(top row from left)
Evan Kasprzak, 21
Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly would be so proud. Kasprzak is the first Broadway specialist ever to make the Top 20. A dance major at Illinois Wesleyan University, he and his older brother, Ryan (who was eliminated in Vegas), seem to be on a two-man mission to bring back the great MGM musicals. “I remember being 10 years old and watching ‘Singing In The Rain’” says Kasprzak. “I thought, ‘That’s awesome.’”

Janette Manrara, 25
She’s the Cuban firecracker from Miami who started salsa dancing with her daddy at age 5. Now she’s doing tricks that should require a safety helmet. She made it to Vegas last season, cried in her hotel room after being cut, then went home and “got tough. I took more classes, changed my hair, came back more aggressive. It was like, ‘You’re gonna look at me and you’re gonna put me on the show!’”

Max Kapitannikov, 26
He can do a mean tango, but this Moscow native’s background is pure Russian ballet. “My mom is a ballet dancer,” says Kapitannikov, who now lives in Brooklyn. “When she came to the United States, she opened up a dance studio and tortured us with that.” But 13-year-old Max had other ideas. He was inspired by a visiting ballroom teacher and soon found that he “liked the feeling of the Latin rhythms.” More inspiration was provided by eight-time World Champion Bryan Watson. “When you watch him, you want to dance right away.”

Brandon Bryant, 19
Judge and exec producer Nigel Lythgoe has called this contemporary specialist “one of the best dancers ever to appear on the program.” And judge Mary Murphy was reduced to tears. “If you don’t make it to the Top 20 I think I’ll just die this year,” she said after his audition, his second in as many seasons. Why did it take two tries for him to make it on the show? Because the judges thought the Miami native didn’t have enough personality. Bryant says he’s come out of his shell. “I’ve hatched,” he says, “like an egg.”

Kupono Aweau, 23
This tall and slender lyrical contemporary specialist trains in the same Hawaiian studio with Season 4 standout Mark Kanemura. “He inspired me,” says Aweau. “He brought a new way of movement to the show. And after seeing Mark, and knowing him on a personal level, I thought, ‘If he’s up there, why not me?’” So this past year, Aweau made a New Year’s resolution to “train my butt off and go out for this.” What’s remarkable is that he started dancing relatively late in life, at age 16. But it became a consuming passion. “It was not an option not to get this,” he says. “There was no Plan B.”

Caitlin Kinney, 21
“Dancing makes me happy,” says contemporary specialist Kinney. That is, when she isn’t faced with competing against her little sister, Megan, and has to watch while Megan is sent packing, as she was in Vegas. “We figured that one of us would get cut,” says Kinney, who hails from Annapolis, Maryland, “and we promised each other that being sisters is the most important thing, above everything else.” Kinney has solid perspective, having also faced surgery to reconstruct her right hip in 2007. She had bone spurs that almost crippled her. But after surgery, “I actually have more rotation in my hip now, because all the scar tissue is gone

(middle row from left)
Vitolio Jeune, 26
“Dance saved my life,” says Jeune, a contemporary specialist who grew up in a Haitian orphanage. “In Haiti, when you’re motherless, and you don’t have a family, you tend to wind up in delinquency, stealing, going into gangs.” Jeune used to dance in the streets to make money to survive. When he was 18, he decided he wanted to dance professionally and joined a local company. Soon after, he was offered a full scholarship at the New World School of the Arts in Miami, where he got a B.F.A. degree in dance. “For me, dancing was a way to be accepted.”

Kayla Radomski, 18
When your whole family sacrifices to help you achieve your goal, you can become a beautiful jazz and contemporary dancer. Radomski’s grandfather worked 12-hour night shifts for the military, taking his granddaughter to dance classes during the day. Radomski’s mother, a nurse, also worked night shifts so she could shuttle her daughter to dance classes and competitions. And all this, because 2-year-old Kayla saw “Singing In The Rain,” ran up to her grandmother and said, “I want to do that!”

Ashley Valerio, 22
Valerio gets the prize for perseverance: She’s auditioned for the show four times. “I wasn’t going to audition this year,” says the contemporary specialist from Mesa, Arizona. “I was so over it.” But a breakup with her boyfriend prompted her to recommit to her first love: Dance. “It was the fire that I needed.” Valerio was dancing almost as soon as she could walk. Her mother owned a dance studio where the budding hoofer could study jazz, tap, ballet and tumbling. So being on stage is nothing new. But being in Hollywood? “I kind of freaked out,” she says, “because Mesa is so slow-paced, and being on a TV show is very overwhelming.”

Karla Garcia, 23
Two years ago, this jazz/contemporary specialist thought she could tap dance her way onto So You Think You Can Dance, but was shown the door in Vegas. So she skipped a year, studied different styles and landed a role as a featured hoofer on the national tour of “Wicked.” This time, her audition went much better, and she’s one step closer to dancing like her idol, Gene Kelly. “He can just give you a look, or shrug his shoulders, and give you the chills,” says Garcia. “I want to be a captivating artist like that.”

Ade Obayomi, 20
Obayomi, a dance student at Chapman University in Orange County, gets the prize for most easy-going contestant. He’d tried out once before, “and they said I needed to work on my partnering skills,” says the contemporary specialist. “I didn’t shed a tear. I was just like, ‘Okay, it wasn’t meant to be.’” Obayomi is an accidental dancer. It started when he was 6 years old and “forced” into a Phoenix after-school gymnastics and dance program “for people who were sitting on the curb, waiting for their parents to pick them up.” But in this case, the teacher recognized big talent. “He said, ‘He needs to go into a specialized program because he’s good.’”

Tony Bellissimo, 20
This six-foot-three Italian hip-hopper grew up on the mean streets of Buffalo, where, as a kid, the neighborhood bullies beat him up for being a dancer. “They took my shoes off and threw them at me,” Bellissimo recalls. But in high school, he got the last laugh, attracting girls with his footwork. “My dance teacher always says I remind her of [“Saturday Night Fever”’s] Tony Manero.”

Melissa Sandvig, 29
Sandvig, from Los Alamitos, California, is the oldest contestant ever to compete on the show. But she’s got a great show business pedigree: Her great-grandmother was a Ziegfield Girl, and her grandmother was Shirley Temple’s acting double. Judge Adam Shankman, watching Sandvig audition, said, “I love a naughty ballerina.” Says Sandvig, “I flirt when I dance. It’s not a naughty thing. It’s a way of connecting.”

Asuka Kondoh, 25
Kondah stands out in a crowd, being one of the rare Asian-Americans who specialize in Latin ballroom. Her idols include Dancing With the Stars pros Karina Smirnoff and Louis van Amstel. But her ballroom bent didn’t make her a shoe-in on SYTYCD. She was cut last season in Vegas. “They said they wanted me to work hard at other styles,” she says. Kondah, who lives in Irvine, California, took their advice and decided she “had one more year to improve myself. I wanted to come back even better.”

Jonathan Platero, 21
Platero, a salsa dancer who lives in New York City, had a tough decision: accept a Disney contract to perform in Japan for seven months at a very good salary, or go to Las Vegas and roll the dice for a spot on SYTYCD. He chose the latter, because the show had inspired him to start dancing in the first place. He started watching Season 1, when he was 16, and burning out in gymnastics. “I started hating it,” says Platero. “Being in the gym for hours every day wasn’t making me happy. But I started watching the show and I thought, ‘Wow, I love to dance.’ So I started taking salsa lessons.”

Jeanine Mason, 18
Last year, this contemporary specialist had a health scare that nearly derailed her dance career. She found that she couldn’t straighten her left elbow, and after six months of trying to figure out what was wrong, doctors finally discovered a rare, benign tumor that would have permanently damaged the joint. After two surgeries, radiation and physical therapy, she’s as good as new. “It made me stronger,” says Mason, who lives in Miami. “And I needed to stay strong because I wanted to dance.”

(bottom row from left)
Phillip Chbeeb, 20
This Houston popper knew he was dancing uphill when he auditioned for the show. “The people who make it this far are very rarely untrained,” says Chbeeb, who dances as if his body has no bones. “Every round I got through, I was more and more in shock.” You’ve got to give him credit for perseverance, because this was Chbeeb’s third try. Season 3, he got cut in Vegas. Season 4, he came down with pneumonia during Vegas week and was promised another try this season. But he still had a lot to prove. “What I want people to know is that you can come from the streets, practice in your bedroom, and come up with moves people haven’t seen before.”

Paris Torres, 19
Torres, a contemporary specialist who lives in Seattle, is a beauty pageant veteran who won the title National American Miss Teen Queen. So she knows a little something about the importance of stage presence and personal style. But in the last couple of years, she’s been struggling, trying to figure out who she is as a dancer. She thinks that will be the key to winning this competition. “It’s like American Idol, where Adam Lambert was the perfect example,” says Torres. “He was not afraid to be unique, to be himself, and that stood out. Finding your genre, your style, is so important.”

Jason Glover, 21
This is what can happen when you finally overcome junior rheumatoid arthritis: You start dancing. Glover, a lyrical contemporary specialist from Fresno, was a tortured kid. “I used to come home crying every day,” he says. “My mom used to have to massage my little legs and arms, and hold me, because I’d be sobbing so much.” The pain subsided at age 12, and Glover started dancing. “I still have aches now and then, but it doesn’t stop me,” he says.

Randi Evans, 23
“This year, it was all or nothing,” says Evans, a jazz dancer from Orem, Utah, who had tried out twice before. “I swear, the third time is the charm.” She should know, having also auditioned for Radio City’s Christmas Spectacular three times, as well. “I couldn’t be a Rockette, because I’m only five-foot-three, but I could be in the ensemble,” she says. That is, if she could convince them of her talent. “Rejection is hard,” says Evans. “You work your whole life to do this and then someone says you’re not good enough, or you don’t have the body, or you’re too fat, or you don’t have long enough legs. You really have to have thick skin to take it.”