Here’s the thing: When do you get to see someone’s pure passion — their desire to not only survive and to live, but to thrive, to be incredible, to be ultimately as human as can be — expressed physically? Expressed with their bodies, their movement, the energy they bring with them?

The show So You Think You Can Dance does that for me.

So You Think You Can Dance first entered my life in the summer of 2006. I was in the midst of a transition unlike any other I’d experienced before — I was moving to New York City. For nine months I had researched and planned and scheduled and set up. Everything was in place, and my move was scheduled for the end of June. I had met the first guy I was attracted to in a long time a couple of months before, and we were wringing everything we could out of the last few weeks before I would leave him for good.

He liked So You Think You Can Dance. It was only in its second season at the time, and I didn’t know much about it. Only that it was a “reality” TV show, which as a serious person and committed book geek, of course I had (have) nothing but disdain for. (C’mon, now, those Survivor marathons don’t count. Everybody did that, right?) I scoffed at him, but somehow he convinced me to give it a chance.

I don’t remember if I was immediately in love or if it took longer. But there must have been something. Enough to keep me watching until season’s end, enough to bring me back again, next year, on my own in New York, because of the show, not the guy.

The following year, with fond nostalgia for the previous summer, I watched again. This time I got to enjoy the season from start to finish — to experience the dancers’ journey, from auditioning their hearts out, to learning difficult dances they’d never done before in just a few days, to becoming such excellent performers that some of those dances would be etched in my mind for years to come. The energy was on fire. There was such passion in so many of those young people, and they expressed in their bodies, in the way they moved, in the way they learned, in the way they brought everything they had to entertaining on that stage. Any one of the top four that season could have won and I would have delightedly cheered them on; they were all super stars.

I watched year after year, for several more years after that. I joined a group on Facebook specifically designed for discussing the show. (What a joy it is to discover and spend time with a group of people who share a niche interest of yours!)

At some point, the show began to disappoint. The dancers weren’t as good. The producers started to change the format. One of the beloved judges, Mary Murphy, was no longer a part of it. I stopped watching.

But in recent years, they have begun to move back toward their past. The format of the show became more like it used to be. Mary Murphy came back. The dancers are perhaps not quite as incredible as they once were (to say nothing of the choreographers), but there’s a lot of special talent there, and the producers seem to be making better use of it.

So I’ve started watching again, the last couple of years. And I wanted to write about it, because it’s hard to explain exactly what moves me so about this show.

Other people scoff at me now, as I did at my boyfriend years ago. When I bring up the show, they ask if I’ve seen Dancing with the Stars. No, no, I say, this isn’t like Dancing with the Stars.

But then, when asked what it is like, I’m at a loss for words.

Here’s the thing: When do you get to see someone’s pure passion — their desire to not only survive and to live, but to thrive, to be incredible, to be ultimately as human as can be — expressed physically? Expressed with their bodies, their movement, the energy they bring with them?

There it is, up there, on that stage.

Maybe it’s because it’s the opposite of what I do — too much sitting around in front of a computer pounding down words. Not the slightest bit physical, so cerebral. Abstract, and the work itself goes unseen. Only the finished product comes to be in front of you. Sometimes I feel like my body is rotting because I don’t get to use it to express what I feel.

There, on that stage, you see the rawness of the work itself being expressed right now, in real time, with not just one part of them, but their whole self, everything they are. What a ridiculous act of bravery to get up on that stage and be whole.

These dancers are kids. They’re between the ages of 18 and 30, more of them on the younger side than not. Many of them have never danced professionally (though some have) and are looking to the show to be their springboard for beginning a career in dance. Some of them are madly passionate about the show itself, having come back several times to keep progressing beyond where they made it the last time.

The show occasionally walks a line of milking some of the sadder stories, but they don’t compromise the integrity of the show by letting people pass out of pity when their performance isn’t up to par. But most of the time it doesn’t matter. At the end of the day, everyone there has a passion for dance, and that’s what matters. It’s when someone gets up there and their why shows crystal clear in their body. You can see why they’re there. You can see that this, this thing right now, is what makes them live, and you get to witness it.

Sometimes you get someone incredible, who has just the right skills, whose strong why shows right through on his face as he dances, who’s original and adorable and so genuine, who nearly falls apart listening to the feedback because he’s so full of joy and gratitude and just loves being there and having the chance to share what he loves with a roomful of people who love it, too. You get these way more often than you might have expected, and you find yourself being brought to life, inspired, ready to tackle your own volcanic passion—because of what? A reality TV show? Indeed.

And that, my friends, my spunky misfits, is magic. Everyday, real life, asplode-your-head-with-wonder magic.

My favorite kind. 😉