So You Think You Can Dance is a competition.
 While contemporary, lyrical, and modern dance are typically considered three separate (if overlapping) styles of dance, the practice on So You Think You Can Dance has been to refer to all routines in this area as "contemporary", except in the first season where the label "lyrical" was used for the same purpose
 As far as competitive categories go, most competitions base their categories according to the dance style, age, experience level and the number of dancers competing in the routine

