World of Dance Season 2! WEEK 4 Live Blog!!

Heidi’s currently eating gumbo in New Orleans, so you guys get me (Court) tonight.  Bear with me as I blog, I’m used to being able to move a bit slow and just focus on the music on first viewing – so I might be a bit behind the live broadcast.  And I reserve the right to change my mind upon a 2nd viewing of these acts – there’s already been acts that I wasn’t wild about at first, but warmed up to later (Desi Hoppers) and acts I like initially but didn’t stand up to the test of time (Hilty & Bosch).

Pre-show thoughts: I’m excited to see Jonas & Ruby, who are apparently in this qualifier.  In a lot of ways, I think Ruby’s star shines a bit brighter than big brother D’Angelo’s anymore – sometimes, I think being a younger sibling that lives in the shadow of a popular older sibling can motivate kids to really push hard. I’m less enthused that Eva Igo is back – aside from my aforementioned disdain for flaily contemporary, I’m going to be pretty bored if she makes the finals again, unless she’s really taken this past year as an opportunity to grow and expand her repertoire.

First up is Jonas & Ruby.  Yasssssss 🙂

Jonas looks so much like my ex. And his name is nearly identical.

My god Ruby is such a little firecracker.   And Jonas has really come into his own.  Both of them have GREAT feet.

I kinda see what Derek is talking about with the costumes – especially the cloth on Ruby’s costume.  Kept waiting for Jonas to rip & off and do something big with it and…nothing. Chekov’s gun of dancing – don’t show me an extraneous skirt at the beginning of the dance if you aren’t going to use it by the end.

They get 85, 87, & 82 (Ne-Yo, J-Lo, Derek) for an average of 84.7 and we’ll see them in the duels.  Derek of course mentions “a ballroom couple we had last year that came out strong in the qualifier but kinda fell flat in the duels” and of course he’s referring to D’Angelo & Amanda, which Ruby points out.  Luckily, at this point, I think she’s so used to being compared to him that she shakes it off and promises to come back stronger. And I think they likely will fare better than her brother & Amanda 😉

Next up is Bradas – a hip-hop crew from New Zealand. “Brada” is kiwi slang for “brother”.  Hopefully they’re more organized than the crew from last week from the Netherlands…Ragged?

Holy crap these guys are good – so many moving parts to this routine.  They’re flipping, they’re sliding, and they’ve got this cool bank robber narrative going. They were everything that crew from last week wanted to be, but fell short on. Contender alert!

They get 85, 92, 86 for average of 87.7 and they’re headed to the duels.  I could see them getting pitted against The Ruggeds (they’ll probably spin it as an international battle) and just SLAYING.

Now we’ve got Lucas Marinetto, who is a 14-year-old tap dancer from New Orleans. (I think…I don’t know how Heidi does this, so many details to remember!) Lucas’ dad apparently didn’t always approve off his dancing, which created a rift between them that looks like it only recently healed.  Awwww.

Errr, oops – he’s from Leesburg, VA.  My bad. And he’s incredibly charismatic and dancing his ass off.  Great musicality.  He might be a bit better than Kyle from last season, even.

J-Lo is right – he really is a showman.  Poor kid seems so reserved & shy when he’s just talking, but he comes ALIVE onstage.

He gets 82, 84, & 82, for an average of 82.7.  Ne-Yo says “You’re going to the duels, you know what a duel is, right? SOMEBODY IS TRYING TO TAKE YOUR MONEY!” Lucas: “So just like school, then.” I like this kid 😉

Next up is contemporary group Expressenz from my hometown of Indianapolis. They train with weights on their legs.  HARD CORE.

Those were quite possibly the most synchronized turning sections I’ve ever seen.  It was like watching 8 clones dancing, that in-sync.

I can see what Ne-Yo & Derek are saying – the routine did feel a bit “studio recital-y”, but I agree with J-Lo that there is still room for those feel-good, pretty dances in this competition.

84, 90, 87 – they’re headed through.  I hope their choreographer can pull out something edgy – I have a gut feeling we’ll see them pitted against the Fabulous Sisters.

Now we’ve got Poreotics, who won ABDC several years ago.  And some of them stop dancing and got “real jobs”, but saw Jabbawockeez dancing last season so they decided to get the band back together again to try out.

They are doing their usual robotics, and it’s humorous and very animated – then they threw in a vogueing and waacking section and I fell in love.

Derek & Ne-Yo are kinda going in a bit hard on them –  I actually found the whole thing was pretty inventive and detailed, but Derek & Ne-Yo seemed a tad bored by it.  Luckily J-Lo is on my side with this one and loved it.

87, 90, 87 – Derek & Ne-Yo kind of sharing a brain tonight. I could see Poreotics ending up in a 3-way duel with Elektro Botz & Dragon House (another group of animators that we haven’t seen yet).

I see that they’ve saved Eva Igo for last…*sigh* *shaking head*

She’s wearing a shredded dress perfect for angsty contemporary, and doing a bunch of flexibility tricks backstage.  I’m not optimistic.

She’s flipping.  She’s pulling her leg over her head.  She’s flailing.  There she goes pulling her leg up again.  Angsty face.  Angsty face. Another acrobatic trick. Sorry….really not feeling this.  It’s nothing new or different.

But the judges are gushing and I have a feeling we may see the first perfect 100 average of WOD.  God I hope they aren’t setting this up to be “Eva’s season”.

96, 95, 94 – average of 95.  She isn’t able to best Karen y Ricardo’s score, but it’s close. Ugh.

Oh boy – they’re billing next week as “a very special episode”.  Dare I ask…?