Who's the most dangerous 'SYTYCD' choreographer?
My friend Amy Watts started thinking last night that there might be some correlation between having lame choreography and going home on So You Think You Can Dance. So was it possible that being assigned a particular choreographer hurts a contestant's odds of advancing? (Yes, she was particularly wondering whether Tabitha and Napoleon are a dangerous draw after this week's Top 20 shows.)
"Bored and sleepless," as Amy described herself, she decided to start wading through the data and looking for patterns. She put together a spreadsheet that looked at each choreographer's "impact" on a dancer's chances of going home. You can see it here.
The rough, totally non-scientific conclusion?
Alex Da Silva (8.25) has the highest, Tyce Diorio has the second highest "Impact Factor" (6.625), followed very closely by Tabitha and Napoleon (6.125), and then, at a comfortable remove, Shane Sparks (4.75).
Of course, Da Silva is probably not coming anywhere near this show again, given the current charges he's facing.
But it's interesting to see how the numbers play out. I've got more from Amy on her methodology after the jump:
I'm not entirely pleased with my methodology, having slept on it for a night. I feel like there should be weighting not just for how many times a choreographer has appeared, but also how far along in the competition. For example, last night, the couple that danced a Tab & Nap routine were both eliminated. Same thing happened in the Top 20 show last year. Now, if they had two routines in each of those shows, then straight-up probablity would mean a 20% chance of one of their dancers being eliminated (2 routines out of 10). However, they're batting 1.000. Following the same logic, if you're choreographing twice on a night with, say, six couples, then your chances of choreographing an eliminated dancer are closer to 33%.
I have a hunch that to truly represent what's going on with relation to choreographer/chance of elimination you're going to require a much more sophisticated analysis than what I whipped up last night, bored and sleepless.
Having said all that, here's what I did last night: Went through wikipedia and tallied routines by choreographer. There were four columns that results could go into (if both dancers were safe, I made no mark): Both dancers eliminated, Single dancer eliminated, Both dancers Bottom 3 (or 2 on week 8), Single Dancer Bottom 3. The reason you sometimes see .5 is that's how I counted on weeks in which the same couple danced routines from two different choreographers -- each choreographer took half a point in the appropriate column.
For "impact" I decided that having both dancers eliminated was worth 2 points, a single dancer eliminated was worth 1 point, both dancers "unsafe" was worth 1/2 point and single dancer unsafe was worth 1/4 point. Then I added up all those points to get the "Total Impact."
If someone with better stats analysis skills than me wants to take it over, I'd be glad to continue to do the data entry and see if any patterns continue to develop over this season and next.
If you have any suggestions or feedback, feel free to leave a comment or talk to Amy on Twitter. (Don't forget: You can also follow Reality Check on Twitter.)
(Photo by Mathieu Young/FOX)
Categories: So You Think You Can Dance
Comments
As we were watching on Wed, my fiance and I both commented that who the couples got as a choreographer definitely impacted their chances of going home, so it's interesting to read this. Even if the dance is danced well, a boring dance is still a boring dance!
Posted by: Suzy | June 12, 2009 12:58 PM
There are definitely good and bad choreographers.
Tabitha and Napolean will always give you a show-stopper.
Jean-Marc and France will always give a killer ballroom routine.
Mia will always do a great contemporary number.
But then there are the killers.
Dan Karaty is no longer choreographing, but his dancers ALWAYS got kicked off because his routines were so lame.
Wade Robson is just weird.
Mandy Moore is boringly predictable.
And god-forbid you get stuck with the ridiculous mohawk'd Sonia.
Tyce and Lil C are tossups.
Posted by: dcdiva | June 12, 2009 1:22 PM
Given all this (which I find totally plausible), I'd like to know more about how dancers are assigned to a choreographer. Is it totally random, or do the producers make the selections?
Posted by: Dahlink | June 13, 2009 2:55 PM
Uhmm, how can you say that about sonya and wade? "And god-forbid you get stuck with the ridiculous mohawk'd Sonia." That is soo mean. She is an amazing dancer and choreographer and an amazing person. don't judge her because of her hair, please. and wade Robson isn't "just weird" he is a genius. His routines are different, memorable and have a connecting power. They bring something different to dance, and its very enjoyable.
Posted by: Monika | June 23, 2009 6:06 PM