So You Think You Can Dance Canada

“Dance is the song of the body."
~Martha Graham

It is on. Or it will be on tonight, as Canada’s version of So You Think You Can Dance debuts on CTV. Just a day after Theo Tams was crowned the latest Canadian Idol, TV viewers now have another TV talent show to argue about.

Of course, the first argument about any on-air talent show is whether or not it passes the sniff test of arts and entertainment programming. Is it culturally relevant? What is the distinction between relevant and irrelevant? “Those Philistines are dumbing down the culture and pandering to the masses!” is a protest frequently made by people who, presumably, are ideally equipped to assess what is and isn’t “good television.” I’ve read a surprising, well to me, anyway, number of reviews that write off the So You Think You Can Dance franchise off as trivial, just a TV dance-athon.

Frankly, I’m really looking forward to tuning in tonight to So You think You Can Dance Canada, especially as an advance screener was not made available. Ahhh, that’s clever promotion, generating a national sense of anticipation and buzz, but releasing only a brain-dazzling highlight video. En pointe, if you will. But I digress…

Dance aficionados in this country know that Canada is blessed with a wealth of little-seen and under-celebrated talent. My guess is that So You Think You Can Dance Canada will play a huge role in increasing the profile of our talent pool. And that’s great news for young dancers, who are mostly young women struggling to make ends meet; some take second and even third jobs just to pursue a dance life. The average dancer in Canada earns less than $30,000 annually, according to a 2004 study.

"There is a bit of insanity in dancing that does everybody a great deal of good." ~Edwin Denby

I was able to check out auditions held last spring in Vancouver at The Centre and was thrilled by the level of talent that tried out (before judges Mary Murphy and Jean Marc Genereux). And I had the chance to chat with amicable and lovely host Leah Miller, usually seen on MuchMusic. (Look for my feature article in an upcoming edition of TV Times).

The series seems a sure bet to be a hit. It borrows from the same template as the original American series, which ruled the ratings here and in the United States this past summer. My own suggestion to the series creative team would be to highlight the dancers interpretation of the music they’re moving to…It can be fun to watch the behind the scenes action of dancers working with the choreographers, but so often when watching (the American version) you don’t get much of a sense of how the dancers feel about the music. Dance is athletic, but it’s not gymnastics…It's an expression of music through the wonder that is the human body.

Bottom line: the show can’t miss any more than Baryshnikov or Harrington could be homely.

“Someone once said that dancers works as hard as policeman -- always alert, always tense. But policemen don't have to be beautiful at the same time."
~ George Balanchine