Pure World of Dance, Season 2, Week 4 (Qualifiers) – Court’s Thoughts: The Good, The Bad, & the WTF???
So I know you already heard my thoughts this week in the live blog, but in the interest of consistency (and me rewatching the show and perhaps changing my opinion on an act or two), I thought I would stick with my weekly recap 🙂 I apologize for any redundancy – gonna try and keep this as fresh as I can!
I was thankful that last night was an improvement upon last week’s rather low-energy episode, but if there’s one thing it got me really thinking about, it was this: WE DO NOT NEED TO SEE EVA IGO AGAIN. Yes, she is a great dancer; but she already made it to the division final last season, and ended up as runner-up in the whole thing; I do not think she has grown much as a dancer since last year, and really – are they gonna send Eva home early this year? How will that look? Last season’s runner-up ousted before the finale? Not a good look. But also not a good look? Her winning the whole damn thing, as a consolation for last season. I guess I’m just of the opinion now that, if you made it to the finale on WOD, YOU SHOULDN’T BE ALLOWED TO COME BACK (unless you’re part of a different act in a different division – although I even have some reservations about that, too). If you make it to the live shows on SYTYCD and don’t win, you don’t get to come back again; same rule for AGT – you wanna come back after making the live shows one season? Figure out a way to retool your act, a la Manny Castro and the many ways he managed to get his kids coming back to AGT season after season (Miami All-Stars, The Untouchables, D’Angelo & Amanda, Ruby & Jonas, etc.) Sorry Eva fans – I think I’m gonna have a tough time with her this season.
Sibling Rivalry Has an Upside: Jonas & Ruby. Probably the one act I was really looking forward to seeing, given that I was such a big fan of D’Angelo & Amanda, and I think Ruby has eclipsed her brother in terms of talent. I also think Jonas is a stronger partner to Ruby than Amanda was to D’Angelo (apparently they aren’t even dancing together anymore), and I’m gonna guess that Manny has probably honed in a bit more on the formula for successful choreography on WOD (The Untouchables are also on WOD this season, and apparently D’Angelo is in it – we’ll see if they can make it further than the duels this time). I will say that I wish Manny would tone down the flexibility displays a bit (one bendy leg trick per dance is plenty) and they probably need to pare down their costumes somewhat, but I do think there’s a lot of talent to work with here – Ruby’s a little firecracker, and if I can’t have her as a pro on DWTSJ, I’m fine having her here.
I Dunno What a Brada Is But It’s Good Sh*t: The Bradas. Probably the most impressed I’ve been with a hip-hop crew since S-Rank – just clean, unique, athletic, and with a ton of showmanship. Loved that they had a bit of a storyline to their dance, and kept finding interesting ways to incorporate the bag into it. Not much else to add, other than “Watch out, Ruggeds & Connection!”
There’s Still a Place For Pretty Dances (And Leg Weights) In This Competition: Expressenz. First of all, big ups to the first act from my home state on WOD 🙂 We may not be cranking out champions like Utah, California, or New York, but we still have some talent in the Hoosier state! I’ll admit – this routine was a tad pageant-y/recital-y. The girls’ makeup was flawless, they had those perfectly tailored & bedazzled leotards, flesh-colored tights…the works. And they were dancing to a country song, which I generally find a tad cringe-y. But FWIW, they more than made up for it with their technique – never have I seen turn sequences done in such perfect synchronicity. Even experienced teams usually have their girls a bit staggered on their turns after 1 or 2 – but this group? I can only imagine the precision & focus that got drilled into them to stay completely in sync on those turns. I think they have the potential to be very competitive – IF they can up their choreography to something more edgy and unique. Right now my gut is telling me they’ll end up in a duel with the Fabulous Sisters.
Please Don’t Let This Be Les Twins, Part Deux: Eva Igo. Obviously not in the physical sense (Eva’s a 15-year-old white girl from Minnesota; Les Twins are 20-something men of color from France), but more in the “I hope they haven’t predetermined this to be ‘Eva’s season’ to make up for her being runner-up last year” sense. The thing I disliked most about last season is that that Les Twins appeared to have it in the bag from week 1 – and they basically just slightly tweaked the same routine each week, to rave reviews from the judges. There was never a point where I didn’t think they would win. And while I certainly preferred Eva to Les Twins last season, I’m afraid this season, it just feels like more of the same from Eva (gymnastics, flailing, displays of flexibility) – and the judges are eating it up, and giving me that same sinking feeling I had whenever I saw the judges gushing about Les Twins: that this season’s winner had already been determined. However, I did get a few small glimmers of hope: one, the judges did seem to allude to her “being so good that it might get hard to top what she’s already done” and “the competition being a lot tougher this season”; two, she did only end up with an average score of 95, which has been bested by four other qualifying acts thus far – two of which are in her division (Charity & Andres and Sean & Kaycee). I guess time will tell if this season has been earmarked for her or not…
Maybe 8 Years Doesn’t Age You Like Fine Wine: Poreotics. This was one of the acts that I liked upon first viewing, then kinda went “ok, some of the weaknesses are showing” upon a second viewing. I remember absolutely LOVING the Poreotics that ended up winning ABDC back in 2010 – all of their routines were so sharp, yet humorous and unique. Just so FUN to watch – and while they still are fun, I feel like they’ve maybe lost a little bit of that energy that made them so appealing 8 years ago. Granted, they did mention that some of them had “left the group and gotten ‘real’ jobs” and they only decided to reunite after seeing Jabbawockeez on WOD last season; if it’s anything like other crews that have “gotten the band back together” to do WOD, the result often seems like a shadow of their former success (Miami All-Stars comes to mind – we’ll see if Manny can get The Untouchables further this season). They did have some fun moments that nodded to the stuff that originally made them popular – the card trick, the glasses, the fact that they were amalgamating several different styles (robotics, popping, vogueing, waaking, some b-boying); but there did seem to be some slow sections that made me disengage a bit. Like Pasha & Daniela, they might need to work on giving more content. I’m already predicting a 3-way duel between Poreotics, Elektro Botz, & Dragon House.
Shy Kid By Day, Monster On The Stage: Lucas Marinetto. So we basically have this season’s answer to Kyle Van Newkirk – and I will say that I think he may actually be a bit better than Kyle 🙂 Something about the way this kid goes from somewhat shy and awkward when he’s not onstage, to absolute beast mode when he’s dancing is appealing – you can tell that dancing is where he truly feels like he can be himself, and it’s joyous. I appreciated that he has great musicality – he did not waste a single beat of that music, although I do agree with Derek a little bit that it would have been nice to have a section of him dancing without music so we could really appreciate what he was doing. I just hope they don’t pit this poor, smol bebe up against someone like Eva Igo in the duels, a la Kyle vs. Les Twins last season – that was just painful.
Thoughts?
I think you said it all Courtney about Eva. I wasn’t really rooting for her last season – I’m French and compatriot in me may have biaised me towards the Twins that I’ve followed since 2007. I was really hoping for her to comeback with something totally new and it wasn’t.
Moreover if you compare her technique to the Expressenz girls, she has a few things to work on : her turns are not a clean and it’s a pattern I’ve noticed a lot with contemp soloist, it’s like they fall off their turns and cover it up with angsty movements.
I’m really excited for Ruby and Angela, I was rooting for her on SYT she is phenomenal and I’m happy to discover Jonas. The Bradas had the best choreo of the night for me and Lucas was a nice surprise.
*Ruby and Jonas, I don’t from where Angela came from, sorry.
* I meant Jonas, I don’t even know why I wrote Angela, sorry
While I don’t necessarily agree about people not being allowed to come back, I agree with pretty much everything else.
I will add that WoD still has the benefit of the doubt with me. JLo nearly caused them to lose it last season with her very obvious desire (and doing what it took) for them to win – I think she obviously tilted it to them and it had little to do with anything Derek or Ne-Yo had to say about it. That had Diva written all over it. Ain’t nothing wrong with that – I can be a diva – but own it.
I’m about to say something mildly controversial. Nappytabs is submitted for a Choreo emmy for this show???? What the actual fuck. This? I disagree with. I like Nappytabs just fine, but they need to keep their choreo skills to themselves and executive produce the show. Leave the choreography to the acts. If the acts can’t cut it, then too bad. I’m tired of Nappytabs, quite frankly – they are everywhere. Good for them – but dial it back. This show is very obviously not DWTS – and that is GOOD. Where DWTS has tons of manipulation to get the result that benefits ratings, I don’t feel like this show needs that and I wish they would stay away from doing shit that gives the impression they do. There is no question that these dancers are the best in the world – so LET THEM BE.
Finally, I don’t think Eva is going to win. I will be very disappointed with this show (and they will lose the benefit of the doubt they still have) if she does. She is NOT the best dancer at this point and I don’t even think that’s a subjective view point. Based on some things Derek has said, I don’t think she wins. And honestly, the scoring has been odd to date. I suspect much like DWTS, the order in which the acts were seen (which is NOT the order in which they were shown) dictates how high (or low) they were scored. The tricky part about this show is that *it doesn’t matter*. Once qualifiers are over you have a clean slate to succeed or fail as fate and talent will have it. You are only as good as your dance on a given day. We’ll see how it goes.
For me, Eva is terribly overrated by this judging panel.
She’s a very derivative, obvious dancer. She always hits the high points in the music with a gymnastic leap, jump or leg flung up behind the ear type move.
I also feel absolutely nothing when she dances and I think that is because she dances from her head and not her heart. She thinks staccato big moves and flailing equals organic emotion and release. It doesn’t. It’s a calculated display of flash at the expense of substance and depth.
I do think she has potential, but she needs to dig deep and let the movement derive from truth, sincerity and originality.
@Susan2
I agree with what you said and just want to add the critic Derek gave to Expressenz about the studio recital feels is also to apply to most of the contemp acts we’ve seen on the show. The fact that Ne Yo felt like they were trying to make the audience tear up is really telling to me : I just thought it was great, joyful, contempory dance but Ne You was “expecting” tears like for almost any other contemp dances.
Loved reading your thoughts on the dancers and dances, Courtney.
I was hoping that Eva coming back meant we see something different and better from her. But no. What I am happy about is that there are varied and amazing acts this season that I think it is going to be really tough for Eva to win the season, especially when it appears that she has nothing new to offer. I know there are still many acts to see but for now, I think that Karen y Ricardo are the ones to beat.