So You Think You Can Dance season 18 to air in March 2024
Follow up to this post
Filming for S18 began this week and Fox has officially announced that the show will begin airing on March 4.
There are a lot of changes this season!
The S17 judging panel consisted of SYTYCD S4 alum Stephen tWitch Boss (who passed away in December 2023, Jojo Siwa, and Glee/Broadway star Matthew Morrison (who was fired after the audition episodes were filmed and replaced with last minute addition Leah Remini). There was speculation about whether JoJo might return this season but they have scrapped the entire S17 judging panel.
For S18, Nigel Lythgoe will return to the judges’ table. Joining him are SYTYCD S2 alumna Allison Holker and Dancing with the Stars champion Maksim Chmerkovskiy (his brother Val is married to SYTYCD S10 contestant Jenna Johnson who is now a pro on DWTS). S4 alumna Comfort Fedoke (who is currently the associate choreographer on the film adaptation of Wicked aka the project that gave us the bone chilling Frankie Grande/Ethan Slater gif) will serve as a judge during auditions.
Instead of a weekly live show where the dancers are paired up to perform routines together and audience voting determines the top and bottom dancers, the show is changing to a format similar to Step It Up and Dance (the dance competition hosted by Elizabeth Berkeley that lasted only one season but featured several dancers who are still working in the industry). The new format is intended to reflect the experience of a career in dance.
Each week, contestants will compete in dance challenges that will give them a real taste of being a working dancer. The challenges will range from performing in a music video or a football halftime show to going toe-to-toe on stage with a Broadway performer. Instead of audience voting, the judges will decide who is eliminated each week.
The top three dancers will compete for $100,000 in the season finale and the winner will be crowned the So You Think You Can Dance champion (not America’s favorite dancer).
Another format change will be a more documentary/reality tv look at the dancers’ personal lives which includes “behind-the-scenes dynamics” and the cast’s “daily struggles, new relationships, personality clashes and more.”
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