World of Dance Season 2! WEEK 12 Live Blog!! THE CUTS!!

You may or may not have notices our absence last week – I was on Bourbon Street in New Orleans and my cohorts didn’t get my message to cover for me until it was too late!! Anyway, I’m back in my house with a glass of wine and I’m ready to see who makes the cut! According to Derek’s insta story, we’re going to see his sister Julianne tonight as well!! As a redhead! She’s since gone back to blonde, as I recall.

Just a few more minutes!!

Okay here we go…

30 remaining acts are fighting for three spots in each division. Eeep!!

Each judge and Jenna are mentoring. We have Savion Glover for Jennifer and Julianne Hough with Derek.

Two divisions tonight…and they are Junior teams with Jennifer and Savion and Derek with….

Up first is Flip. There are 7 dancers in each division fighting for three spots. Each dance is 90 seconds, per Jennifer.

Red gloves are a very good, effective touch. Derek is grooving, Ne-Yo is loving it. This group is pretty stellar. Very clean. Like it or not, everyone in the same outfit with those red gloves is very effective. Excellent routine!!

Derek is pointing out everything I just did. 🙂 Ne-Yo loves the energy. Jennifer says they’ve come up 100% since she saw it.

Scores: 87, 88, 90 (in order) for an average of 88.3 – seems too low to me. We’ll see. I don’t remember them from the earlier rounds. If we didn’t see them or if they were edited, it doesn’t bode well for them.

Based on the preview, Derek is mentoring the Upper division. I wonder if the fact that JLo is mentoring junior teams is indicative of who’s going to win the whole thing. We’ll revisit that in a few weeks, I’m sure. 🙂

Expressionz are up next…these girls I remember. Read more..

August 22, 2018 I Written By

I'm a nerd and proud of it. Two degrees in geology also means I love BEER. :-) I'm also a Derek lover - proud of that too. So don't scream at those of us on this site and call us a bunch of "biased Derek-lovers" - it's just ME. :-) It may sound like I hate DWTS at times, but really, I'm just a snarky nitpicker from way back. And I'm cynical and jaded too. But I do love DWTS. :-)

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?

June 20, 2018 I Written By

Medical device sales by day, reality TV blogger by night. Makeup artist, baker, hair model, and wannabe DIY-er when time permits, and a potty-mouth 24/7. Read more of me at puredwts.com, and follow me on Twitter & Instagram: @putuincespence

Pure World of Dance Season 2, Week 4 (Qualifiers) – Music from Tonight’s Show

Here it is – the music from tonight’s episode, in chronological order. I’ve included a description of when in the episode it played in parentheses.

“Born Ready” by Zayde Wolf (intro)
“The Middle” by Maren Morris (judges intro)
“The Devil You Know” by X Ambassadors (Jonas & Ruby intro)
“Legend” by The Score (Jonas & Ruby performance)
“Brand New” by Ben Rector (Jonas & Ruby scores)
“Roots” by Imagine Dragons (The Bradas intro)
“I Mean It (Remix)” by G-Eazy feat. Rick Ross & Remo (The Bradas performance)
“Can’t Hold Us” by Macklemore & Ryan Lewis feat. Ray Dalton (The Bradas scores)
“Believer” by American Authors (Lucas Marinetto intro)
“Stand In The Light” by Jordan Smith (Lucas Marinetto intro)
“Levels (Alex Ghenea Extended Remix)” by Nick Jonas (Lucas Marinetto performance)
“Hold Back The River” by James Bay (Lucas Marinetto scores)
“Something In The Water” by Carrie Underwood (Expressenz performance & scores)
“Where Are Ãœ Now” by Skrillex & Diplo with Justin Bieber (Poreotics intro)
“Trndsttr (Lucian Remix)” by Black Coast feat. M. Maggie (Poreotics performance)
“Five More Hours” by Chris Brown & Deorro (Poreotics scores)
“Burn” by Ellie Goulding (Eva Igo intro)
“I Ran (So Far Away; Epic Trailer Version)” by Hidden Citizens (Eva Igo performance)
“Stargazing” by Kygo feat. Justin Jesso (Eva Igo scores)

June 19, 2018 I Written By

Medical device sales by day, reality TV blogger by night. Makeup artist, baker, hair model, and wannabe DIY-er when time permits, and a potty-mouth 24/7. Read more of me at puredwts.com, and follow me on Twitter & Instagram: @putuincespence

‘World Of Dance’ Season 2, Week Four Qualifiers – The Performance Videos

If you missed episode four of World Of Dance, here are the performances that qualified. Eva Igo was my fave of the night! I just love her expressions and how we can feel her heart and soul in every move.

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Just a music and dancing fan here ....and a lover of life, nature, animals, and spending as much time as possible camping all over in our travel trailer. Favorite Quote at the moment: "Sing like no one is listening. Love like you've never been hurt. Dance like nobody's watching, and live like it's heaven on earth." ~ William Purkey. Follow me at: Voguerista Twitter & Voguerista Soundcloud. To view my photography site, see Lisa Kay Photography.

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…?

I Written By

Medical device sales by day, reality TV blogger by night. Makeup artist, baker, hair model, and wannabe DIY-er when time permits, and a potty-mouth 24/7. Read more of me at puredwts.com, and follow me on Twitter & Instagram: @putuincespence