There was such short notice that many dance lovers may have missed it when N.C. Dance Theatre's Dwight Rhoden landed on prime-time TV. “So You Think You Can Dance,” the Fox contest show, hired Rhoden – along with the co-founder of his New York dance troupe – to choreograph a pas de deux to John Lennon's “Imagine.”

What do you suppose seven to eight minutes of national exposure is worth? That's what the July 16 show gave over to Rhoden, collaborator Desmond Richardson and the two dancers they put through the wringer. Then the show brought back contestants Katee Shean and Will Wingfield to reprise the duo Thursday for the show's grand finale. If you didn't see the original telecasts, you can still look up both performances on YouTube.

The sequence from the first show starts in the rehearsal studio, where Shean and Wingfield get their first taste of what the two choreographers have in mind.

“They're not joking around with this,” Shean says during a break. Wingfield, seeing how Shean has stretch and twist, adds that it would help to be Gumby. With Lennon's imaginary paradise as the launching pad, Rhoden and Richardson send Katee and Will Wingfield on flights of the hyperkinetic choreography that Rhoden's NCDT audiences know well. It's so intricate that, after the performance, judge Nigel Lythgoe applauds Shean and Wingfield even as he points out a spot they flubbed.

On Thursday's finale, the pas de deux gets a lead-in from judge Mia Michaels, who picked it as her favorite choreography of the season. She gives a long salute to Rhoden and Richardson – both former Alvin Ailey dancers, now co-directors of Complexions Contemporary Ballet. “They're legendary,” she says, adding: “To have them come on and do the pas de deux gave our show a whole different heartbeat.” Then Shean and Wingfield take off again. Unless a different camera angle has fooled me, the spot where they had their little slip the first time – a quick turn that Shean has to make close to Wingfield's chest – now goes right.

Shean and Wingfield are on the roster for a “So You Think You Can Dance” tour that comes to the Time Warner Cable Arena on Nov. 12. Do you think they'd reprise their pas de deux by popular demand? Imagine if you can.