So you think you can wow: so you think you can dance, popular screen dance, and modes of affective engagement

© 2015 Dr. Elena Natalie BenthausThis thesis locates the American television show So You Think You Can Dance (SYTYCD) within the broader aesthetics of popular screendance instead of confining it to the genre of reality talent competitions. There are two intersecting foci to this project. One is re-positioning, or re-genrefying SYTYCD as a popular screendance text. This argument involved considering how genre and the notion of intertextuality can be utilized for an analysis of the constant verbal and visual popular screendance references that have been made across the show’s 11 Seasons. These references connect SYTYCD (its structure, personalities, and bodies-in-motion) to popular screendance history and aesthetics, particularly the Hollywood musicals of the 1930s to the 1950s, the dance films of the 1970s and 1980s, and the inception of the music video genre. This argument additionally included an examination of how these popular screen dance texts have evolved, and the way they are now circulated and as a result, intersect online on YouTube and Facebook, creating not only a network of intersecting references, but also a broader accessible popular screendance archive. This argument expands the notion of screendance as an intertextual genre and makes a specific case for popular screendance as a distinct category with distinct markers and a distinct history. The second argument of this thesis project focused on the notion of affective responses to and instances of affective attachment between spectators and SYTYCD as a popular screendance text, in which spectators are identified as dance fans. The notion of ‘dance fans’ is tied to a re-consideration of modes of (screen)dance spectatorship in relation to social media practices. It involved an analysis of modes of engagement and attachment of a specific SYTYCD online fan community on Facebook, and in some instances on YouTube, reactions of which are incorporated into the analysis of SYTYCD as a popular screendance text in each individual chapter. I contend that attachment with the show is produced via a transmission of affect across screen surfaces, by utilizing the notion of affect as occurring in the in-between of stimulation and cognition. Affective responses to and affective attachment with SYTYCD, I further argue, is based on its popular screen dance aesthetics, its contagious personalities, the “WOW-ing” athleticism and virtuosity of its dancing bodies, and the use of screen technologies, all of which combined enhance the experience of affect across the screen. Within the space of online fan communities, dance fans negotiate these different affective aspects of the format and the pleasure of watching the show by participating actively in a discussion of SYTYCD, which further enhances the experience of affect across screens. This argument, in conjunction with making a case for popular screendance as a distinct category, additionally expands the notion of dance audiences by making a case for popular screendance audiences as a distinct category, based on being affected by dance on screen, which results in a mode of affectively ‘doing spectatorship.