mamabugj

Agree. That pisses the kidbug (my in-house hip hop expert) off to no end too. It's okay to have parts where you are doing different choreography, but the times they were doing the same movements they looked like two soloists dancing together not a duo.

How would you know? We didn't even get to see one group at all the entire competition. Of the two things I dislike about this show, that is one. It is incredibly disrespectful to both the teams and the audience to have semi-professional to professional dancers on and NOT SHOW THEIR WORK. The other thing I hate is the judges. Except in one case, their scores are too close together for me not to call producer shenanigans. I like it better in competitions where the judges/producers can try to influence the vote but the final say is with the audience. Maybe they could let the audience judge performance by a thumbs up/thumbs down method next time so they have some say.

Kinda don't respect Les Twins for picking the most obvious softball in the deck. They still brought a good routine, though - unlike some groups *cough* Jabberwockeez *cough* who felt like they were coasting through the qualifiers. Overall, didn't disagree with who won. I liked Royal Flux better than SuperCr3w but in the end it came down to a matter of personal taste so can see why the latter won (with two more urban-dance-style judges on the panel which is kind of nice for a change since I'm used to judges who are all about the ballet). As for the Posse vs. Diana - honestly didn't care who won that. Currently my vote for Junior champ is The Lab - especially the little sweetheart who looks like she will knife you if you get in her way.

I thought we were being a bit unfair to competition dancers blaming Nick's routine on that but if he picked or modified his own choreo I can see how the competition background and inexperience caused him to make bad choices. By senior level, if you are at a competition with good judges, I would expect the non-stop 'flexibility and tricks' routines you see with the minis to die off when it comes to those in the winner's circle. I just associate it with a very juvenile aesthetic and more of a way of masking that you can't really dance. OTOH - given who the judges are here, showy could have been the way to go had he not been up against Fik-shun

I guess I'm in the minority here because I enjoyed the 'duels' format a hell of a lot more than the hot mess that was the qualifiers. I think it has promise as a competitive premise for one thing - makes the scores of the qualifiers actually mean something which they should have better communicated last time. I also like the behind-the-scenes peek at the strategies each side was pursuing to beat their competitor and some of the judges commentary during that segment had relevance to dance. Agreed with all the winners besides the team since I disliked both. The swing number was ok, but not something I even remember. The other team was just so frantic I couldn't process it. Fikshun v. Nick - Nick blew it, hands down. Flexibility is great but contemporary is about communicating emotion and a story along with the technique and there was none of that. In this case, a hip hop soloist has an advantage because that genre IS more about tricks, showy moves, and entertaining. Kyntay vs. Eva - I must have sat through waaaaay too many junior solo routines because neither the costume nor dance caused me to raise an eyebrow. Here, I guessed the outcome but not from 'fixing' - a good jazz/contemp solo is almost always going to beat out an equally good hip hop duo. As the otherwise useless 'host' said - soloists can show off their abilities without having to worry about synchronizing which always brings the score down. Every competition I've been at, 9 times out of 10 the highest scoring routine in a category (including duos, trios, and groups) is a solo. A few too many 'look how flexible' I am moves for my tastes, but unlike Nick she danced through them and channeled emotion suited to the song without it coming across as fake. Overall, though, I still think kid dancers lack the maturity physically and emotionally to compete against adults. Keonie and Marie vs. QuickStyle - I was afraid QS would win. I liked them, but for me dance is all about the emotion being conveyed. Since it is such a physical energy, it can be really difficult to convey that emotion through a TV screen (especially when the camera angles are wonky and they keep breaking to the judges reaction) but K&M got me. I could barely watch QS because my heart was still pitter-pattering from the strength of their connection with each other. Really hope they do well as they move against the more popular acts.

Thanks for the full list. It says something about my dance-watching habits that I recognize almost all the adult hip hop acts.

If this show survives to a second season - they should just skip whatever these qualifiers are supposed to be and go straight to head-to-head. That idea is actually an interesting one and would be more interesting than a 'qualifier' where only 1 of 7 was axed. Let's face it - all of these acts have already made it in dance world terms because they (except maybe for the kids) have jobs which pay the bills! That's why they had to offer a million as the prize to get them to compete in the first place. Kinjaz - I've seen better from them but whoever is arranging the eventual Kinjaz vs. Jaberwokeez dance-off read my Christmas list. Contemporary girl - not bad, but words can not express just how much I hate the 'look how flexible I am' combined with 'contemporary = flailing and crying' choreo. It is all the worst of 'junior girl competitive solo' in one package. Most eleven year olds just don't have the maturity yet to convey serious emotion and it comes across as faking. Married couple - they were my only real surprise and the connection they have with each other gave me warm fuzzies Les Twins - I knew they'd really have to screw up not to make it in from teh start, but I liked their routine.

I have the feeling this is going to devolve into the typical Hollywood wet-dream of what having a far-left presidency without the pesky details of having to actually convince people of different ideologies that your plans are good ones would be like. Maybe with a bit of 'intrigue' on the side that will probably turn out to be a conspiracy of evil 1%'ers. I would LOVE for this to instead turn into the story of a mild-mannered idealist who, through making one 'necessary' hard choice after another, ends up a dictator. Come on networks - this is the age of Breaking Bad and House of Cards. Give us a good-guy-turned-bad for a change!

I have no problem watching preteens dance. I end up spending six or more weekends a year doing that. I also know there are some really phenomenal 8-13 year old dancers out there - you could probably cast the show just from kids at my son's studio. But... I also see the 14-16 year olds and the 17-18 year olds dance and they blow those kids out of the water with both their technique and performance. All because they are basically the same kids only with an additional 3-5 years experience and more maturity and muscular-skeletal development. And the adult dancers who went on to have careers are even better. That right there is my problem with the show. No matter how good the kids might be, I think in the end the show is just going to go down the 'aww, how cute' path because they won't have the maturity as dancers they need to pull off anything more.