Silhouettes (dance group)

Silhouettes™ is a dance group from Denver, Colorado. The group is best known for performing on the sixth season of America's Got Talent.^[1] The 42 members of the Silhouettes™ range from 4–18 year olds.^[2] The group was named runner-up in the competition.

Pre-America's Got Talent

The Silhouettes™ group was created in March 2009 by Lynne Waggoner-Patton. The group was created using dancers from Rocky Mountain School Of Dance & Performing Arts located in Arvada, Colorado. Waggoner-Patton was asked to create and choreograph a show using her dancers shadows and photographs and The Rocky Mountain Silhouettes were born.

America's Got Talent

Lynne Waggoner-Patton and Silhouettes™ continued on to their first aired performance in Minneapolis, performing a piece called "Imagine", featuring the song "Imagine Me" by Kirk Franklin, which featured a little girl who imagined many things, including a tree and a swing, wedding dress, large heart, and balloons, as well as the word imagine. With a standing ovation and breathtaking reviews by all three judges, they quickly were off to the next round in Las Vegas.^[3]

In Vegas, the group was passed straight through to the top 48 live show in Hollywood, where they performed "America" featuring the song "God Bless America" by Celine Dion. The America show featured various US landmarks. The landmarks include the United States Capitol, Mount Rushmore, the Marine Corps War Memorial, the New York City skyline with a faded image of the World Trade Center towers, and the Statue of Liberty, as well as the word America. With extreme applause from the audience and judges, they were then voted through to the top 24.^[4]

In the top of 24, they did "Create The World", a world themed show with imagery of volcanoes, waves, sunsets, and the cosmos. At the end, the also made the words create the world, two trees, and lifted a globe with a woman on top. The show received more critique than before from judge Piers Morgan, however they still passed through to the top 10.^[5]

For the next show, called "Believe", featured "I Believe" by Blessid Union of Souls. In the show, it begins with a young boy at school, and shows many different memorable moments and figures as well as the word believe. Among the moments are graduation, Olympic swimming event, and the moon landing. Figures included were the President of the United States at the White House, a ballet dancer, swimmer, and an astronaut boarding a rocket and on the Moon, ending with all four figures standing around the boy sitting at his desk with a large heart made of flowers surrounding. Once again, great approval was seen by the audience and judges, and Silhouettes was passed through to the final round of competition, the top 4.^[6]

Their final competitive round performance ran into some minor difficulties, however, as the large LED doors for the show would not open to allow the back light to shine on the screen. After several minutes of pre recorded footage and tech crew intervention, the show began with a little girl going to bed, soon after travelling the world from the Rocky Mountains to the Eiffel Tower, then returning to bed. In this show they spelled out the word love with the little girl hugging her mother on the side. Again, the audience was in an uproar of approval and the judges extremely pleased.^[7]

Finally in the finale of the show, they performed with a guest artist LeAnn Rimes and her song "Give". Throughout, they recreated memorable moments from their previous America's Got Talent shows and spelled out words from each show. After the iconic The Silhouettes' moments and multiple dancing sections, they spell the word give, and the screen reveals the dancers. They end the performance rippling up in two lines, walking forward, and lifting their hands in the air.^[8] In the same episode, they ended as runners-up against Landau Eugene Murphy, Jr., a singer with a similar voice to Frank Sinatra.

Post-America's Got Talent

Since America's Got Talent, Waggoner-Patton has created many custom shows and Silhouettes™ has been performing in various cities, states, and countries. They performed mostly for different companies and corporations, such as Microsoft and Chick-fil-A. Recently, they filmed for the 2012 MDA Telethon, airing September 2.

External links

• The Silhouettes (Official website)
• Lynne Waggoner-Patton

References