'America's Best Dance Crew': Last for One -- another reason to expand

So, MTV has established that "America's Best Dance Crew" is and can continue to be a solid program. When it premiered a few weeks ago, it was the No. 1 basic cable program for the day among the 12 to 34-year-olds, females 18 to 34 and teens 12 to 17.  Maybe even more relevant to today's social media-minded public was that "ABDC" has been a top topic on Twitter for the last two Sunday nights that it's aired.

But it still needs a bit of a push. The personalities this season are fun, and the producers put some thought into bringing even more diversity onto the show with line-dancing, vogueing and other dance styles. Diversity, both the word and the U.K. dance crew that won "Britain's Got Talent," is one of the reasons expansion could be good. Obviously there are some dance styles still untapped on "ABDC."  Hip-hop ballroom dancers, anyone?  But many of those styles don't seem to translate.  So maybe the interpretation of hip hop-needs to change a bit too.  A worldwide perspective.

A dance crew from Korea called Last for One was at the Los Angeles Times today to film a piece for an upcoming video project about them that we'll be putting up Friday.  We filmed a quick introduction to the crew and asked them a few questions about "ABDC" and what they thought their prospects would be against the competition here.

The crew, from a small province in South Korea called Jeonju, performed at Lincoln Center recently and is featured in the movie "Planet B-Boy" where they won the 2005 Battle of the Year competition.  The video above is just a taste.  Here they are in the 2006 Battle of the Year contest:

It would be great to see them battle crews in the U.S. People who follow b-boy culture here know how widespread it is, but the general public may not. Crews from Germany, the Philippines, France and other countries share a common language in dance that "America's Best Dance Crew" translates well.

-- Jevon Phillips

Comments

[cook]

finally someone puts this into light. People here in the states often assume that the US is the greatest "dance" nation. I'm tired of all these teenage girls who don't dance, talk about how their favorite crew in abdc is automatically the "best in the world" There are so many of these ignorant boppers out there that watch abdc, think they're hella cool, and think just cause jabbawockeez or supercrew won some tv show that they're automatically #1 in everything. It starts a wave of choreo-posers floodin the web.

1. American crews have a long way to go to achieve the same skill in popping, breakin, choreographing, locking, and pretty much every single type of dance as countries like korea.
2. These abdc crews focus on choreo choreo choreo, never do you see improv, freestyling, musicality. What separates the crews in korea isn't just their ability to choreograph amazing routines using bboyin, poppin and other elements of hip hop, but their ability to BATTLE. I would kill to see ANY crew from abdc try and battle my homies in S.K. thats what separates boty from these shitty tv shoes.
3. Half the ideas/choreo from abdc are bitten off of other groups from the world. quest did it, supercrew did it, jabbawockeez did it. yeah, biters will be eaten is a pretty hypocritical slogan for the jabbawockeez.

I wouldn't dislike the show as much if it wasn't for the fans. thats what gets on my nerves. Most of the fans are not dancers, and the few that are are often very low level choreography students posing and thinking because they know a few moves, they know EVERYTHING about dancing. They squabble about how superior their crews, and the crews from abdc are. They never take the time to look into other aspects of hip hop, especially from the bboy scene. They totally disregard legit bboys and idolize the few "breakers" on abdc. it disgusts me

In the end, I dare MTV, a tv station that turns teens into tools and robots to make a international competition and just SEE what happens. MTV ruined the dance scene in the states for me. and the true hardcore bboys know how it really is. peace