America's Best Dance Crew Tour Review

The next evolution of dance may very well involve white masks and gloves.

Saturday night at the Paramount Theatre in Oakland, a sold-out crowd made it clear that the six-man crew known as JabbaWockeeZ was the reason many of them had bought tickets to Randy Jackson's "America's Best Dance Crew Live."

From behind the judges' table on "American Idol," Jackson learned that if you've performed on a reality show, people will come see you live. So when Jackson created "America's Best Dance Crew," an MTV dance contest in which a winner is selected from a dozen dance crews from around the country, he also launched a touring show featuring five of the best dance teams - or crews, if you will - performing highlights from the show, paying tribute to modern dance pioneers (hello, Michael and Janet Jackson) and making the fans scream with delight.

"America's Best Dance Crew" somehow crammed its first two seasons into a single year. The Season 1 winner, JabbaWockeeZ out of San Diego, was crowned in March, and Season 2 ended in triumph in August for the six-man Super Cr3w of Las Vegas.

Both champions are given ample stage time in the touring show alongside Season 2 competitors Fanny Pak of Los Angeles and A.S.I.I.D (And So It Is Done) of Detroit and Season 1's roller-skating dancers, Breaksk8.

As entertaining as all the crews are in this vaudeville show for a new millennium, JabbaWockeeZ - named after Lewis Carroll's poem "Jabberwocky" - is the crew with superstar charisma. Outfitted in their spooky Michael Myers-like masks, white gloves and sharp costumes, the six men of the crew move with a fluid elegance that separates them from the pack. Oh, they pop and break and do some incredible head spinning, but they elevate street dance to art form and give it more than a touch of performance-art weirdness.

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America's Best Dance Crew Recap

Pac-Man and Pretty in Pink. He-Man and hightop fades. Don’t tell me you don’t love the ‘80s! There’s absolutely no shame in savoring the decadence and absurdity of the era – the fashions, the hairstyles, the slang (Totally!), the music, and the dance moves. I remember when I first learned to do the wop (1987) and the cabbage patch (about two years ago), and I can’t wait to take a further trip down memory lane.

This week, the three remaining crews are performing twice in two separate mini challenges. For the Groove Step Challenge, the teams must build a routine using retro steps from popular dance videos. On top of that, they each have an additional physical challenge to accomplish.

Crew: Super Cr3w
Master Mix: “Bust A Move” by Young MC; “The Humpty Dance” by Digital Underground; “Word Up” by Cameo

For this challenge, Super Cr3w must perform their chosen ‘80s dance style with only four feet on the floor. They decide they want to do the Humpty Dance (“People say you look like MC Hammer on crack, Humpty!”) and they accomplish this by creating two wobbly towers. Shane Sparks thinks they were “crazy” and was impressed by the one-handed hops one Cr3w member does on another’s chest. Lil Mama also loved their amazing stunts and believes they truly lived up to their name. JC Chasez is happy to see them going all out and showing a bit of everything in their routine: choreography, creativity, and athleticism. It was “a great way to start the show.”

Crew: SoReal Cru
Master Mix: “Poison” by Bell Biv Devoe; “Now That We Found Love” by Heavy D; “Every Little Step” by Bobby Brown

SoReal Cru’s physical challenge is to start a chain reaction during their routine and they choose one of my personal favorite moves, the Kid ‘n Play. Lil Mama expected more from the crew but still had fun watching them. JC enjoyed seeing all the old moves, especially the high-blast running man at the top of the performance, but saw some loose choreography from crew member Andrew. Shane thinks they performed moves well, but lost energy throughout the duration of the routine. I’m still searching for the chain reaction. Did they even do it?

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