TAY ZONDAY: (SINGING) Show it down, show it down.
Show it down, show it down with the Dance Showdown.
Yeah.
LAUREN FRODERMAN: Tay Zonday is a singer on YouTube.
His most famous or well-known one is probably his "Chocolate
Rain."
-Chocolate rain, zoom the camera out, and see the light.
LAUREN FRODERMAN: Hi!
TAY ZONDAY: Hello.
LAUREN FRODERMAN: Oh my gosh, that's real!
Hi, I'm Lauren.
Nice to meet you.
TAY ZONDAY: Great to meet you, Lauren.
LAUREN FRODERMAN: He has such a deep, deep powerful voice
and such a youthful face, you don't really expect it to come
out of him.
OK, do you want to hear what we're dancing to?
TAY ZONDAY: Absolutely.
LAUREN FRODERMAN: OK, cool.
Tay and I are going to be a dancing to The Mind of Dre
song, "Jump."
[MUSIC - THE MIND OF DRE, "JUMP"]
TAY ZONDAY: When I hear the song for the first time, that
it is very fast--
I kind of want to have a heart attack or do some sort of
spazzy dance to it.
It's not something you're going to be waltzing to or
square dancing to.
LAUREN FRODERMAN: This song really isn't what you would
expect Tay to dance to, so I think that could really put
him on an edge with the competition.
TAY ZONDAY: Tay Zonday is hard to peg down.
You never know.
You never know what you're going to get.
LAUREN FRODERMAN: I wanted Tay and I to wear some bling so
one, he could kind of get into the character--
TAY ZONDAY: I would take the peace sign
over the dollar sign.
LAUREN FRODERMAN: OK, you got it.
TAY ZONDAY: More demure, more politically neutral.
LAUREN FRODERMAN: There we go.
Oh yeah.
How do you feel?
TAY ZONDAY: I feel like part of my net worth is
attached to my body.
LAUREN FRODERMAN: We're about to go and get ready for the
dance, and Tay says that he needs to put on new glasses,
so he puts on these--
these goggles.
TAY ZONDAY: This is a definite look.
LAUREN FRODERMAN: Isn't it?
I actually have never, ever seen anybody wear
those to dance in.
I'm not even sure if I've ever seen those before.
TAY ZONDAY: I'm ready to dance and sweat.
LAUREN FRODERMAN: All right, perfect.
OK.
In this dance, the main thing for me is to get Tay to be
able to groove.
I think we should just start out with some simple grooves
and then actually start learning some of the moves.
How do you feel about that?
TAY ZONDAY: That sounds like a great plan.
LAUREN FRODERMAN: OK, cool!
When people watch hip hop, they love to see people
grooving and having fun.
There we go.
Good.
Normally--
TAY ZONDAY: I feel like C3P0.
LAUREN FRODERMAN: He looks a little like he is standing on
a pole and his shoulders are back.
Maybe less back, shoulders relaxed, shaken out.
Yeah.
TAY ZONDAY: We're starting at a one.
I'll just follow you.
LAUREN FRODERMAN: I'll start at three, we're
going to move on seven.
What?
What's going on?
LAUREN FRODERMAN: Tay just needs to shut off that brain,
and he needs to get loose.
Exactly.
TAY ZONDAY: Very Devo.
LAUREN FRODERMAN: Whenever something was uncomfortable,
he would kind of turn it into a joke.
TAY ZONDAY: I want to go rob a bank.
I'm going to be like, give me the money.
LAUREN FRODERMAN: One of my visions for the piece is to
have Tay slide across the floor.
Seven, eight.
Run.
Good.
Good, good, good.
And slide.
TAY ZONDAY: I swear my feet, they won't slide.
LAUREN FRODERMAN: Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.
TAY ZONDAY: I think there is fear.
I think there's part of me that's like, I'm fine china
and I'll break if I commit to it too much.
LAUREN FRODERMAN: I'm fine china.
TAY ZONDAY: Yeah.
She does a great slide.
Really, what we should do is we should motion capture
Lauren and make a CGI Tay, and then kind of put in the CGI
Tay doing the slide.
LAUREN FRODERMAN: I think he'll get it eventually.
TAY ZONDAY: My absolute favorite move today was
standing and bobbing my head up and down while Lauren
danced around me.
LAUREN FRODERMAN: One, two, three, four,
five, six, seven, eight.
Slide, slide, slide, slide.
Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes!
The more that Tay is loosening up, the better the moves look.
There's this move-- are you familiar with the Bernie?
TAY ZONDAY: I had never, to my knowledge,
done the Bernie before.
LAUREN FRODERMAN: It's from Weekend at Bernie's.
That's that movie.
Have you seen that movie?
TAY ZONDAY: I don't think so.
LAUREN FRODERMAN: All right, well anyway, there's your
history lesson.
And this is where the dance originated from.
TAY ZONDAY: And I learned it, and we did it.
LAUREN FRODERMAN: Head back, and you're going to walk.
Good, good.
TAY ZONDAY: I felt like I was going to fall backwards and
crack my head open.
LAUREN FRODERMAN: Maybe you should, like, Bernie off a
little bit.
TAY ZONDAY: Bernie off?
LAUREN FRODERMAN: Yeah, Bernie.
Bernie away into the distance.
