One of the things I’ve always admired about SoCal schools were their hip-hop dance crews. The closest thing I ever came to one was dancing in the hip-hop suite during the UC Davis Filipino Cultural Night. There were fifty of us, and let’s be honest – if I was dancing in it, it really couldn’t have been that good. (As a side note, I heard that videos exist of me somewhere. If someone ever finds it, can you throw it away? Like, forever? kthxbi.)
So why do I bring this up? Because Kaba Modern, a dance crew out of UC Irvine, are one of the crews competing on MTV’s Randy Jackson Presents America’s Best Dance Crew. These guys are incredibly good, having also won the silver medal at the Hip Hop Internationals 2007:
It’s cool to see something that was once “just an AZN collegiate California” thing broadcast on national television. One thing I did notice, though: their group is a spin-off of Kababayan, the Filipino group at UCI, but their roster on the MTV show looks to have Korean, Chinese, Japanese and Vietnamese people, but no Filipinos. I mean, what kind of Chinese person would try to join a Filipino club? (That’s sarcasm. The answer would be: me, twelve years ago.)
Update #2: A YouTube video of their performance during their series premiere. Dude, what’s up with the quick edits and bad camera angles? The producers and cameraman seem to notice Yuri a LOT. Lesson learned: human interest story + a pretty girl = HELLA MTV FACE TIME.
Update #3: Kaba’s performance of episode 2 is now online, doing a performance based on a Chris Brown video; it’s the first performance where they recieve a little bit of criticism, but it’s most likely a solid pass to the next round. The producers focus on Jia as choreographer, although that doesn’t stop the cameras from focusing on Yuri every five seconds. (I have no problems with this, mind you, nor does every other male who watches this show – but isn’t the focus supposed to be on the dance crew?)
Update #4: Unfortunately, Viacom is actively blocking any America’s Next Dance Crew videos on YouTube. You can try finding video clips of performances at MTV’s website, although MTV breaks up clips by the time between commercials rather than just the performances themselves. Here is their performance from this week:
Judging from the comments, it looks like it wasn’t a very strong performance. Could this be the end of Kaba on the show?
Final Update: Kaba Modern was eliminated this week. Was the race card played?
(via Angry Asian Man)