The Top 10 dancers from season 11 of Fox’s So You Think You Can Dance are out on tour, entertaining fans of the series with live performances across the U.S. Ricky Ubeda, Valerie Rockey, Jessica Richens, Zack Everhart, Casey Askew, Jacque LeWarne, Rudy Abreu, Tanisha Belnap, Bridget Whitman, and Emilio Dosal, as well as alternates Carly Blaney, Marcquet Hill, Emily James, and Teddy Coffey, have been performing some of season 11’s most popular routines along with new choreographed numbers while visiting cities including Memphis, Miami, and New York.
And while the tour was taking a break for the holidays (it picks up again on January 22, 2015 in Bakersfield), I had the opportunity to interview Rudy Abreu and Carly Blaney about both the So You Think You Can Dance show and the Top 10 tour.
Rudy Abreu and Carly Blaney Interview:
When you’re out on tour and doing the same routines over and over again, how do you keep it fresh?
Rudy Abreu: “We try to remember where we started from and we always just try to find a deeper place every time we do the piece. We just try to make it better and better and I think that’s how we keep it fresh, just going out there trying to make the piece better every night.”
Do you have to have an emotional connection to a particular choreographed number to really get into it or can you not be really connected with the material and still dance well?
Carly Blaney: “I think you definitely need an emotional connection because that’s how you make the piece seem real to someone who’s watching it for the first time, or who doesn’t know dance at all. Sometimes you just look like you’re doing the steps and you don’t want that if a person is just watching a show for the first time especially, so we definitely try to make it really connect so the audience will like it as well.”
When you’re out on tour how do you keep yourself motivated on days when you don’t feel quite so energetic?
Rudy Abreu: “When it gets to that point, which is very rare because every night we love to go out on stage, but if we ever do have one of those nights, we’ve got to remind ourselves like, ‘Hey, this is a job and you’ve got to do what you’ve got to do.'”
Is there a particular dance routine you do that you really enjoy?
Rudy Abreu: “I love doing Dirty Diana. That piece is one of my favorites. I also really enjoy doing Sing, Sing, Sing with Tanisha [Belnap] as well as the Broadway routine that I had in the top 18. Those never get old for me.”
Carly Blaney: “Mine is definitely the girls’ piece because that was just special for all of us I feel like when we were on the shows every night. We could kind of come together and it’s like a fun moment.”
Do you know right away when you’ve got a strong connection to a routine or does it usually hit you gradually?
Carly Blaney: “I think you feel it right away. You’re definitely in it with everyone, if it’s your partner, or if it’s with a group, you just kind of know. It’s a special feeling when you’re in the room and creating a piece together.”
How were you able to learn the routines so quickly for each week’s So You Think You Can Dance show?
Carly Blaney: “I think it’s mostly adrenaline when you’re in the rehearsal state because you only have such a short amount of time that you’re just like, ‘Oh my goodness, I’ve got to get this done,’ because you have a live show. So definitely adrenaline.”
The TV audience only sees a very small amount of the time and energy you put into learning numbers on So You Think You Can Dance. How many hours did you actually practice and did you get time off during the filming of the show?
Rudy Abreu: “Well, we always had a day off, but it was after every episode. We would have like 14 hour days when we had group rehearsals. We would have like 10 hour blocks. It would be crazy. It was real, real crazy.”
Is there someone who you connected with most on the show that you’re really happy to be on the tour with now?
Carly Blaney: “I feel like all the girls really connected really and I think that’s because I got cut when we did the girls piece. I feel like in that moment we were just like, ‘I can’t believe I got here and we all did this together.’ It was just like really special that we got to share it, and that we get to share it every night. I think all the girls.”
What’s the experience been like being out on the road, meeting fans, and seeing their reactions during your live performances?
Rudy Abreu: “It’s pretty crazy to wake up in a different city every morning and have fans in a different city every night. It’s just so surreal. It’s just so unbelievable. People know who you are and it’s like, ‘What?!’ Like last year, I was in the college. What the heck?”
Carly Blaney: “I think it’s definitely the same thing. I just can’t even think back to last year when I was just at football games cheering on ASU and I can’t believe that now I’m touring the country and I’m doing what I love. It’s just amazing to see how much support dance really has and there’s just so much appreciation for art.”
How has your experience being on So You Think You Can Dance affected you and changed you as a person, not necessarily as a dancer?
Carly Blaney: “I think for me it’s definitely taught me that I need be really confident in everything that I do. Because when I first got on the show, I felt like I was kind of second-guessing everything. Then when I worked with Sonya [Tayeh] on my second week on the show, she was like, ‘Snap out of it. You got here and you deserved it.’ So it’s kind of brought me back to be like, ‘Okay, you can do anything if you put your mind to it.”‘
Rudy Abreu: “I think it definitely gave me some discipline because I’m not really the most serious guy ever. I learned how to step away from my joking-ness and be serious when I had to be serious and be jokey when I’ve got to be jokey.”
How are you doing physically on the tour? It must be pretty demanding.
Rudy Abreu: “Oh, it’s hard. It’s really hard. My hips said bye-bye a few shows ago.”
How do you continue when your body is telling you to take a break?
Rudy Abreu: “You’ve just got to push. Keep pushing through.”
What are your goals for the future with your dance career? Do you have any desire to be a choreographer, or is there anything else you’ve got coming up?
Rudy Abreu: “Well, I am hoping to joining the cast of Newsies. That’s something that I always wanted to do, and I’m hoping that that’s something in my future. That’s definitely a big goal of mine. But after that, yeah, I’d love to be a choreographer.”
Carly Blaney: “I guess I want to be a dancer first, but then I’m not sure if being a choreographer is for me. I really love working with kids, so I would love to teach little kids or start a foundation to help kids who have disabilities learn dance because I think that’s something that everybody should be able to do.”
What advice do you give to young dancers?
Carly Blaney: “I always tell them to never give up because I tried out for the show last year and I didn’t make it. But I knew the second I got cut, I was like, ‘Well, this is something I want so I’ve got to come out again.’ So I think it’s just that you never know what you can achieve if you put your mind to it.”
Rudy Abreu: “I pretty much say the same thing. I’m like, ‘Don’t give up, kids!'”
Carly, you auditioned for SYTYCD twice. Did you have to get over an emotional hurdle to go back out there again?
Carly Blaney: “Well, when I got cut the first time, I was like, ‘Oh my goodness. My whole plan that I had in my head is coming to an end.’ Because originally I was like, ‘I just want to move back to LA,’ and I wanted to get out of college. I’m happy that I didn’t make it the first year because I had the best experiences the next year in college and it made me grow so much as a person. So, now I feel like I’m ready to go out to LA. It really was just like it all happened in the right timing.”
Can you remember what it felt like to make the top 20?
Carly Blaney: “Well, Rudy and I actually had that experience together, because we did our first piece on a show together. I just remember being like, ‘Oh my goodness, I can’t believe we’re actually here.’ It was really just like a whole blur. There was so much adrenaline. It was so surreal.”
Rudy Abreu: “Yeah, and I was so nervous. You have no idea. It was beautiful.”
What constructive criticism from the judges has most affected the way you dance now?
Rudy Abreu: “They always critiqued me on my technique so I have been pushing a lot harder to work on my technique so that nobody has anything to say about my technique anymore.”
Carly Blaney: “I usually got told that I had pretty good performances, which was amazing to hear, but I always am trying to strive to be more real with it, because that’s what the choreographers would tell me. They wanted me to connect more so I always tried to do that every time I got out there.”
