(Fox)
Jaja Vankova proved a real contender to take Ricky Ubeda‘s crown on “So You Think You Can Dance” on Monday. Watch below!
Ubeda, the reigning “So You Think You Can Dance” winner, returned to the series for an “All-Star” dance with Vankova, one of season 12’s street dancers. But Ubeda, who Gossip Cop reported wowed all last year with his theatrical routines, was on hand to lead Vankova into the world of stage dancing. And if you didn’t know better, you would think she was on that team all along.
The current and former contestants did a Broadway routine to Nat King Cole’s “Let’s Face the Music And Dance,” playing a “smooth-talking mobster and his feisty wife” who “get arrested and thrown into a holding cell.” All he wants is one last dance, and he gets that and then some. The result was a standing ovation.
“Jaja, you above and beyond everyone I’ve ever seen on this show, you embody character to the Nth degree,” Paula Abdul exclaimed afterward. Jason Derulo similarly told her, “I love a period piece, and I felt like you embodied it so well.” He went on to note, “It’s just hard to believe you’re our same krumper we know and love. A second ago, you were in here hitting all the bullets [in a solo dance], and now you’re giving us this dainty [dance].”
Derulo said Vankova looked “like a movie star out of the 20s,” and Nigel Lythgoe even compared her to Amy Adams. “This is not something in your wheelhouse, and all night we’ve been saying ‘What a shame you picked that [dance style],’ [but] we never have to say that to you, Jaja,” he told her. “Everything you’re given to do, you really do very well.”
And after pointing out how last year’s prize led Ubeda to Broadway while this year the winner will join Jennifer Lopez’s upcoming residency, Lythgoe further said, “Whether it’s Vegas or Broadway, both of them would be lucky to have you perform.” Check out the video below!
