I'll admit it: So You Think You Can Dance is my second favorite tv show, right after my beloved Downton Abbey. A new season starts tonight, and I intend to blog about it weekly here. This summer it will air Wednesday nights, 8:00 - 10:00 PM EST on Fox. You'll find a site with more info here: SYTYCD official site. SYTYCD is such a great show, so I want to give you 5 good reasons to check it out:
1. The variety of dancing is amazing! In any given episode you may see Broadway, jazz, swing, jive, ballet, Bollywood, hip hop, ballroom, Latin, and more. Here is a clip of one of my favorite numbers from the show. This is from season 3, with Sara and Pasha dancing a West Coast Swing, as choreographed by Benjie Schwimmer. (Benjie won season 2). By the way, Pasha is my all time favorite dancer from the show!
2. The music is also wonderful, varied, often surprising, and features recordings of original artists. I love the way this show marries dance and music. In a given evening, you may hear current pop music, the Beatles, Sinatra, old school R&B ... and it is all great.
3. Cat Deeley is the best host of any competitive talent show. She is funny, warm, self deprecating, and has great rapport with both judges and dancers.
4. The judges are wonderful, and all have strong dance backgrounds. They include showrunner and judge Nigel Lythgoe (tap), Mary Murphy (ballroom), and a rotating third (and sometimes fourth) chair for judges like Adam Shankman (Broadway) or Debbie Allen (yes, that Debbie Allen from Fame, and one of my favorites).
5. In a world where the nightly news is often somber and unsettling, there is something wonderful and uplifting about spending two hours watching dance, seeing dancers who love the art form and take it seriously, with great music, costuming, staging ... I really cannot recommend it highly enough.
Bonus (!) 6. I would love to chat with YOU about SYTCYD here.
If you're a fan of the show or plan to try it for the first time, I hope you'll leave a comment here.
I enjoyed reviewing the Heroes of the City toys, books, and app a couple of months ago (more information, click here!). Heroes of the City has a new app, and this one is for babies and toddlers (ages 0 - 2+). This app is available at iTunes, for iPad or iPhone, and it is also available via Google Play for Android phones and tablets.
The app is colorful, educational, and entertaining for the youngest children. It is also free! It features:
• 3 animated short movies (Languages: English and Swedish
)
• Music Panel with two different themes
• Color and shape game
•
Magic coloring game
• Balloon Game
You can find movies from the app on Youtube as well. Here is one of the videos:
The Heroes of the City products are especially well designed and engaging for children. I highly recommend this app!
"Nature Boy" is one of my all time favorite songs. It was recorded by Nat King Cole in 1948, and it has such a beautiful and haunting quality. I love the lyrics, from the first lines:
"There was a boy
A very strange enchanted boy
They say he wandered very far
Very far, over land and sea ..."
I found a lovely video of Nat King Cole performing this jazz classic, below. I hope you enjoy it too.
Happy Friday!
My Friday Fave this week is not a book or website or food or tv show. It is a season: Summer.
While I know that Summer technically begins on the Summer Solstice, it still feels like Summer for me from Memorial Day to Labor Day. That was how Summer was defined in my childhood: the break from school, the long leisurely days and weeks.
That sense of leisure is what I hope to enjoy this Summer. This season will not be about travel or adventure, but about working hard (as always!) on weekdays and then unplugging and enjoying some leisure time in the evenings and weekends: a good book, a long walk, a lazy afternoon, the pleasure of unplanned time.
How about you? What do you plan this Summer? I would love to hear from you in the comments section, below.
I love Johnny Cash. I love Bob Dylan. And I especially love this Johnny Cash and June Carter cover of Dylan's "It Ain't Me, Babe" (1965).
