The focus of So You Think You Can Dance on July 18 was on the young dancers performing choreographed routines with a fellow Next Generation dancer. And though all of the partnerships were pretty stellar, my favorite had to be Tahani and Jake on So You Think You Can Dance. While Ruby and Jordan started the second live show of The Next Generation season off brilliantly with their fierce routine and Kida and Tate proved to be the most mature dancers of this season, there is just something infectious about the energy that Tahani and Jake have — and together, these kids are unstoppable.
Tahani won me over immediately in her first audition with her awesome hip-hop moves and her even more awesome personality after she threw up on judge Paula Abdul. Jake didn't stand out to me until the first live show on July 11 when he blew me away with his ballroom dance with All-Star Jenna. Although I knew that Tahani and Comfort would be a force to be reckoned with, I had no idea how much I would love Jake and he somehow made a dance that could have been super awkward (due to the height difference between him and Jenna) into one of the most memorable moments of the first live show.
The two kids with perhaps the biggest personalities of this season were randomly partnered together for the July 18 episode and they honestly couldn't have complemented each other better. Their first dance was a contemporary piece about bullying and while both dancers have shown how fun loving they are, they were able to ground their performance to convey legitimate emotions. Not to mention, both of them looked great performing outside of their selected styles. Their second dance was in ballroom dancer Jake's wheelhouse since it was a jive and their outgoing performance style the show.
What makes this partnership even more endearing — as if that was possible — is how much the two dancers seemed to genuinely enjoy working with each other. They both had tears in their eyes after their emotional first dance and Tahani credited Jake for helping her with the jive. She called him a gentleman while Jake called Tahani one of the most amazing people he has ever met. Yeah, he probably hasn't met that many people in his young life, but that's still high praise for the adorable Tahani.
I know these two won't be partnered together for next week, but I suspect that they will dance duets together again since I'm holding out hope that both of them are going to make it to the top four — and I'm going to love watching them every (dance) step along the way.
Image: Adam Rose/FOX
