15 of the best dance routines ever from So You Think You Can Dance

“Call Me Mother” (Top 8, season 14) – Jazz/Vogue

Choreographer: Mark Kanemura

A lot of pieces on this list have been from the earlier seasons, which are widely considered the “golden years” of SYTYCD. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t some gems in the last few seasons! Every year gives us amazing dancers and inventive new performances, and this one from last season will definitely go down in history.

SYTYCD alum Mark Kanemura was back again, and this time he gave the top 8 contestants a fabulous group number set to the RuPaul song “Call Me Mother.” Since his time on the show, Mark has received a lot of attention, first for being one of Lady Gaga’s principal dancers for years, and more recently for his flamboyant videos on Instagram to Carly Rae Jepsen and RuPaul songs. It seems like those videos definitely helped inspire this performance!

The piece starts with All-Star Robert voguing before some of the girls come out and join him. The rest of the dancers join in on the voguing, before the group comes together with fans to really slay us all. Yaaaaaaas! The song is fast-paced and hard-hitting, but those dancers hit every single beat with ferocity.

Seeing voguing on the SYTYCD stage, and seeing male dancers — who are often expected to have a certain air of masculinity — being so shamelessly effeminate was groundbreaking. Think about it: this is a song by RuPaul, a drag queen, being performed on a major network like Fox, on a show as popular as SYTYCD. It was a big deal!

The performance blew up immediately, and was shared by Ru himself, as well as Michelle Visage, and countless other RuPaul’s Drag Race queens.