World of Dance, By the Numbers – Week 7

Before we get started on the Cuts, let me point out to the still whining Jabbawockeez fans that the ratings didn’t crater in the least as you were predicting. They’re holding pretty steady and are, in fact, damn good ratings for a summer show. Guess you all don’t have the impact that you thought. I should point out that many of you whining on twitter whined about it so far after the fact that it was clear you didn’t watch the show as it aired or even within the following 24-48 hours. Why does this matter? Well, it means YOU DON’T COUNT in the ratings, dearies. If you can’t be bothered to watch the show for your favorite as it airs or shortly thereafter, you are not a significant part of the audience because you don’t impact the ratings. Sorry. 🙂

Anyway, welcome to the Cuts. The first week that the judges actually got it wrong at least once. It was bound to happen. We lost my beloved Lab and we have TWO contemporary dancers at the top of the junior division. This is a crime, IMO. Eva is great…so is Diana…but man. Come on. Eva at least changed up her routine. But young girls doing contemporary doesn’t move me. It doesn’t excite me. And RARELY is it compelling anymore – they all tend toward the same ticks and moves.

Diana is the first out of the gate of the Junior Division and does a perfectly nice dance, but it feels like I’ve seen it before – and her score (92) is ridiculously high and is the kiss of death.  I think it was Courtney (and others) who said that maybe the other divisions are too heavy in Hip Hop and I say that’s probably what they were trying to avoid….but I say so what if it is heavy in hip hop?? The Lab are amazing. Part of me wonders if the judges are just too susceptible to the youngsters being all heart wrenching.

I skip ahead. With Diana at the top of the leaderboard, next up is Immabeast – Immabeast we hardly knew ye!  Looks like a cute routine but we don’t get to see much of it. This remains my biggest complaint with this show – it needs to stop cutting all the dances. Either don’t show them at all or make the show longer.  Immabeast seems pretty fierce but maybe not as hard hitting as other similar acts. That little girl gives great face though. 🙂

The M Sisters – I hope they don’t mind me shortening their name, I just don’t think I can type it every single time they appear. Although that won’t matter too much after tonight.  I certainly wish if I couldn’t have the Lab that the M Sisters would have made it instead of Diana – they at least understand that Contemporary doesn’t have to equal ANGST. Derek gets it, and if he had scored them too much lower than the 88 he gave them, they might not have made it to this point. Not that it matters for long.  An 85.5 is a decent score and is much closer to what Diana should have, IMO.

The Lab comes out and just slays it.  I do question if that one move was really JLo’s idea – not sure why I got that feeling other than the Lab picked it up SO quickly. But they kill it – and get massively underscored by JLo and Misty while Ne-Yo and Derek are much more appreciative. This sort of plays into my theory about contemporary dance and women preferring it to the harder hitting stuff. More on that later.  I didn’t see any mistakes in this routine, and no good reason for it to be a full 6 points below what Diana managed – but Diana was massively overscored. Another little girl who gives me LIFE! 😉

And the last competitor in the Junior Division is Eva Igo. Eva seems much more genuine that Diana does and for that reason, I hope she comes out on top with the two girls go head to head.  Nothing against Diana – I don’t think that most girls her age are that connected to their emotions that they can make the dance emotional. I do think Eva did it on re-watching, but Diana didn’t move me. Eva did – before she danced and after she danced. Not quite sure she got there during the dance, but I enjoyed it. Love the cape.  Still love her edge. All in all, I was entertained.

Let’s take a look at the scores for the Junior Division:

I find it moderately interesting that Derek and Ne-Yo score The Lab a good bit higher than either Misty or Jennifer do. We didn’t get to see how they scored the other non-contemporary routine, but I wonder if the men have a greater appreciation for that style than the women do. I would say that the genders do feel differently at times, but Derek is one of the higher scores for Eva (along with Misty) and he’s the high score for the M Sisters. I think Derek, who has done all styles in this division to one extent or another, is the person on the panel who knows how hard each style is. Plus, with four sisters, he’s very in touch with his feminine side. 🙂

Misty was the high scorer for both Diana and Eva, but we can’t blame her for the elimination of the Lab. I think we can blame all the judges for over scoring Diana, which contributed to them being eliminated. Except maybe Derek, who only gave the Lab two points less than Diana while all of the other judges had a much bigger spread. I don’t think I’ll ever get that.  Misty and Jennifer were overly kind to Diana, while giving The Lab quite paltry scores. Which makes me wonder at the difference between the genders when it comes to Hip Hop versus contemporary. We’ll never know, I don’t think, because there aren’t any other true contemporary acts in the other divisions.

Anyway, it’s on to the Team division mentored by Ne-Yo. I guess I understand this, since the Upper Division has two ballroom adjacent acts which is Derek’s main wheelhouse.

Swing Latino is up first – am I the only one that found it odd that the first “difference” they mention for this dance is the lack of sparkles?? They have a whole story line this time and that’s what they say…or should I say, that’s what the editors chose to show. Was this because Derek then mentions it?? I find the focus on that odd in any case.  But the dance was fantastic – I feel like this was their best routine I’ve seen from them. It was cleaner, it was cohesive, and they didn’t have so many things going on that I didn’t know where to look. And I loved the storyline. Totally agree with Misty about the two pictures at the very beginning of the dance.

They end up with tied for the highest score of the night with a 92.5. I find this to be positive and concerning at the same time.  It does make me wonder, again, how much the judges are keeping the composition of the finals in mind when scoring the various acts. Like, do they not want BOTH Kinjaz and SuperCr3w as the last two standing of the division? WHY would they be concerned with that, when they have two VERY similar contemporary girls in the Junior Division? I would say it’s because the Upper Division is Hip Hop heavy…but it’s really not. There are two Ballroom acts in there, Keone and Mari are very different and not really typical hip hop, and that leaves Fik-Shun and Les Twins. I can’t see a reason for leveling the acts…and for that reason I tend to think that’s not what’s happening. :::shrug:::

Next up – Super Cr3w. Personally, I think they killed it but it seems that it didn’t work for most of the judges, much like they didn’t much care for Jabbawockeez going outside their norm. This is an understandable and natural reaction that people have when they see one thing when they were expecting something else – this is why it’s called a “risk” to go outside your box. It’s the nature of the beast. It’s kinda like Sweet Potatoes for me – I bite into one with the thought “potato” in my head and I am surprised by the sweet part. I’m not a fan of sweet potatoes.  It’s not that they (or Jabbawockeez or SuperCr3w) are “bad” – just not what you’re expecting so there is a level of disappointment.  But since I don’t have a long history with SuperCr3w, I didn’t have preconceptions – and I, like Derek, loved this routine. I understand his confusion.

Question…why did Misty use air quotes when saying “male dancer”? That’s a pretty big mis-use of air quotes. They ARE male dancers, girlfriend. Her comments, along with that makes me wonder if they were judging this routine as a contemporary dance (that she and Jennifer are so fond of) and found it lacking for that reason.  I guess we’ll never know. Note that Derek gave this crew the highest score he’s handed out thus far in the competition. A 95 – that’s pretty high. Will be curious to see where this goes next.

And we have to wait for next week to see who goes through, but here’s where we stand when the show ends:

I suspect it will be Swing Latino and The Kinjaz. Although Ian Eastwood might have a few tricks up his sleeve. We can hope. 🙂