Jamie Bayard understands one of So You Think You Can Dance's fourth-season male finalists had to be booted last night.  But unfortunately, it was him.

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"I was a little surprised.  I know that somebody has to go -- that's the reality of the competition," Bayard told Reality TV World during a Friday conference call.  "The judges did definitely tell us that afterwards.  They said that someone had to go and it just turned out it was us."

The 22-year-old West Coast swing dancer from Palm Springs, CA who currently resides in Norwalk, CA and his partner Rayven Armijo found themselves among the bottom three couples based on home viewer votes cast immediately following Wednesday night's performance episode and were subsequently ousted by the show's three judges.

Bayard and Armijo performed a fast hip-hop routine choreographed by Napoleon and Tabitha D'Umo during Wednesday night's performance episode.  Since Bayard's background is in swing and Armijo's is ballet, he told reporters they both "learned a lot."

"It was really, really difficult -- especially coming from ballroom.  That's definitely not anything close to what hip-hop is," he said.  "We had a really, really fun routine, which I think played into both of our abilities too.  We had so much fun with it.  We learned a lot of new technique, and myself, I built a really great relationship with Napoleon and Tabitha, and I think that's really important too."

Despite the difficulty in the routine, Bayard said he and Armijo undertook the daunting task with gusto.

"It was a really, really challenging experience but we both worked really, really hard on it," he explained.  "We spent a lot of extra time in the gym -- through the evening and into the night -- working on it.  We went out there and we did our best.  We both did really, really well for a ballet dancer and a ballroom dancer doing hip-hop."

However the two were the first pair to perform during Wednesday's two-hour broadcast, a fact that So You Think You Can Dance judge and executive producer Nigel Lythgoe commented might hurt them with home viewers.

"I think it has a lot of truth to it.  If you look at past seasons, the first people to [perform], they always have a hard time with America," Bayard told Reality TV World. 

"We didn't have mush airtime [during the audition episodes or Las Vegas Round broadcast].  So when we went out [on Wednesday], that was the first time American had ever seen us.  We both went out there out of our element and did a completely different style.  But at the end of the show, that's when everyone votes.  Nigel obviously knows how the show works, he has a lot of validity when he talks about the first people having the hardest time.  I think that played a lot into us being in the bottom three."

Making matters worse was that Nigel thought Armijo pulling Bayard's pants down at the end of their Wednesday night routine "may have offended a number of people too."

"The choreographers obviously came up with the idea," explained Bayard.  "We just do what the choreographers tell us to do.  Pretty much in the dance world, that's the whole business.  You can't really tell them no.  So I have no shame, obviously."

Bayard auditioned for So You Think You Can Dance's fourth season with his regular dance partner and current girlfriend, who also made it to the Las Vegas Round but was cut instead of making the Top 20.  While his girlfriend had an important obligation last night she still made every effort to be there for him.

"She was actually at her sister's high-school graduation.  She told her parents she was going to Starbucks and she left the graduation and drove all the way up to the apartments where we were staying," he said.  "She surprised me there just with tons of hugs and compassion."

Now that he's off the show, Bayard said he'll continue dancing with his girlfriend.

"So we're definitely going to push forward -- both of us," he explained.  "We have each other and that's the cool thing in our relationship, is that we both do the same thing.  So we're going to support each other all the way and continue going. We're both really young and we both have a lot of time and we're both going to succeed even father than this."

Bayard added being booted from So You Think You Can Dance wasn't discouraging to his goals.

"This isn't going to stop anything," he said.  "If anything 20 million people saw me dance, so that's only a good thing."
About The Author: Christopher Rocchio

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