TVSquad

With the second week of competitions tonight on So You Think You Can Dance, I wanted to point out a trend: reality dance show contestants can't leave television. Several contestants and a few choreographers have jumped ship and have appeared on other reality shows.

The jump basically can plant an already established fanbase onto a different television show. One great example is Ty Murray on Dancing with the Stars. I'm not sure what the percentage of votes for Ty came from fans of Chelsie Hightower and her work from SYTYCD or his charm, but he definitely benefited from someone who knew to make routines that were camera friendly.

Here's a scorecard of contestants. I encourage you to leave comments about other contestants still dancing on reality TV shows that I may have forgotten.

So You Think You Can Dance

• Choreographer Shane Sparks has made the jump from SYTYCD to America's Best Dance Crew; now you never see his face on SYTYCD because of contract ties.

• Three contestants have made the jump to Dancing with the Stars professionals: Lacey Schwimmer, Dmitry Chaplin and Chelsie Hightower. Lacey made it to the finals on her first season.

• As for contestants popping up on DWTS: Benji Schwimmer and Artem Chigvinsev have done a few results show performances, several dancers including Mark Kanemura were part of the Macy's Stars of Dance routines, and Snow Urbin competed to be a professional but lost.

• Dominic Sandoval, Hok Konishi, and Ryan Conferido were part of Quest Crew on America's Best Dance Crew. They ended up winning season three.

• Before Dynamic Edition was on ABDC, Brandon Norris performed on SYTYCD.
  

• Several contestants have come back to choreograph routines for SYTYCD including Anya Garnis and Pasha Kovalev (Cha-Cha) and Benji and Lacey (West Coast Swing).

Dancing with the Stars

• Mario Lopez clearly used his increased fame from DWTS to land hosting duties for America's Best Dance Crew.

• Similarly, Marissa Jaret Winokur has become the host of Dance Your Ass Off on Oxygen. I guess she's become a poster child for weight loss via dance.

• Louis Van Amstel choreographed two routines for SYTYCD last week. I'm sure we'll see more routines soon.

America's Best Dance Crew

• The biggest swap is probably the resources of Napoleon and Tabitha D'umo. They first appeared on television as the audition scouts on ABDC. They soon turned to SYTYCD to choreograph lyrical hip-hop.

Reality television shows tend to have a lot of inbreeding where several contestants end up on other reality shows (the biggest current culprit has to be Stephen Baldwin), but I don't understand why the dance community feels inbred. There are plenty of dancers out there and many come to the US from other countries to live their dream. So You Think You Can Dance tends to find a lot of potential, so any contestant who wants to further their career should probably try out. The question is why aren't new choreographers and professionals emerging without nepotism or television trades on Dancing with the Stars?