So You Think You Can Dance (United States)

So You Think You Can Dance (United States)

So You Think You Can Dance is an American televised dance competition show that airs on Fox in the United States and is the flagship series of the international So You Think You Can Dance television franchise.

The series premiered on July 20, 2005 with over ten million viewers and ended the summer season as the top-rated show on television. SYTYCD was created by American Idol producers Simon Fuller and Nigel Lythgoe and is produced by 19 Entertainment and Dick Clark Productions. The first season was hosted by current American news personality Lauren Sánchez. Since the second season, it has been hosted by former British children's television personality and one-time game show emcee Cat Deeley. During its second season, the program remained the No. 1 rated summer show (adults aged 18–49) but it has declined in ratings since.

The show features a tiered format wherein dancers from a variety of styles enter open auditions held in a number of major U.S. cities to showcase their unique styles and talents and, if allowed to move forward, then are put through additional rounds of auditions to test their ability to adapt to different styles. At the end of this process, a small number of dancers are chosen as finalists. These dancers move on to the competition's main phase, where they perform solo, duet, and group dance numbers in a variety of styles. They compete for the votes of the broadcast viewing audience which, combined with the input of a panel of judges, determines which dancers advance to the next stage from week to week. The number of finalists has varied as determined by a season's format, but has typically been 20 contestants.

The show features a broad variety of American and international dance styles including classical, contemporary, ballroom, hip-hop, street, club, jazz, and musical theatre styles, amongst others, with many sub-genres within the categories represented. Competitors attempt to master these styles—which are generally, but not always, assigned by a luck-of-the-draw system—to survive successive weeks of elimination. The eventual champion wins a cash prize (typically $250,000) and the title of "America's Favorite Dancer". In nine seasons, the winners have been Nick Lazzarini, Benjamin Schwimmer, Sabra Johnson, Joshua Allen, Jeanine Mason, Russell Ferguson, Lauren Froderman, Melanie Moore, Eliana Girard and Chehon Wespi-Tschopp, with Girard and Wespi-Tschopp sharing the title as dual-winners for season 9. The show has won seven Emmy Awards for Outstanding Choreography and a total of nine Emmys altogether.

Spin-offs were announced starting in August 2005 and to date 23 localized adaptations of So You Think You Can Dance have been produced representing 24 different countries.