Video: Karmiryan ends ‘So You Think You Can Dance’ quest
With pulsating jazz music blaring, Glendale resident Paul Karmiryan popped on stage Tuesday night doing flip after flip toward the audience during one of his final performances on “So You Think You Can Dance.”
For the past several weeks, the judges on the hit Fox show have gushed over Karmiryan, but that didn’t save him from being booted off the show as he fell behind the top four finalists in garnering audience votes.
VIDEO: Paul and Kathryn perform in “So You Think You Can Dance”
“It’s so unpredictable,” Karmiryan said during a conference call with reporters Wednesday afternoon, adding that although he didn’t make it to the finale, he wouldn’t have changed a thing.
“Of course. it’s everyone’s goal to make it to the finale and to make it all the way,” he said. “Thinking back on the L.A. auditions, just the journey I’ve made from L.A. to now, it’s just amazing. I have no regrets.”
The 22-year-old was selected out of thousands of dancers who auditioned for the show, now in its 10th season. The top 20 moved on to compete as couples on live television. At the end of the competition, there will be one male winner and one female winner.
Karmiryan, who moved to Glendale from Armenia when he was 6 years old, isn’t a stranger to television dance competitions. He won the Armenian version of the show two years ago.
That experience prepared him for the Emmy Award-winning American version, which, he said, had a tougher competition pool.
“They were the same show, but both of them were completely different in my life as a whole,” he said, noting that because of Armenia’s small population — it’s slightly smaller than Los Angeles — the American show was on a grander scale.
Karmiryan, who started dancing just over four years ago, started with Latin ballroom as his dance of choice, but throughout the show he danced hip-hop, jazz and other styles.
His favorite was dancing a contemporary piece to Lady Gaga’s “The Edge of Glory.” As dark blue lights flooded the stage, Karmiryan and his then-partner, Mackenzie Dustman, a Temecula resident who was kicked off the show earlier this month, glided on stage, portraying lovers from two different worlds.
“The moment that we shared together on the stage, it just meant a lot to us,” Karmiryan said.
As much as his moves looked effortless on screen, Karmiryan said that was because of hard work and draining practices. By the end of Tuesday night’s show, Karmiryan’s muscles were giving in and he was fighting to finish.
“We’re still human after all,” he said.
Karmiryan is set to join the top 10 finalists on a 42-city North American tour that kicks off on Oct. 1. After that, he plans to continue dancing — both on television and off. One day he hopes to be on “Dancing with the Stars,” an ABC show that pairs celebrities with professional dancers.
“It’s really not the end, it’s only the beginning,” he said.
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Follow Brittany Levine on Google+ and on Twitter: @brittanylevine.
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