JabbaWockeeZ

I've been a bit of a JabbaWockeeZ fiend for the last few weeks after a friend got me hooked on Randy Jackson's America's Best Dance Crew on MTV. They are one of the two finalists with the winner to be announced on Thursday, March 27.

JabbaWockeeZ are from San Diego and all season have really brought a higher level of crew dancing. You watch them and they are actually painting a scene. There are the individual dancers but they force you to see how their movements interrelate with each other. It's breathtaking! The crew wears masks and gloves which gives them that Blue Man Group kind of feel, a level of anonymity yet creating a sense of unity in their movements. There's a link on youtube that strings all of their routines together and it's clear that they weren't just looking to create one routine at a time, they were looking to build a full story arc. This is hip-hop dance at a whole other level!

I don't have cable, so I catch the episodes on MTV or on youtube. The other Asian heavy crew was Kaba Modern, that I hear is from UC Irvine. They had pretty tight choreography too, half women, half men. They're big on isolations and intricate hand movements, which has worn weary on me. They made it to third place.

There's some uproar from facebook to youtube arguing that MTV rigged the voting so there would be a east coast (Status Quo is from Boston) vs west coast final. My reply to that, is that reality tv isn't about being fair, it's about ratings and according to the legalese of many of these voting shows there's a disclaimer about the producers having a right to not count votes they think are deliberately skewing the tallies (like a script or something that keeps registering votes). But whatever.

Status Quo, the other finalist, is an African American street crew from Boston that has been up and down this season. A very athletic bunch, they do alot more freestyling more often than not, but they represent that kind of raw energy in hip-hop.

In any case, I'm glad that the west side got major representation on the show. And I really hope the top crews get more opportunities from being on this show.

I have to admit I'm an addict for any dancing/skating/gymnastic type show on tv. If there's music and movement, I'm there. I'm not too into American Idol, but I can't miss Dancing With the Stars (especially with Kristi Yamaguchi on it).