Melissa and Ade were given a contemporary dance by Tyce Diorio about a friend who battled breast cancer, and the dancers wrested all the emotion from the movement that the subject matter warranted.Both clad in flowing white, Melissa's head wrapped in a scarf to suggest a chemotherapy patient who'd lost her hair, they'd break apart to suggest dealing with private emotions before diving back together, with Ade catching her in soaring leaps. There were also moments of even more overt pain and anger; at one point she flails her hands against him, her face contorted.If the dance was intended to be a tearjerker, it did its job, and when the judges gushed it wasn't only with verbal praise."I think that has just shown me why I love dance so much," Nigel Lythgoe said. Then after a long pause, as if to collect himself, he explained, "Because it can express so many emotions without use of words."He praised the dance as "one of the most memorable routines on this show. I felt it was extremely touching."Guest judge Ellen DeGeneres went even further, saying "I feel so privileged that I got to witness that, and I'll always, always remember it. It was just the most beautiful thing I've ever seen."After saying how moved she was, Mary Murphy brought it back to the dancers' performances. She said of Melissa, "You just flew into his arms with no care about your body . . . you had full trust in this partnership."Mia Michaels was the one broke down completely, managing to get out "What an important piece of work," before briefly losing control of her emotions.When she got a hold of herself, she said "How many millions and millions of women, people, if they have not experienced cancer first hand, have known someone to either fight it, or not fight it," before sharing that her father struggled with the disease.
