So You Think You Can Dance, an American dance competition show, returned for its eleventh season on Wednesday, May 28, 2014. The commission of an eleventh season was first announced by series creator Nigel Lythgoe on the September 10, 2013, telecast of the season 10 finale. The season again features Lythgoe, who also serves as executive producer, and ballroom expert Mary Murphy as the two permanent members of the judge's panel while Cat Deeley continues in her role as host for a tenth consecutive season.
Contemporary contestant Ricky Ubeda won the competition, and his prizes include $250,000, the chance to appear on the cover of Dance Spirit magazine, the offer of a role in the 2014 Broadway revival of the musical On the Town as choreographed by one of this season's guest choreographers, Joshua Bergasse, and the title of America's Favorite Dancer. The runner-up was tap contestant Valerie Rockey. This season saw the show eliminate interactive viewer participation by telephone, with producers preferring to divert weekly voting to the show's website and the network's new proprietary smartphone app, a process that reduced the overall number of votes each participating viewer could cast each week.
âÂÂUbeda and fellow grand finalist Valerie Rockey, who were paired as a couple from the first performance episode, became the twentieth contestants in the show's run never to face elimination from being among the bottom six or bottom four contestants, became the sixteenth contestants to be in the grand finale, became the fourth pair in the show's run never to face elimination from being among the bottom six or bottom four contestants in the grand finale and became the first original couple who were the final two without being in the bottom six or the bottom four and the second season that the top four were never in the danger zone.
Open auditions for season 11 were held in five cities beginning on Jan 13.
In a change from the procedure of the previous nine seasons, in which post-open-audition callbacks were held in Las Vegas and referenced collectively as "Vegas Week", season 11's callbacks were held in Los Angeles, with no special nomenclature. A total of 157 contestants began the week by performing a solo; those contestants not cut at this point went on to learn and perform various styles of choreography with cuts being made after every round. At the end of the final round of the week, 44 contestants remained, from which the judges selected a Top 20 to proceed into the performance show stage of the competition.
As with most previous seasons of So You Think You Can Dance, ten female contestants and ten male contestants were selected at the end of the callbacks week to proceed into the performance show stage of the competition.
In contrast with previous seasons, the top 20 showcase, in which all the contestants performed in their own styles, was a competitive and special episode.
Michael Dameski is the winner of So You Think You Can Dance Australias fourth season.