PSA: SYD begins with a ROBOT.

I love love love this dancer; Bryan Gaynor (aka "Chibi"/Chibotics) from the season 3 SYD auditions has come back for season 7 auditions, to show us all (and the SYD judges) what he's been doing since we saw him on the season 3 finale performing his unique and humorous version of Christina Aguilera's "Ain't No Other Man."

Where his previous SYD performance showed (as I repeatedly pointed out, semi-gushing, to an eternally patient Prince Certainpersonio) the self-aware humor of the (potential) humanness of robots, Bryan's performance in this week's auditions showed exactly what robot-filled sci fi movies based on hardcore golden age science fiction writers like Asimov and Bova (think Bicentennial Man and A.I.) strive to show but often fall short of (though I'm told Iron Giant is awesome, and I suspect in just this way): the necessary, often telling differences between the "robot" and the "human."

Whether the reference is purposeful or not, when Bryan lays down at the end of the routine, I can't help but recall the image of Haley Joel Osment laying down next to his mother at the end of A.I. The difference is that this is real life, Bryan is a real person much like many of the people I know, and his taking on the (dance) persona of a robot is strangely fitting, and poignant as a result. Even in the few actual clips we get of Bryan Gaynor dancing to Owl City's "Fireflies," a song I'm sure he's made a lot of money for by now, we can imagine a completely different world watching the isolation and terrible, innocent hope of his robot on display. His dance is a meditation on what makes us different, not (just) from robots, but from each other, and how we might cope with that.

And unlike the more recent robotic sci-fi, it doesn't leave us all screaming piles of wreckage in the wake of software gone bad. Chibotics follows the three laws.

It's possible that only a 7-season veteran of SYD would obsess this much over a really awesome version of the robot -- or that only a candidate for an upper-level degree in "cultural production" would. But see for yourself. Go watch it. The picture isn't perfect, and they show way too much of the SYD judges reacting to his dance (we know, it's awesome, and touching! Now SHOW US WHAT HE'S DOING SO WE CAN REACT, TOO), but what you see is, I think, enough to understand what I'm talking about.

Don't watch it on a bad or jerky connection, though, as you won't know when he's being an awesome robot vs. when your computer is being stupid.

Also, keep in mind that I feel really attached to this performance, in which I see vulnerability and strength, which are rarely so obviously displayed and which are usually crushed by cynical comments -- so if you hate it or want to say sarcastic things about it, go to some random person's blog and post a comment there. That other blogger will probably be pleased and benignly weirded out, and I will be saved from a small bit of soul-death. This is a just-in-case suggestion.