, so BluPrint and Curtis are safe.  After all three perform short solo routines, it&amp;#039;s time to move on to the live duo performances (and by the way, all three girls were really great - even I can&amp;#039;t decide who should go!). First up, it&amp;#039;s Amy and Fikshun with a Paso Doble, which is a really difficult style, and an intense one, as well. Admittedly, I really hate their Matrix-meets-Harry Potter style outfits and the choice of music, but these two are really great together and have amazing chemistry, even if the dance itself is obviously way out of their comfort zones.   Mary is chanting the entire time and applauds choreographer Jean-Marc for his work. She&amp;#039;s wowed and thinks it was a great way to get the show started, adding that Fikshun is blowing her mind with his &amp;quot;professional level&amp;quot; dancing despite being a more freestyle dancer. Amy is a &amp;quot;warrior princess&amp;quot; and insists that they&amp;#039;ll both be safe next week. Erin jokes about what a &amp;quot;beast&amp;quot; Amy is and applauds their chemistry and connection, adding that they&amp;#039;re &amp;quot;the ones to beat&amp;quot;. Paula is overwhelmingly excited to be there and see them in person and loves that they took the stage and made it their battlefield and also committed to the hate that&amp;#039;s needed in that routine. Paula also tells Amy that she would have put her up front and center stage when she was doing her own choreography work because she&amp;#039;s a &amp;quot;fireball&amp;quot; and a &amp;quot;force to be reckoned with&amp;quot;. She&amp;#039;s also incredibly proud of Fikshun, who was on her show in the past and has come such a long way since then. As for Nigel, he notes that while this style took away their personalities, they still made it work as performers. He hasn&amp;#039;t seen either of them do a single thing wrong together. Next up, it&amp;#039;s a Broadway routine for Jasmine H and Aaron (my favourites!), choreographed by Spencer Liff. It&amp;#039;s a story of murder on the dancefloor and it&amp;#039;s dramatic and intense. Jasmine is &amp;quot;dead&amp;quot; and Aaron must solve the mystery of what happened. Love the concept, and together they are just incredible. It&amp;#039;s not my favourite routine they&amp;#039;ve done, but it&amp;#039;s still really, really good. I want them to dance together always. They could actually go and be on Broadway now, I think.   Erin calls it &amp;quot;fantastic&amp;quot; and applauds Spencer&amp;#039;s choreography before saying that there was &amp;quot;nothing dead&amp;quot; about Jasmine&amp;#039;s legs. She also thinks they both translate Broadway so beautifully and really brought the emotion and looked effortless. Paula is reminded of the old MGM dancers when she sees Aaron, who she describes as &amp;quot;grounded and graceful&amp;quot;. They both did an amazing job of embodying the character and compares Jasmine to Cyd Charisse. Nigel went to see a Broadway show last weekend and feels like both Aaron and Jasmine would have graced the stage with just as much elegance and class as the performers he saw in New York. Mary praises the &amp;quot;style and class&amp;quot; as well as their dedication - I&amp;#039;d say everyone is pleased.  Next up, Mackenzie and Paul are doing a contemporary routine by a new choreographer whose name I didn&amp;#039;t catch, to be honest. It&amp;#039;s an emotional routine, as Mackenzie is portraying a woman with a terminal illness and Paul is having a difficult time dealing with it. It&amp;#039;s incredibly moving and danced beautifully by the pair of them - this might be the best they&amp;#039;ve ever done. I don&amp;#039;t really have any words for it, it&amp;#039;s just really lovely. Even Mackenzie and Paul are emotional after finishing.   Paula thanks Lindsay (that&amp;#039;s the choreographer&amp;#039;s name!) for such a beautiful pace and finds it beautiful and believable the way they conveyed such emotion. She adds that there was so much &amp;quot;life&amp;quot; to the piece, which Nigel agrees with. Nigel calls Mackenzie one of the best technical dancers on the program but loves that she had to almost forget that in this routine, which she did successfully. Mary is in tears, saying that the choreography brought out something special, beautiful and sweet in both Mackenzie and Paul. Mackenzie in particular is incredibly fluid and Paul continues to surprise with his honesty and ability. Erin bought it, as well, and could see that they both carried so much emotion right on their faces and within their movements.  It&amp;#039;s a Sean Cheesman jazz routine for Jasmine M and Alan with a royal theme. It&amp;#039;s a fun routine with an interesting concept, but I&amp;#039;ve seen better from Sean, to be honest. I don&amp;#039;t think this is going to do much to help Jasmine&amp;#039;s case, unfortunately, and she may end up heading home, though she is a good dancer. This one just isn&amp;#039;t striking a chord with me, especially after how many emotional performances we&amp;#039;ve seen tonight.   Nigel likes quirky routines like this and enjoyed the choreography. He&amp;#039;s amazed by Alan&amp;#039;s strength displayed during the lifts but he would have liked to have seen both of them be a bit more fun. Mary loved the beginning and end, which were precise, clean and sharp. She thinks Jasmine was tremendous but was looking for a little more from it. Erin agrees - they should let their hair down a bit more but it was a good routine. Paula calls it &amp;quot;a lot of fun&amp;quot; and thinks they did a good job setting the scene, but echoes the others - they should enjoy it a bit more.  Moving right along, Jenna and Tucker are doing a Keone and Mari Madrid hip-hop routine where, once again, Jenna is playing the one in control. Both of them are great dancers in their own right, but hip-hop requires a fluidity and rhythm that I don&amp;#039;t think comes naturally to either of them, to be honest. It&amp;#039;s a great effort, and not bad at ALL, especially since I get the feeling this is the first time either of them are doing hip-hop. Mary thinks it was &amp;quot;different&amp;quot; hip-hop but thought it was more jazzy than anything. She thinks there&amp;#039;s nothing Jenna cannot do and that the style sat well with Tucker. Erin agrees - she enjoyed it and thinks they both did very well. Paula calls it &amp;quot;hipster jazz&amp;quot; and points out that Michael Jackson borrowed from jazz a lot and this was a nice tribute but very different. They also had great fluidity and moved very well, and claims that Jenna is a superstar with great subtleties and movement. Nigel argues that there&amp;#039;s not just one style of hip-hop and he compares Jenna to Audrey Hepburn in Funny Face. He declares it one of his favourite routines of the night.   Poor Malece is in a tough position as her partner Jade was forced to withdraw from the competition. Luckily she&amp;#039;s got a Sonya Tayeh routine, so that should be easily done! Luckily, all-star Marco is there to fill in for this performance only. It&amp;#039;s danced incredibly well and is lovely and emotional, just as you&amp;#039;d expect from Sonya&amp;#039;s pieces. There are some great lifts and movement... big fan of it. Then again, I&amp;#039;m a bit biased since I love the choreographer&amp;#039;s work so much.  The routine gets a standing ovation from all four panelists this week, which is pretty exciting. Sonya&amp;#039;s even dancing in the aisles. Erin has been dying to see Sonya since she started watching the show and is also a big fan of Marco. She compares Malece to &amp;quot;a little fairy&amp;quot; as she floats and makes everyone feel as though it&amp;#039;s effortless. Paula is a big fan of Malece and calls it her favourite routine thus far as they&amp;#039;re watching her mature in front of their eyes. &amp;quot;You just were astonishing tonight - every single thing you did was poetry in motion!&amp;quot; she adds. Nigel is sad that Marco is there since it means there&amp;#039;s an injury, but he believes Marco brought something out of Malece that they&amp;#039;ve never seen before. He brought out the woman in her and it was a joy to see. He almost didn&amp;#039;t believe it was choreographed. Mary agrees with Nigel and knew that Malece would have a moment like she did tonight.   Moving right along, it&amp;#039;s a samba for Hayley and Curtis, choreographed by Jean-Marc. It doesn&amp;#039;t go all that well for them. They manage to make it work, which is no easy feat considering it&amp;#039;s such a difficult style to dance, but there&amp;#039;s something missing. To their credit, they both get really into it, but there&amp;#039;s something vaguely uncomfortable about it that I can&amp;#039;t put my finger on.  Paula applauds Hayley for having sex appeal, bringing fire and for nailing the hip movements. She also gives Curtis a lot of credit for raising the game, but he needs to work on being more grounded and attacking the beat more ferociously. Nigel feels that Curtis was dominated by Hayley this week and it wasn&amp;#039;t right - he needs to step up and be the strong one, but he came off as young and immature. Mary thinks it&amp;#039;s great that he got the choreography but insists that he has to work on his footwork and his lifts, because it was a little uncomfortable at times. However, Hayley did a great job and showed off just how much she&amp;#039;s grown. Erin thinks they both did great considering the difficulty, especially Hayley, who she loves watching.  Spencer Liff is behind the jazz routine given to Alexis and Nico. It centers on Alexis hypnotizing Nico so that she can have her way with him - sounds like fun. He&amp;#039;s dead weight throughout the routine so that it seems as though she can have her way with him. It&amp;#039;s a great concept and both do pretty well with it, especially Alexis, who always surprises with her ability to step out of the tap genre. I enjoyed that - it wasn&amp;#039;t mindblowing, but it was good.   Nigel enjoyed it and believes there was a lot of &amp;quot;tough work&amp;quot; for Alexis to do. He thinks Nico&amp;#039;s a really good dancer and both were right on point. Paula finds her &amp;quot;amazing&amp;quot; and can&amp;#039;t understand how she ended up in the bottom. Mary jokes that she&amp;#039;s been hypnotised and thinks they&amp;#039;re both fabulous, especially Alexis, who continues to impress with just how easily she&amp;#039;s able to adapt. Erin praises them for being more in sequence than they were in dress rehearsal and really loved watching it.  Mariah and BluPrint are in their own genre this week and are doing a really fast-paced hip-hop routine, but even Mariah struggles during rehearsals. When it comes to actual show time, they manage to make it work and while they&amp;#039;re both hip-hop dancers, I don&amp;#039;t think I actually like it all that much. Maybe it&amp;#039;s the choreography, or maybe it&amp;#039;s the dancers. I&amp;#039;ve never thought much of BluPrint and was undecided on Mariah, but I think I&amp;#039;ve made up my mind after this. Least favourite routine of the night, for sure - and I love hip-hop.   Mary thinks it&amp;#039;s always great to have choreographer Luther in the house and applauds BluPrint for coping well with the choreography, but she is still looking for more of a performance from him. It was &amp;quot;sick&amp;quot; for both of them tonight, especially Mariah, who was &amp;quot;living it&amp;quot; out there, whatever that means. Just because they&amp;#039;re doing hip-hop doesn&amp;#039;t mean you have to try to talk street, Mary. Erin loved it and jokes that Luther should come out with a workout tape since the routine was so fast-paced. She also praises Mariah for looking &amp;quot;effortless&amp;quot; this week. Paula thinks that BluPrint is holding back with his personality, but Mariah makes up for it with all of hers. She&amp;#039;s infectious, which Nigel agrees with. He tells BluPrint that personality wins sometimes over technical dance skills.  That&amp;#039;s all the performances this week, but now we have to figure out which girl will leave the competition tonight - Alexis, Jenna or Jasmine M. Unfortunately, it&amp;#039;s Jasmine who is heading home - but I almost expected as much, to be honest.  And that&amp;#039;s it for this week. Who will we lose next week? You&amp;#039;ll have to tune in Tuesday at 8/7c to find out!  "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.digitalspy.com/tv/so-you-think-you-can-dance-usa/review/a497225/so-you-think-you-can-dance-two-dancers-leave-top-16-perform/>