15 of the best dance routines ever from So You Think You Can Dance
“Outta Your Mind” (Alex & Twitch, Season 7) – Hip Hop
Choreography: Napoleon and Tabitha D’umo
Don’t worry, we have some hip hop for you too, and it’s a classic NappyTabs performance!
Alex may be a classically trained ballet dancer, but the audience, the judges, AND Tabitha and Napoleon were all very surprised by just how strongly he performed this routine! When you’re performing hip hop with someone like Twitch, it can be pretty daunting, but Alex without a doubt kept up with his partner.
Performing to a remix of Lil Jon and LMFAO’s “Outta Your Mind,” Twitch and Alex started out with Twitch as a therapist and Alex laying on the couch, spilling all his problems. Then the two lose it in a fast-paced, hard-hitting hip hop routine. For a ballet dancer, Alex really got down on that stage. He even threw in a few ballet moves as a joke.
Towards the end of the routine, the pace picks up and the partners are in perfect sync. Twitch may be the hip hop pro, but after this performance, everyone had a new respect for Alex. They had the audience and the judges all up on their feet, cheering. Mia Michaels was so surprised she had to ask Alex, “who the hell are you?!”
As if the performance wasn’t memorable enough the first time around, the routine was performed one more time on the finale later that season. However, Alex couldn’t perform after being forced to drop out of the competition due to injury, so instead, he had an alternate take his place: Ellen DeGeneres. She reached out to the show because she was a huge fan, and filled in for Alex alongside Twitch (who is now the resident DJ on her talk show).
Ellen is no Alex Wong, and she certainly doesn’t have the same technique, but it was a delight to watch her get down with Twitch. They switched it up a little bit to make it funnier and to play to Ellen’s strengths instead, and it was a real crowd pleaser.
In case you were wondering, NappyTabs got an Emmy nomination for their “Outta Your Mind” routine — and it won!