'So You Think You Can Dance' renewed with changes

NEW YORK - Fox has renewed "So You Think You Can Dance" for a 12th season.

For the upcoming season, dancers who advance from auditions will be divided into two teams: stage dancers who are trained in styles like jazz, tap or ballet and street dancers who have mastered hip-hop, break dancing or animation. One dancer from each genre will be sent home each week leading up to the finale.

"So You Think You Can Dance" returns for its 12th season next summer.

Nigel Lythgoe, co-creator, executive producer and judge of the dance competition show, said in a recent interview that contestants who are great dancers but aren't professionally trained sometimes become overwhelmed early in the competition.

"What we thought was why don't we give them an opportunity of getting through and then they've got the opportunity to train a little bit ... to relax a little bit, and then once we get to the top 20, that's when we hit them with, 'OK, now you've got to do all the different styles' ... where the stage kids are given hip-hop to do and the hip-hop kids are given stage dance to do."

He said the division is interesting because there has been "arrogance" on the show between trained and street dancers. But "that quickly dissipated once they saw what the other could do" and they soon swapped ideas. "Dancers, above anyone I've ever worked with, are comrades-in-arms," he said.

Lythgoe, who has worked as a performer and a choreographer, said he's always appreciated street dancing.

"It was throwing the book out, it was doing what felt natural to the music, and it was very dangerous and daring and continues to be. That was the one big thing for me in creating 'So You Think You Can Dance' is that I could let other people appreciate street" dancing.