WoD Week 6 Recap and VOTE – Who Should Win the Junior Division?? (Poll)

I think there is a fairly clear winner of this Division so far. Let’s refresh our memories and we’ll see if I hold to my same opinion as we rewatch the dancers who made it through to the Cut. First, here our the duel winners for this division:

Kayla Mak was our redemption winner. Very good dancer, but too close to Lauren Yakima (who got a 96!!) to likely survive much longer. But I think she was the rightful redemption winner as much as I love me some tap.

Yeah, there’s no way that Kayla wasn’t going to win this particular match up. I did love House of Tap’s first number of the night, though. After Kayla, Moving Forward is the low scorer of those moving forward to the next round.

I really loved these guys. What they’re going to have to do is clean up their sync some. That’s the advantage that Kayla and Lauren have – they don’t have to worry about being in sync with anyone else. But this is also what makes a group like Moving Forward so visually appealing. Loved it.

Next up is a tie between Ellie & Ava and Funkenometry with 91.7 – not that this score matters any longer. First, Ellie & Eva:

They are obviously excellent dancers. But I find them falling into the same stuff that other contemporary dancers do – the emotion seems forced or put on to me. I appreciate much more a group like Moving 4ward who don’t try to force it and let the dancing speak. I’ve seen too many dancers actually crying when a routine is over to buy the faux emotion in your average contemporary routine.

I can’t actually find Funkenometry’s duel! What’s up with that?? So we’ll move on to Julian and Charlize…

I actually thought these two needed to tighten up when they first got started. Charlize seemed to be lagging a bit behind Julian. But by 1/3 of the way in, they were on fire. I think the burns gave them life – and those were some pretty funny burns, I must say. 🙂

And that brings us to Lauren Yakima. If you’ve been reading this blog for a while, you know I’m not a big contemporary fan. It has to be REALLY well done. Like Travis Wall (or Derek Hough) or Allison Holker well done. Or Lauren Yakima well done. 🙂

Why do I like Lauren?? Well, she doesn’t seem to default to weepy emotion. She’s strong, confident and tough…or at least, that’s how she dances. She just kills this routine…and she may just kill the whole competition. 🙂 I keep thinking Game of Thrones when I watch her dance. 🙂 P.S. JLo is full of CRAP. She is one of the reasons that contemporary seems fake weepy 90% of the time. There is NO reason why Lauren’s way can’t be THE way.

So, Lauren is my winner…who is yours??