YAY Nony!
HAHAHA! I love that even through all of the noise you can hear the Donny laugh! Yay! haha I was laughing so hard when Donisson? broke out in dance :)
Happy happy birthday happy happy birthday happy happy *and freeze!* ahh I love them! *benji randomly humps the bus* Did anyone notice that after Benji said "and freeze" he looked like he was about to break out in the Chicken Noodle Soup or the Wu-Tang in like two seconds? Hahhaha!
Happy Birthday Dance
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Nony! I love you! You deserve a badge or a cookie or something! You're owning pretty hard right now :)
-Taylor :P
9 comments:
this made me laugh sooo hard! benji humping the bus ahaha that is SOO him! wth this was crazy. how i wish i had told them it was my bday! gahh that would be the best present ever (besides a benjelle kiss! can u imagine!)
sigh...how funny
that was hilarous!!!loved the videos!
-Kat
Hi, it's Nony!
Glad you like it. I was just lurking around as usual. I got the links from idolforums.com.
Blulmolover you can only if you're a GL guy;-)!
But I don't know if anybody saw this interview from tvguide.com with Natalie and Ivan.
One it mentions the infamous "Circle of Trust" which she claims had everyone in it ultimately but only names certain people (who aren't B, D, H, & M).
And two Ivan talks about how he and Allison purposefully faked their "chemistry". I understand it as a part of the dance. Dancing is acting (without speaking) afterall and they are on tv. I never really paid too much attention to Ivaison when the show was on so I don't really know if I believed them or not. But here's the article.
Natalie and Ivan Dance Off into the Sunset
Natalie Fotopoulos and Ivan Koumaev, So You Think You Can Dance
The latest castoffs from Fox's So You Think You Can Dance (tonight at 9 pm, the winner is announced Aug. 16 at 8 pm/ET) acted positively cheery when they were sent home last week: Natalie Fotopoulos let out a big fat Greek "Oopah!" while Ivan Koumaev playfully pinched Benji Schwimmer on the butt. The day after their dismissal, TVGuide.com caught up with the "Nativan" (as the 22-year-old jazz dancer and 18-year-old hip-hopper have taken to calling themselves) to find out how making it to the final six has affected them personally and professionally, and where we might see them next.
First, Natalie....
TVGuide.com: Had you planned that "Oopah!" before you got kicked off?
Natalie Fotopoulos: As I was standing there, [host] Cat Deeleywas opening the card, and I knew it was me. I don't know what came over me. Oopah means "the highest of highs, celebrate" in Greek. For me it was a relief, and I was celebrating.
TVGuide.com: You and Ivan seem to have such a positive attitude about leaving. How did you keep that up?
Natalie: You form special bonds with people on the show, but since Day 1 Ivan and I have been close. Last night after everything went down, Ivan said to me, "There's nobody else I'd rather be kicked off with than you." I said, "Hell, yeah!" When you're dancing seven days a week with barely any sleep, you don't have time to stop and go to the bathroom, you're stressed and there's pressure on you, it's really hard to maintain a positive attitude. If I didn't have Ivan there, I think I probably would have cracked and would be in psychiatric care right now.
TVGuide.com: What happened to your knee?
Natalie: [It's] bruised cartilage that needs to just heal, but when you're dancing and slamming yourself around, it can't heal. It needs rest.
TVGuide.com: Are you going to have downtime before the tour?
Natalie: After the finale, I think we have two weeks to rest before we get back and start doing rehearsals. Everybody can't wait to get in there and get back together. It's so hard to see your friends leave. With reality shows, everyone wants to think, "Oooh, they don't like each other and there's drama." There's no drama on this show — we are family, all of the top 20 of us.
TVGuide.com: What's the living situation like during the competition?
Natalie: It's kind of like Friends: We live in apartments, and the girls are in one, guys are in another. Honestly, the grand excitement of the day is everybody going home and taking a shower! We're not really sequestered, so we can watch television and make phone calls, and that kept us a little more sane. We formed a little group called "The Circle of Trust," taken from Meet the Fockers. It was Dmitry, Ryan, me, Allison, Ivan and Travis, and we all had matching yellow bracelets. Ultimately, everybody was in the circle; it was just kind of a really dorky thing we did. Some nights we'd dress up like pirates and play Pirates of the Caribbean Monopoly and just dork out together.
TVGuide.com: Were you surprised that Allison went before you?
Natalie: [Sighs deeply] [She's] my best friend, so that was the hardest blow. You might as well have just run me over with a thousand cars when they took her home, because Allison is a genius. She's everything that dance is about.
TVGuide.com: What did you feel when your partner, Musa, left?
Natalie: That was really hard for me because we had a very professional partnership. It was frustrating at times because Musa was not a trained dancer, and I have to say there were a lot of tears behind closed doors for me because it was so stressful. [But] I always knew that no matter what, Musa and I were going to come alive and sparkle on stage together. America loved us together. When he left, my sparkle went to kind of a spark.
TVGuide.com: What was your career plan if you didn't get on the show?
Natalie: Since I was little I've always felt that I [should be] acting on television. To be quite honest with you, my goal is to get on Saturday Night Live spoofing [Dance choreographer] Mary Murphy. This audition fell in my lap at the last minute, and I came to this competition with the last words of a close friend who recently passed away ringing in my head: "Don't be a waste of talent." After he passed away, it really made me realize that I've got some things to prove.
Now heeere's Ivan....
TVGuide.com: Did you plan on winning this competition?
Ivan Koumaev: I definitely was not planning on winning! And I definitely wasn't planning on being in the top 20. I wasn't planning on being in the top 10, and I for sure wasn't planning on being in the top six! So all my plans were shattered.
TVGuide.com: Why the low expectations?
Ivan: They said it over and over again that I'm not a trained dancer, so I didn't think I belonged. I just tried to take as much out of it every week as possible, because I knew the next week could be the week I went home.
TVGuide.com: What got you into dancing in the first place?
Ivan: About seven years ago I watched a movie called Breakin', and I fell in love with what they were doing. My mom and I took my little sister to the dance studio to sign her up for ballet classes, and I asked them if they had breaking and they said, "No, but we have hip-hop." I hated it for the first couple of months, but I kept at it because my mom wouldn't let me leave. Then I fell in love with it.
TVGuide.com: That's really the only type of class you've ever taken?
Ivan: Well, I've taken a little bit of jazz, a long time ago, and a couple of other classes, but the majority of my classes have always been hip-hop.
TVGuide.com: Do you think it's unfair that they choose street dancers to be in the top 20 — and then stack the odds against you for the rest of the competition?
Ivan: It's entertainment. If it were just Travises and Benjis on the show, it would be too much. Everyone would be too great. But then when you put in me and Musa and Ashlee, it shows a new style. They put hip-hop on the same level as the other styles. That's amazing for the hip-hop community, because it's now considered a real dance style, not just something from the street.
TVGuide.com: Has the show inspired you to take up other styles?
Ivan: As far as pursuing a career in dance, I'll probably do hip-hop, because it's what's popular. But I definitely want to pursue contemporary dance and really learn how to do it right. That's kind of my goal by next year, to become a contemporary dancer.
TVGuide.com: Which was your favorite performance on the show?
Ivan: The contemporary "Why" routine I did with Allison, and our first tango.
TVGuide.com: Can you explain to us non-dancers what this "chemistry" thing is all about?
Ivan: Chemistry is acting. Like in the contemporary piece with Allison, I really had to pretend that I was in love with her, like she was the one girl I've been waiting for my whole life, so I could get that emotion in there, and feel like every single time I touch her is priceless. Allison and I had a lot of time together and we worked on it. After the first week, we sat down and were like, "Hey, we need to make it seem like we're a couple, because that's what people want to see." And we worked our butt off to portray that. So when I get people asking me, "Are you and Allison hooking up?" I know I've hit my goal. We're proud of that.
TVGuide.com: Is that a danger to your personal life?
Ivan: It is and it isn't, because people who are close to me know the truth, they all know I have a girlfriend and I'm in love with her. And she knows that it's all TV.
TVGuide.com: What was the whole story about your dad calling you after that tango performance?
Ivan: The show slightly blew it out of proportion, but I know that it was for a good cause. So much of the dance community is guys who don't have support from their fathers, because fathers don't look at dance as something manly to do. They used [my dad's call] to show the guys out there, "It's OK, it'll happen someday." My dad was never really a big dance fan — he just didn't think I would go very far with it — but he called me one morning and was like "Hey, it was cool to see you on TV. I'm proud of you." It was awesome.
TVGuide.com: Do you talk to the judges off stage?
Ivan: We get to see the judges a lot, but we never discuss the show because it's in our contracts that we're not allowed to. All of the judges are really cool people. I was really shocked. I had this image of Nigel [Lythgoe] being really mean, Mia being uptight and Mary being crazy. But meeting them all, they're all so nice and such cool people.
TVGuide.com: The judges had been praising you so much, and then they pulled back last week. What does that feel like?
Ivan: It kind of showed me that it's my time to go. Nigel said something really important: Now that it's the top six, he can finally see where I'm held back because of my lack of training. It's true — I don't have training, I can't kick to my ear, I can't leap, and I can't turn. That stuff is going to come to me later, it's what I'm working on now.
TVGuide.com: I heard you've been wearing a back brace. What's wrong?
Ivan: I came on the show with back injuries — the lower part of my vertebrae are squeezing nerves — and they were just getting better, but it started getting worse in the last two weeks. In Mia's contemporary piece, I almost fell on stage because my back gave out. I'm glad I got out when I did because I don't think I would be able to do another week. I'm going to a chiropractor for the next three weeks.
TVGuide.com: What else are you going to do in your downtime before the tour?
Ivan: Nothing! For the first time in my life I actually have nothing to do.
TVGuide.com: Your girlfriend must be happy about that!
Ivan: I'm going to see her so much. It's going to be amazing!
The cynic in me says that Ivaison faked it since they saw all the attention that Benjelle (& Musalie) was getting and needed to stay competitive. And Musalie was definately faking it since Musa's married.
Does that mean Benjelle was faking it... I always remember that every time they intro-ed each other onstage during the tour they still referred to each other as partners. And are still planning on working together (I haven't even heard Tranji say that).
Lol, I loved those videos,lol. They almost made up for the video I was waiting to see Dony post on herspace.;-)
hahaha!! i was there for the birthday dance, i was down the line like... jaymz was talkin to some fans that were next to me, saw them dancing and ran over there haha it was so funny! i love it, oh man good memories
Hi it's Nony!
Don't know if you saw this.
ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: How does it feel to have Footloose'd your way to this Thursday's finale? Do you now know you can dance, instead of just thinking it?
BENJI SCHWIMMER, 22: Yes, I feel validated — the question was answered! I was obsessed with this show last season; I would memorize [season 1 finalists] Nick and Blake's routines at 3 in the morning. I was pretty good, but it never occurred to me that I could actually get on the show and get to the end.
DONYELLE JONES, 26: Yeah, I guess I do know now. It's been bittersweet. I have gotten the most amazing exposure and instruction as a dancer. The bitter [part] is that we never stop. We rarely have a day off, and I'm exhausted. You don't realize how strong you are and what you are capable of until it's questioned.
HEIDI GROSKREUTZ, 24: It has been a roller-coaster ride, and that is actually what is so great about it. You have to experience extreme lows to get the extreme highs. The more blood, sweat, and tears you go through to get a good performance, the more you enjoy it. And I get to experience this with my cousin [Benji].
TRAVIS WALL, 18: It feels amazing. I was originally cut in L.A. and re-auditioned in South Carolina. They haven't really publicized that. I didn't need to win, but I wanted to go from the beginning to the end and see the whole process — I wanted to get in to prove that first impressions don't always mean something. You can be the best dancer in the room and still get cut. All dancers should know that. Too many people get discouraged by the audition process and give up on dreams. They need to know that I was cut, and now I'm at the end.
How are you holding up physically?
DONYELLE: I have never felt pain like I have felt on this show. It is dancer boot camp. I take a hot bath at night and get up an hour early every morning to take another, to get my muscles loose so I can just move around. And my toe is really screwed up. That's why I looked like I was going to cry last week. I did a jump and my toe did something weird. Normally I would have stopped dancing and went, ''Ow!'' But I couldn't stop in the middle of the solo. Every time I put weight on it I wanted to cry.
HEIDI: I have been a lot luckier than others. My injuries are so minor compared to theirs. My knees are pretty worn out and they bother me a lot. And you can play connect-the-bruises on my body, and I don't know how I got most of them. I am also the girl that everyone wants to lift and turn — which is great, but at the same time it seems to trigger my migraines, because something in my neck is wrong. But I think most of our injuries will subside once we have time to sleep and eat properly and give our muscles a rest.
TRAVIS: I have a really bad back, to the point that last Sunday I woke up and couldn't walk. A chiropractor came in and readjusted me, and he told me I was going to shrink a couple of inches in a year because my back is contracting. I will be okay. It means physical therapy. You just have to push through.
BENJI: My problems are more mental. We have very little time to ourselves. We get, like, five hours a week to run errands, like going to fake-and-bake so we don't look like ghosts on the show. And elimination days were emotionally draining for me.
TRAVIS: If you ask anyone in the cast who reacted the worst to [elimination] Thursdays, they'll say, ''Travis.'' You can't talk to me on Thursdays. We get up at 6 a.m. and film the opening number, and then we have to wait five hours for the results. It's brutal. I think I am going home every week. Heidi gets mad at me for putting out negative energy.
Other than your style specialty, which genre have you come to appreciate the most?
HEIDI: I have grown to like contemporary dance. The movement always seemed so unnatural to me, and I just never got it. It wasn't until I was around Travis and [contemporary choreographer/judge] Mia [Michaels] that I grew to love and appreciate organic movement. I still can't do it the way it deserves to be done, but at least I have a better understanding about what it is to dance like a human instead of a dancer.
TRAVIS: Latin dances. I love doing paso doble: I love the arm tricks, the heel work, and the clothes. I always watched ballroom competitions, but I could never do it, nor did I want to learn. Now I'm going to take some classes.
BENJI: I loved doing the mambo with Heidi. I also really got into the jazz and contemporary stuff. It's the polar opposite of what I do normally. I had never danced solo in my life, so to go out and dance without a girl was also something I had to get used to. It was a weird experience.
DONYELLE: I became quite fond of Latin dances like samba and the cha-cha. I could fake them well enough that I had actual ballroom dancers come up and say, ''If you took just six months to train, you could compete.'' That's flattering.
What were the best and worst moments for each of you this season?
BENJI: Both happened at once. It was the episode when I made the show. It is called the Green Mile Episode, because you have to walk down this long stage, and there's a giant spotlight on us, and then you have to stand there while the judges pick you apart. I was such a mess that I put on two right shoes. [Ballroom choreographer/judge] Mary Murphy toyed with me for 15 minutes, making me believe that I wasn't going to make it on the show. [Hip-hop choreographer/judge] Shane [Sparks] and [show producer/judge] Nigel [Lythgoe] both reamed me. They didn't show half of it on TV. Then they told me I made it, and I was thrilled. I walked off the stage and realized that I was a crying mess on national TV, and that brought me back down again.
DONYELLE: The best moment for me was when we taped a show on my birthday, and I had over a hundred people in the audience for me. Normally I throw a big barbecue, but since I couldn't do that this year, they brought the party here. I couldn't look anywhere in the audience without seeing a friendly face, and that motivated me to dance even harder. I have never felt that loved. The hardest moment for me was learning the quick-step. That was the first time I felt challenged in the competition but didn't conquer it, and the first time I had negative comments from the judges. I was prepared for it, but to actually hear it, it's like, Ouch.
TRAVIS: Hearing Mia, who I look up to, say she would hire me [was my best moment]. I would drop everything and work with her in a heartbeat. It sucked that the week I finally got my mom here to see the show for the first time, I was in the bottom. It sucks that I only make $500 a week and I don't come from money, so I can't fly her out that often. It is just hard being the only contestant left from out of town. They fill up half the studio with their family and friends: It can be very hard on me when I see a sea of Benji, Heidi, and Donyelle signs and I get, like, one person screaming my name.
HEIDI: [The best part:] Essentially getting free lessons and advice from some of the world's best choreographers and dancers. A 45-minute lesson from an expert can cost upwards of $300. The worst is watching your friends and great dancers go home every week. It's like a kick in the face. We are all in this together; we understand the effort and sacrifices it takes to get here, and you know it could have just as easily been you.
Fortunately, it never was your names that host Cat Deely called out. But in the end, only one can win — so if it can't be you, who are you rooting for?
HEIDI: I'm not going to win. It's between Travis and Benji. I would be so happy to see either of them win. All of us just feel like the finals is an accomplishment. This last show was so taxing and stressful that we were all like, ''We are done competing. Let's just get through this.''
TRAVIS: I think Benji will win. He has the young-girl vote. If this was a true dance contest, I think I would win, but it is a personality/likability contest as well as a dance talent contest.
BENJI: Every member of the final four deserves it. If it can't be me, I have to pick Heidi — because she's my cousin, for crying out loud! She has been my dance partner for 17 years.
DONYELLE: I just came for exposure. I didn't honestly expect to be here at the end. If I win, that would be a great blessing from God, but if I don't, there is no bitterness. I'd be happy for any of the four of us to win. We've all come such a long way.
And you'll be taking what you learned on the road. Do you already know what you'll be performing on the So You Think You Can Dance tour (starting Sept. 12?)
BENJI: We won't start practicing until after the finale is over. You will be seeing all your favorite routines — probably even bigger versions of them.
HEIDI: The mambo routine has been discussed as a must.
DONYELLE: Definitely not the quick-step! [Laughs hysterically.] I think this is a new kind of concert for people to get excited about, and I hope it gets more kids interested in dance.
TRAVIS: We are not backup-dancing for anyone. We are the stars of the show. We are hosting the show and we are performing solos, five duets, and six group routines. The bench routine will definitely be in there. The tour is the best part. We get reunited with the top 10, and we get to sell some eye candy and hopefully make dance a household name. As [pop choreographer/judge] Brian Friedman would say, we're going out to give fans an eyegasm.
Hi it's Nony!
Here's the one time only Jaymz solo in Toronto when he subbed for Ivan.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dw6CBaPyMqI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hsz13x1cHWI
Here's stalking Jaymz by the tour bus.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aPV219ug-NY
Backstage on the Tour
What are B and A talking about in the end?
Thanks Nony! I put up both the interviews a while ago, but I hadn't seen those videos. *runs off to post*
~ Moose ~
Oh I saw those Jamyz subbin' for Ivo vids on his myspace! But I haven't seen the others yet o_o post Moosey post!! :) lol
-Tay :P
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