It’s Project Runway on the main stage with Bravo’s new reality series Step It Up & Dance. You’ve got Showgirls star Elizabeth Berkley as Heidi Klum; Tony winning choreographer Jerry Mitchell as Tim Gunn; choreographer Vincent Paterson as judge Michael Koors and choreographer/director Nancy O’Meara as judge Nina Garcia. Instead of the workroom you’ve got the rehearsal space and the runway is replaced by the main stage. Each week there are guest choreographers and judges to put the dancers through their paces.
This week’s first episode was quite good, getting to know the contestants and watching them interact with Jamie King, this week’s guest choreographer/judge. The dancers were put through their “challenge” and had to learn new choreography quickly. This week they initially split people into groups: one group had members who could not be eliminated and the other had people that could be, and one of that group would be eliminated. Interestingly, the group who couldn’t be eliminated had one member run off-stage mid-way through the performance because she forgot her moves … and of course she really needed to be the one to be eliminated.
Anyway, very cool to have a second dance show on the air right now. I doubt I’ll blog about it as much as I do Dancing with the Stars, but I’m sure you’ll see it crop up from time to time.