What Makes You Think You Can Dance Better Than Other Reality TV?

With so many talent competitions and reality shows vying for our time, covering everything from cooking to singing to modeling, and more than one trying to fill the dance niche, So You Think You Can Dance (SYTYCD) pulls ahead of the pack.

While the dancers are amazing athletes, the products of hours of training and classes, powered by dreams and youth and guided by grace, it is the choreographers that elevate them, as well as sometimes raising the show to the level of art. Whether with Mia Michaels's story laden contemporary routines or Wade Robson's quirky experiments or by way of Doriana Sanchez's exuberant disco numbers, the already talented dancers are challenged and grow week to week, becoming greater before our eyes.

During the hectic Las Vegas week, where the field of more than a hundred dancers is narrowed to the top twenty, several broke down in tears, not in defeat or exhaustion (though the routines are grueling), but because they felt something in the choreography that they had never experienced. For instance, Legacy Perez, a B-Boy in the top twenty this season, began to sob after performing a Mia Michaels routine. He'd always done his own thing, spinning out one breathtaking trick after another, but within this choreography, moving in unison with other dancers, he saw a greater purpose to dance and was overwhelmed with emotion.

Even more impressive is the attitude of the executive producer (and judge) Nigel Lythgoe, who encourages dancers that don't make the cut during the audition process to come back and try again. Several competitors who have made the top twenty over the show's six seasons had been turned away in previous years. But with classes, practice and perseverance they returned stronger and more capable. No where else in competition shows do you see such nurturing of talent and respect for the competitors.

By loving the form of dance and creating new and original routines that tell stories, make people smile and evoke a whole range of emotions SYTYCD transcends the tawdry melodrama of reality TV. Their dancers are like the ancient Olympians, epic and grand and very human. They need no artificial drama injected, because these young people are baring their souls to us every week on that stage and we are encouraged by judges who want to see each of them succeed and become a better version of themselves. And by fusing the exactitude and creativity of the choreography with the ability and passion of the dancers, it's easy to feel good about living vicariously though these young dancers, unlike the dirty pleasures peddled in most of the rest of reality TV.