Why I Ditch the Guilt and Embrace the Pleasure of ‘So You Think You Can Dance’

Tonight's unveiling of its Top 20 dancers marks the official launch of the twelfth season of So You Think You Can Dance? and I don't know about you but I'm watching the shit out of it. The wildly popular reality talent show's unprecedented blend of high and low brow entertainment scratches so many itches at once with its addictive marriage of top tier dance and music talent to all the delicious trappings of reality television.

As with previous seasons, 12 strives to keep things fresh and ratings afloat with a changed-up format: Stage vs Street. Two teams of ten are assembled to compete against each other, one representing "stage" dancers (jazz, contemporary, ballroom and tap) and the other "street" styles (hip hop, breakdancing, animation), with one contestant eliminated from each team weekly until the finale. The judge's panel also got a tuneup: Hot Tamale Train conductor and "Mom" to show creator and mainstay Nigel Lythgoe's "Dad," Mary Murphy, is sadly absent as Lythgoe is now joined by (new Mom?) Paula Abdul and Jason Derulo, the hottest R&B singer of the summer perhaps best known for possessing an unusually robust self-esteem:

Since premiering in 2005, SYTYCD has stood out as an odd bird in the vast world of competition reality television. While the basic premise is the same as your Idols and X-Factors, the level of talent and athleticism of the dancers set against a musical backdrop that has given shine to dozens of underground or less-than-mainstream artists proves more substantial than the rest. Every week the finalists, each coming to the table with their own specialty, must learn and master at least one—if not two or three—new styles of dance. In addition to the unbelievable physical demands of all that, they're also required to immerse themselves emotionally and transform effectively to convey unrequited love, loss, joy, etc and more often than not, they pull it off. Because they're fucking unicorns.

If simply watching talented people dance was enough to enthrall the American viewing audience, PBS's ratings would be off the charts. This is where the reality TV golden ratio comes into play, as the selected contestants also happen to be charismatic and extremely attractive with ambiguous sexual orientations and a touch of gentle stereotype fulfillment (i.e. breakdancers from the inner city), leaving room for a variety of PG-rated narratives as expressed in short video cuts between performances. Knowing that Jessica thinks sloths are cute and hates tomatoes but loves spaghetti sauce makes the enjoyment of her subsequent murdering of an intense Sonya Tayeh routine thrilling but also comfortably nonthreatening and relatable.

Put simply, it's high art in small, palatable bites for everyone to enjoy.

Even host Cat Deeley, an insanely likable megababe who juxtaposes her dorky jokes and big goofy smile with a British accent and crazydope series of sexy outfits, embodies the blended viewer reaction of both relating to and being awestruck by what we're seeing.

This glorious high/low dichotomy is evidenced most conspicuously by the selection of music for the show. While the first few seasons were a touch heavy on the Celine Dion, a tipping point came during Season Two when dancers tore the house down with a Wade Robson-choreographed group number to Róisín Murphy's Matthew Herbert-produced "Ramalama (Bang Bang)." The piece earned Robson and the show one of its first Emmy's and seemed to mark a shift into incorporating a broader variety of dance music in the lineup, while still maintaining a balance with well-known pop, hip-hop, jazz, and oldies.

As the show has evolved, an ever-widening spectrum of guest and resident choreographers like (former show competitor) Travis Wall and Sonya Tayeh have kept it weird and hopefully will continue to do so. Fan favorite Tayeh, in particular, has been apt to consistently spotlight lesser known tracks from artists like M.I.A., Moloko and Icelandic art electronica group Steed Lord as well as a grip of obscure remixes. If Lythgoe is Dad then Tayeh's the cool older sister who throws away your Bieber CD and makes you listen to her music collection instead, even maneuvering permission from Björk to create a routine for "Possibly Maybe" from her 1995 album Post in Season Nine and"So Broken" from 1997's Homogenic's in Season 11.

People often feel obliged to tack on the phrase "guilty pleasure" when talking about reality TV. It's like you have to qualify your pure enjoyment of something by claiming shame. Just own that shit. Who cares? Watching one episode of So You Think You Can Dance? is a more relevant and culturally enlightening experience than walking around a museum where, let's face it, you're only pretending to understand half the art anyways, to say nothing of watching one of the many hypertensive cable dramas that populate summer television schedules. No matter what sort of bubblegum pseudo-reality framework SYTYCD wraps it in, the artistry and passion on this show is as real as it gets.

Malina Bickford is guilt-free and dancing in her living room and on Twitter.