WoD Week 5 Recap and VOTE – Who Got Robbed?? (Junior Team Division Poll)

Another crushing week of duels – with some very feisty duelers!! The Junior Team Division is NO joke. I saw quite a bit of commentary on Twitter about how the teams were behaving toward each other; comments about poor sportsmanship and how that shouldn’t be reinforced in children. I totally get that point, and at first I felt the same way. But that’s what dance duels are about. As long as they are using that behavior in a way to hype themselves up in the moment AND the good sportsmanship comes in after the dancing is done, then I think I can let it slide. And it certainly seems, from watching the BTS clips, that they do congratulate each other backstage and there is none of that behavior when the dancing is done and the battle is over. Agree?? Or do you still think it was too much??

So, did you agree with the judges or did someone get seriously robbed of their rightful spot in The Cut?? Here’s a reminder of the losers (and the Winners):

Since there were only two or three teams who really thrilled me to begin with, I might not be the best person to make this call. 🙂 That’s why I have a poll. Anyway, Battle Droids Crew – the boys from Belgium – were the first ones to be eliminated. Seriously, if you’re going to throw that much shade in your routine, you have to back it up. And I don’t feel like they really did – not as polished as their competition.

Next we have Intention – this one makes me a bit sad. They only lost by a point and it was likely due to Jennifer’s not feeling like the music was a good choice. I disagree. I thought Get Down District was too much like a group of high school cheerleaders, while Intention has beautiful roll ups and more…character? Not sure how to describe why I preferred them. Another side note, in the comments on this video someone pointed out that the trick right at the beginning is shown twice – obvious editing mistake. While the commenter adds a nefarious intention to it, I tend to think it’s an honest mistake. I don’t think WoD needs to work hard to get the audience on this side of the judges – there is no gain to doing that. What is the advantage?? The show is giving away a million dollars and, unlike season 1 where it seemed like Jennifer had something to gain with who won, I don’t see to much of that since then. All of the dancers get great exposure – hell, half the people who lost last season are being employed by Derek. 🙂 It’s not like they need to make the audience like Get Down District more because the editors already know they won the whole thing – I find that to be highly doubtful, based on what we’ve seen so far.

MKAM is our next eliminated group. I appreciate their honesty, but ya gotta be careful looking at someone who’s made it to the duels as someone easily beaten. As they found out the hard way. In any case, I really liked this dance a lot more the second time around. Were they robbed?? Eh, no, I don’t think so. They chose Electro Crew, and they only lost by 0.3 – very, very close. That’s the way it goes sometimes.

In the final duel of the night, Dancetown Divas face off against JDC…and lose?? Madness. It’s colossal duels like this one that make me wonder of the judges know they want both teams to go through and they only way they can try to make that happen is to score both teams high. But here’s my big gripe – I personally thought that Dancetown Divas were easily the better squad. By a lot. But if you make Jennifer cry tears with your contemporary routine you’re a shoe in, even if the competition is technically more difficult and superior (the audience gets sucked in by this a lot as well). This has been my gripe with contemporary dancers for a long time now, not just JDC – they work really hard to tug at the heartstrings and less is shown in the choreography and the technique…especially when compared to latin/ballroom. Add in that a world champion, trained ballroom dancer is one of the judges and the latin/ballroom folks just have a tougher roe to hoe. Derek is slightly harder on those folks and they tend to have amazing technique with out working hard to make you weep. Luckily, Dancetown Divas easily won the redemption round, so they get to stick around. 🙂 I’ll show their video tomorrow in the “who should win” the division post. 🙂

ETA: Ooops…completely left out West Springfield Dance Crew getting beaten by the Crazy 8’s. While I’m sad for them, I did think the Crazy 8’s were the better team. And Clowns ARE scary. 🙂 They did a good job, but the Crazy 8’s (the tiny little nuggets) did pick someone they were pretty sure they could beat. I suspect that they have more time to devote to dancing than a high school team does – and it shows. I did like this routine though.

So, who got robbed?? You only get one choice, so pick wisely or tell me in the comments if they all were. I did add a No One to the poll this time, Linz. 😉