Season 10
Returning for its landmark 10th season, So You Think You Can Dance features host Cat Deeley and resident judges Nigel Lythgoe and Mary Murphy, as well as guest judges including Minnie Driver, Jesse Tyler Ferguson, Wayne Brady, All-Star Stephen "tWitch" Boss and Adam Shankman, among others, at auditions in Austin, Boston, Detroit, Memphis and Los Angeles.
Each show again features breathtaking performances, as well as suspenseful eliminations, as the contestants compete to be named America's Favorite Dancers.
In Season 10, producers travel across the country in search of dancers who represent the best America has to offer. Those who shine during auditions will be given a ticket to Las Vegas for callbacks, where they work with top choreographers to learn and then be judged on multiple styles of dance.
The best of the best will then move on to the live competition shows.
Each week, contestants will be paired up to perform inspired pieces choreographed by some of the biggest names in the business. The following week, the couples at risk after the previous week's performances will be asked to perform solo routines, after which the judges will decide which male and female are eliminated.
If a couple is split apart, the two individual dancers who remain become a couple the following week.
Throughout its nine seasons, So You Think You Can Dance has received 28 Emmy Award nominations and garnered 11 Emmy wins, including Outstanding Choreography for Mia Michaels in 2011, 2010 and 2007; Napoleon and Tabitha Dumo in 2011; Tyce Diorio in 2009; and Wade Robson in 2008 and 2007.
The series also received awards in the category of Outstanding Costumes for Soyon An and Grainne O'Sullivan in 2010 and Soyon An in 2009, and Outstanding Lighting Design in 2011 and 2012.
So You Think You Can Dance celebrated six Emmy Award nominations, including consecutive nods in the categories of Outstanding Reality-Competition Series and Outstanding Host for Reality or Reality-Competition Series for Cat Deeley.
The series won a 2012 TCA Award for Outstanding Achievement in Reality Programming and a 2012 Critics' Choice Television Award in the category of Best Reality Series – Competition, and Deeley won the 2012 Critics' Choice Television Award for Best Reality Show Host.
So You Think You Can Dance was created by Simon Fuller and Nigel Lythgoe and is produced by 19 Entertainment Ltd. and dick clark productions, inc. The series is executive-produced by Simon Fuller, Nigel Lythgoe and Barry Adelman.
Show Format
After travelling around the country looking for the best dancers, producers invite 500 of the most talented to attend casting sessions in major cities across the nation.
At the casting sessions, each dancer must perform their own routine in front of a panel of judges, who then decide immediately who is good enough to continue.
Those chosen to stay work on a routine as a group, and after a further round of eliminations followed by a choreographed routine with a partner, the final 50 are selected to move on to the Dance Boot Camp.
At the Dance Boot Camp, each of the dancers is put through their paces by 5 choreographers, who take them through a variety of dance styles, from Hip Hop, to the Flamenco.
At the end of the camp, the group is immediately cut down, 20 of whom will be chosen to move forward to the studio shows after one-to-one interviews with the choreographers. This group is then cut down to a final 10.
Each studio show is structured the same way. As contestants are eliminated the remaining participants are randomly paired together, and the dances they need to perform the following week are drawn from a hat.
We follow each couple as they learn their routine by a top choreographer, before performing that routine in front of the panel of choreographers, and a live studio audience.
Once all the couples have performed, the panel identify the 3 weakest couples (or in later shows, 2 weakest couples) to go up for elimination by the public who vote for their favourites to stay.
Each dancer has an opportunity to encourage voters to keep them in the competition by dancing a solo routine for 45 seconds immediately before the phone lines are opened.
Each week, one guy and one girl is eliminated until only 4 dancers remain.
After performing for the last time, all 4 dancers are put to the public vote and it is the public who decide the final winner.
Dance styles featured on the show include jazz, contemporary, pop, modern, American jive, swing, disco, hip hop, krumping, paso doble, quickstep, lyrical, Broadway, Viennese waltz, smooth waltz, Argentine tango, mambo, cha cha, Cuban rumba, and salsa.
There are three judges on each show, one of whom is always producer Nigel Lythgoe. The other two judges are a rotation of professional dancers and choreographers.