Before she took the spotlight at Agganis Arena on Saturday night, 19-year-old dancer Lacey Schwimmer prepped herself by gulping down a Red Bull and gobbling chocolate.
“I’m hyped and ready to go, but yeah that’s really all that I do,” said Schwimmer, who comes from a family of famous dancers, before the So You Think You Can Dance performance.
Tickets for the show sold out in 25 minutes, making it the fastest-selling event in the stadium’s history, according to arena employees.
Since the end of season three last summer, the show’s aspiring dancers have been traveling to different states to boogie on stage in front of live audiences.
Before they began touring, the dancers had small audiences of only a few hundred people, but they have now adjusted to larger numbers.
“You only have one chance,” Sara Von Gillern, 23, of Rock Island, Ill. “What our producer said is, ‘It’s like opening night every city we go to, so that means you have to be on your game.'”
Hokuto “Hok” Konishi, 22, of California, said although some dancers make the act look seamless, it is an art.
“Take care of your body,” said Konishi, who was born in Tokyo. “That’s the most important thing, just because if you don’t have that, you can’t do anything.”
After an afternoon of press conferences and introductions, the dancers took to the stage to perform. Mixed in with fan favorites from the show were new dances choreographed specially for the tour.
Once the lights went up, the audience began to scream, and the top 10 rose from the middle of the stage. The show opened with a dynamic group number that showcased each dancer as well as the cohesiveness of the group.
For the rest of the night, hip-hop beats, power ballads and disco jams blasted from the speakers at Agganis Arena while the dancers answered the burning question of the night: So You Think You Can Dance
Visit fstopjournal.com/sytycd for more photos and a multimedia slideshow of the performance.
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