debbie allen is the B I Z N E S S! what a talented, gracious woman.

The judges were pretty hilarious last night.
My favorite routines were Dominic and Sabra, and Jaimie and Hok.

I feel bad for Jessie and Pasha...It sucks for Jessie to (likely) get kicked out for health reasons,
and I don't think they helped Pasha any by making him dance with the choreographer's assistant.

After watching Hok and Jaimie's jazz routine, I am not sure that I noticed a difference between contemporary and jazz. Can anybody explain the difference?

I also wasn't impressed by the assistant who he was dancing with. I however thought that was due to him not practicing or knowing her very well.

I didn't get the difference between Wade's "jazz" routine and a comtemporary either...but it was beautiful.

I don't think the assistant was very happy to be out there dancing; she did the steps but she didn't seem to care if she helped Pasha or not.

OK, here's my attempt at quick explanation...

Contemporary (which as I've ranted before is actually called "modern" in the real world of dance): It started as the antithises (sp?) of ballet - the innovaters took their shoes of and danced barefoot and in parrallel instead of turned out, it's very grounded - dancing into the ground, not up and light like ballet often is. It's a lot about moving from your core, using contract and release in your center, rise and fall (of body parts and/or whole body). It used to be less technical, but as the years have gone on it's become very technical and it is well recognized that most modern dancers could benefit greatly from some serious ballet training (and in fact, most of today's great modern dancers began in ballet). (Most ballet dancers would also benefit from some good modern classes, too!)

Jazz: Jazz dance is a lot like ballet in basic movements, but they are often faster and more stylized - there are more hand and arm positions used, legs are kept parrallel more often, etc. But you will often see multiple turns, big leaps, etc that you wouldn't ever see in modern. It's also known for syncopated movement - much like jazz music is syncopated.

Also, the lines between jazz and modern are starting to blur a bit. For instance the last company I danced with was a "modern jazz" company. A typical modern company wouldn't generally do triple pirouettes in their pieces, and a typical jazz company would dance in jazz shoes and do leaps and turns. In this company, we did leaps and turns in our bare feet and also did a lot of grounded, parrallel floor work. Does that make any sense?

ALL that said!
I would call Wade's piece modern in every sense of the word. It wasn't "jazz" to me at all.

And I really like Jesus but I'm not such a fan of his partner. I also felt really bad for Pasha, but he worked that lady like he was really into her - ya gotta give him that!!!

Thank you xo_kathy. That helped me a lot to understand the difference.

yes, thanks xo_kathy! my first dance lesson.

okay.....cedric is back. he is a sweet guy, but he is a marginal, one dimensional dancer.

I am very disappointed. Lauren's solo was by far the worst and like Nigel said she wasted half her time.
Although Neil had the best solo, Jesus has been dancing consistantly each week and Neil definitely has not.

I 1/2 agree with you. Lauren to me should've been the one to go. She was awful, and she stopped impressing me back in auditions.

Neil on the other hand was beyond amazing tonight and I really like him in general.

Danny made me mad laughing about making it into the bottom 3. I'd be more okay with that if it were someone else, but knowing that he thinks he's all that and then seeing that just turned me off from him further. I fully understand why he didn't get enough votes, despite the fact he's an amazing dancer.

I felt bad that Jessi got cut since she was in the hospital the day before, but her routine was so bland, so I wasn't too surprised. I knew it would be her or Lauren.

I'm stoked Jessi's gone! I'm traumatized about the guys though. I realize that there was probably a lot of voting to save dancers last night more than just voting for favorites and it screwed everything up. I was hoping that maybe they'd find a way to still send Cedric home!

Danny's laughing surpised me too but then I figured I'd probably be laughing out of shock. When everyone "knows" Cedric's number is up and you were fantastic wouldn't you feel blindsided? Different people react in wierd ways to that kind of thing.

I think Jessi's problem is that she's terrible at choreography. All her solos have been bad. I wasn't even impressed by her audition solo that the judges were all about. I think she was great in the choreographed dances. Her other problem is that her personality is a bit grating. I definitely didn't want her in the Top 4 or anything but I don't think this was her week to go. I would rather have seen the B-Girl or Lauren go. They have yet to impress me. I felt really bad for Jessi. You could tell she was trying so hard to keep it together. I'm sure that when the cameras stopped that she just started bawling.

What is Mary talking about when she said that Lauren and Neil are one of the best couples? They've done 3 mediocre routines. I'm surprised they're still around.

Is it just me, or does Mary talk through her teeth? It's a little scary.

I'm watching it right now after missing a few weeks in there and so far I am so impressed with Lacey and Kameron,Anya and Danny and Sabra and Dominic and Lauren and Neil. however, I absolutely loved Sara and Pasha!!!! Benji's choreography was fantastic, inventive and he totally made Sara be on an equal playing field, I was just blown away.