Susie and Marquis

We Thought We Could Dance!

Editor's Note: Susie and Marquis danced for their lives on So You Think You Can Dance this week, but their best moves and mild salsa left judge Nigel Lythgoe wondering who put out the fire out with all those dance tricks. Here's what they had to say about bearing their souls to America.

Marquis: I don’t personally agree with Nigel’s comment that I had too many tricks because I think it was far from that. Tricks in the dance world are considered acrobatic, gymnastics type of things and I only did two things under than criteria within my routine last night.

I felt I danced like what I was up there to do: dance for my life, remind them why they asked me to be there and lay everything out within that 30 second time frame. I felt I choreographed it to the best of my ability and put just the right amount of tricks around the movement, the flow of the choreography, the music and the audience. But I totally respect Nigel’s opinion, as a judge and as a person.

Susie: I don’t know where the fire went in Nigel’s eyes – I think I still had it in me more than ever. I am known as a fireball and very sassy with a lot of energy, and teachers and mentors have always told me to hold it back a little. I may have taken that and held back so the salsa wouldn’t seem fake or the facial expressions “out there”. But, they wanted to see more – you just never know what they’re going to say or what they see. The fire was still there and unfortunately it wasn’t enough.

Backstage On So You Think You Can Dance

Marquis: The schedule is very rigourous. There was not one day when we were not dancing – there were about 12 hours a day of rehearsal time as well as what we did on our own in our apartments.

When we had downtime before or after rehearsal and the stage was all ours, we would goof around on stage, be completely stupid and dance with each other to bizarre music and go crazy. We have a theme song (I can’t say the title of the song because it’s bad) but we call it our “kink” song and we’d put that on and everyone would go crazy. That’s a memory I’ll take with me.

As a group before the show, we would do a shaking thing where we would shake a part of our body for eight counts and then shake the other part, and go down to seven counts, then six. But the time we got to one count, we were jumping everywhere and screaming, so that was a great thing to do to get our jitters out before the show.

Sexy Susie The High School Teacher

Susie: I’ve always been known as the “hottie” on the show and I have so much more to offer! I’ve taken modern and ballet and flaminco, and I studied in art school in university. Everybody puts it as a bad thing that they call me hot and I’m a high school teacher, but I can’t help what other people see me as. I take my dance very seriously and I love the art.

I danced for the Miami Heat and had the whole sexy thing when I was a teacher as well. Yes, I am a young high school teacher – but I don’t dress in feathers in the classroom! It’s a performance; you just have to be in that character when you’re on stage.

My students are so happy for me and the parents are so happy – they made a big scrap book for me with pictures of them and had watch parties and stuff like that. They’ve been so supportive; they look up to what I did and they tell me that everyday.

Parting Words

Marquis: There are a lot of contemporary dancers this year, which surprised me and was one of the reasons why I wasn’t sure I would make the top 20. Contemporary is one of the strongest genres out there and for the competition to have so many remaining contemporary dancers in it, you have to be strong. You have to be there, in the zone, and along with the technique of contemporary, you have to be an amazing person. My guys and my girls – you gotta bring it!

As for myself, I want to get into teaching, performing and doing choreograph for who ever will have me! I also have a competition next month for a title that I hold (Mr. Dance of Florida for Dance Masters of America) and because of that, it enables me to go for the national title, Mr. Dance of America.

Susie: This experience has been great, so I’m going to take it and go back to Miami and see what happens. It’s going to open so many other doors. I want to have my own dance studio in Miami and let it grow so Miami can be something like LA and New York as far as dancing.

Everybody in the top 16 is on the same stage at the same level. I was surprised that Marquis and I were in the bottom and then surprised that I was going home, so you just really never know who’s going home and who’s going to win.

***** Read more from the eliminated top 20 on So You Think You Can Dance: Rayven And Jamie Take A Bow