NY ABDC Audition highlight: Rhythmology choreography callback

At the America's Best Dance Crew Season 4 auditions, several of the crews were invited to a callback where they had to incorporate a choreography routine using their own style, then show their freestyling.We were able to watch the callbacks during the NY auditions on June 14, 2009. IMPORTANT: this site has no inside information or influence on the choices made by MTV or the ABDC judges. We just post what we like.

For your enjoyment: the choreography callback performance by Rhythmology. This was one instance where I enjoyed the callback even more than their audition. Their approach to the challenge was very different than most in their pairing, freestyles, and transitions. It's not as polished as their audition (how could it be, given the time constraint of learning the steps and assembling it in an hour?), but shows a willingness to take some risks and have some fun.

Video: Music Box 3 with Beat Freak Rino & Maryss, plus the Harajuku Girls

Here's a cute number from LovablehugableGuy's Youtube channel: Rino Nakasone of the Beat Freaks choreographed the Music Box 3 event. She and fellow Beat Freaks also perform as dolls and clowns.

Video: JabbaWockeeZ backstage on tour

For those of you who fantasize about the glamorous life of famous dancers on tour, here's a cold shower: JabbaWockeeZ backstage and at their tour bus, courtesy of KeepItMovement's Youtube channel.

Is this the right list for survey on Best ABDC performances of all time?

On Tuesday, July 21 I'm going to post a survey on the best crew performances for the first three seasons of America's Best Dance Crew. I am going to ask readers to pick ONLY ONE performance per crew (example: even if you love Quest I only want you to vote for one of their performances) with 10 choices total per person.

Based on results so far from the earlier post, here's a list of readers favorites. I've included every crew that received a nomination in that post's comments section. But because of survey size limitations, I need to keep the nominations down to the best/most popular 3-4 performances per crew, and am excluding multi-crew performances like Quest/Beat Freaks' 'Beggin'. Please let me know by Sunday July 19 if you think I'm really missing something here. NOTE: If you propose that I add something for a crew that already has 3-4 performances listed, then PLEASE also tell me which of their dances to take OFF the list! Thanks.

• ASIID: Dangerous; Whatever you Like
• Beat Freaks: Freeze; Hot N Cold; Womanizer
• Boogie Bots: Game Over
• Break Sk8: Beat It
• Dynamic Edition: My Humps
• Distorted X: Live Edition
• Fanny Pak: Get Ur Freak On; Touch my Body; When I Grow Up
• Fly Khicks: Pon de Replay
• Fysh N Chicks: Billie Jean; Freakum Dress
• ICONic: One Night (audition)
• JabbaWockeeZ: Apologize; Evolution of Dance: PYT; Red Pill
• Kaba Modern: History of Hip Hop; Sexual Seduction; Technologic; Thriller
• Live in Color: Bombs over Baghdad; Watch them Roll
• Phresh Select: Big Things Poppin'
• Quest: Hero; Hip hop decathlon; OrQuestra; Toxic
• Ringmasters: Macarena; Welcome Back
• SoReal Cru: A Milli, One Minute Man; Snake
• Status Quo: (Crank that) Soulja Boy
• Strikers: Gimme More; Move (if you wanna)
• Super Cr3w: Get Up offa that Thing; Last Word; We Fly High
• Supreme Soul: Audition; Party Like a Rock Star; Church
• Team Millennia: Live audition; Me against the Music
• Xtreme Dance Force: Earthquake

Video: Michael Jackson tribute class with Team Millennia's Jeff Viray

Short and bittersweet: part of a dance class tribute to Michael Jackson, taught by Team Millennia member Jeff Viray, from Jeff's Youtube Channel.

Upcoming Events: week of July 16

• July 17-19: Monsters of Hip Hop featuring Beat Freaks and Nappytabs (Napoleon and Tabitha D'umo, choreographers for America's Best Dance Crew) in Orlando, FL
  
• July 17: JabbaWockeeZ Meet and Greet at the Bank in Dallas, TX
  
• July 18: Quest and Kaba Modern at the Kababayan Fest at Knotts Berry Farm in Buena Park, CA
• July 18: Super Cr3w at Battle Swagger at Shiekh on Florin in Sacramento, CA.
• July 20-24: Eddie "Stylez" Gutierrez of JabbawockeeZ teaching at Summer Intensive Workshops for On The Edge Dance Studio in San Diego, CA
  

ABDC4 airdates and taping schedule

To help out many readers planning trips to LA, setting their social calendars and programming their TiVos, MTV provided the following schedule of airdates and tapings for America's Best Dance Crew Season 4. The schedule is subject to possible but unforeseen changes. UPDATE: an astute reader points out that the MTV's VMA awards will be air in ABDC's timeslot on September 13. There's no official word yet on how the ABDC schedule will shift for that week (or afterward).

Airdates:

• Sunday August 2: Clip show of the best performances from ABDC Seasons 1-3
• Sunday August 9: 90 minute premiere. The show will then appear on Sunday nights for 8 weeks with 60 minute episodes, with a live finale on Sunday September 27

Taping dates. All tickets and details will be available through 1iota.com:

• Tuesday August 4: taping of premiere episode
  
• Thursdays from August 13 through September 17: taping of episodes 2-7
  
• Sunday September 27: Live finale
  

Video: SoReal Cru's Andrew Baterina interprets "Successful"

SoReal Cru TV presents a mesmerizing video: Andrew Baterina interpreting "Successful" by Drake. The end of the video has a preview of future SoReal dance videos. More crew news: Soreal Cru will be competing in Las Vegas for Hip Hop Internationals, and have a studio opening up very soon in Houston, TX.

Lil Mama's house - featured on MTV Cribs

If you need proof that the music business has been good for America's Best Dance Crew judge Lil Mama, check out her 4 story Los Angeles apartment. She's featured on the latest MTV Cribs, showing off her JabbaWockeeZ posters, Teen Choice award surfboard, custom art, Fruity Pebbles, and white BMW with black detailing. Click here to watch.
Photocredit: MTV

Interesting crew from the Orlando auditions: Royal Flush

Over the past few weeks, we profiled crews that auditioned for Season 4 of America's Best Dance Crew. In some cases, we've highlighted crews that auditioned in Orlando or Chicago that we didn't personally watch at the auditions but have loyal fans clamoring for us to show their videos. If we love the videos, we'll post them to let our readers make their own decisions.

So, for your consideration: Royal Flush from Atlanta, GA. They made it to the choreography callbacks, but were not ultimately chosen for Season 4. They've got some smooth moves and an engaging style -- hope to see more of them in the future! Here's their performance at the Atlanta Art Institute, which was similar to their audition, from the RoyalFlushCrewAtl Youtube channel. The second video shows their free-style at the same event (starting at 1:15),which would give a sense of what they did at the ABDC Choreography callback.

Fanny Pak in Hawaii -- video with some new performances

Fanny Pak performed in Hawaii on June 20, with some new songs and dances. Thanks to Ryandahawaiian for filming this!

International Mailbox: Pinoy dance competition; Kenya's Best Dance Crew, Pinoy

• The popular cable/satellite Filipino channel GMA Pinoy TV will be hosting a dance crew competition for Pinoy crews in the US and Canada. To compete, dance crews must upload a 2-3 minute video. Deadline is July 18. Click here for all the details.
  
• On July 25, Kenya will hold a competition to name their best dance crew. The winning Dance Crew from Kenya will as well have the honour of representing Kenya at the International Final on September 12th 2009, in Nairobi. Other Winning Teams for the international contest will come from: Cameroon, France, Ghana, Holland, Nigeria, Singapore, Tanzania and USA. The best Street Dancers in the World will walk away with a Prize of US $25,000! Read all about it here.

New Survey: Which crews would YOU pick for ABDC 4?

It's your turn to vote on who YOU would pick to compete on America's Best Dance Crew Season 4. Now that information is coming out about crews (like Knucklehead Zoo, Inside the Box, and L0st Kids) who didn't get chosen for ABDC, here's a place for you to let MTV know what you would like to see in Season 4 (and beyond!) We don't have the full lineups for any of the cities here (either due to lack of info, lack of videos, or our own personal choices), but here's a good sample of the crews that auditioned for Season 4. Sorry if we didn't include your favorite crew on the list! To help you choose, you can watch LA videos here, NY videos here, and Chicago/Orlando videos here.

You can pick as many crews as you want, but please try to keep it to 9 choices total, since MTV will only pick 9 crews. This survey will be open for about a week. NOTE: I had to go back and add in a crew I accidentally omitted. By doing this, all votes cast beforehand were voided out and not counted. So, If you voted before 10am on Tuesday July 14, sorry about that and please vote again! Thanks for the idea and the help, ILogan!

poll by twiigs.com

The L0st Kids audition video! along with some bad news

The L0st Kids audition video is finally available. And believe me, it was worth the wait! However, the bad news. On their Youtube channel, they mention that they've been told that they will not appear in America's Best Dance Crew Season 4. I, for one, am very disappointed. You can be sure we'll keep up with all their other activities and shows.

We need a new field reporter for the ABDC4 tapings!

America's Best Dance Crew Season 4 begins taping in less than a month. Unfortunately, our Season 3 field reporter Salima Koroma is tied up this season and can't attend. So, I am looking for replacements to meet and interview the crews at the tapings in Burbank, CA. If you're interested (or know somebody who is), email me at BloggingBestDanceCrew@gmail.com. Or, leave a comment here and include your email address in the appropriate field. I'll contact you shortly with the job description. The first taping is Tuesday August 4, but most others will be on Thursdays, starting late afternoon.

Also, please let me know if you are going to attend the tapings. Though you can't bring cameras in, I'd love to post your spoiler-free impressions of the evenings.

Your chance to be an extra in Step Up 3D and watch the taping of the finale!

Step Up 3D is shooting their final battle sequence this week in New York. They need audience extras to appear in this final sequence. You get to watch the taping, which includes Adam Sevani, Alyson Stoner, Twitch, Madd Chadd, Legacy, Flipz, Ivan Koumaev, BBoy Cloud, the cast of Step Up 2, Kreative Humor and others perform LIVE for free.

Just email su3worldjam@gmail.com with your name and telephone number now! SPACE IS LIMITED so email now before the list is full. First come first serve. Minimum age: 18.

Thanks to Melissa at SuperC3w.com for the tip!

Survey Results on who you think MTV will pick for ABDC4

We've closed our survey on "Which crews will MTV choose for America's Best Dance Crew Season 4." There were 2,187 votes cast for the crews for which we could show videos. Obviously there were more crews who auditioned, especially in Orlando and Chicago, who weren't included in the survey but still will make the show! Of those crews included in the survey, here's the picks for who you expect to see on ABDC4:

1. Massive Monkees (38%)
2. L0st Kids (28%)
3. Fr3sh (22%)
4. Poreotics (13%)
5. Rhythmology (12%)
6. (tied) Knucklehead Zoo, Marvelous Motion (11%)
7. (tied) Inside the Box, Project D, Rhythm City (9%)

Thanks for your participation in this survey. Tomorrow, I'll post the follow-up survey: "Who do you WANT to appear on ABDC4?" I am VERY curious on how (or whether) it will differ from these results.

Today's the last day for our survey: "Which crews will MTV pick for ABDC Season 4?"

I'm closing the survey for "Which crews will MTV pick for America's Best Dance Crew Season 4" tomorrow morning (around 7am ET). So, if you haven't voted yet, you've got one more day. I'll announce the results tomorrow. Then on Tuesday, I'll post the companion survey -- "Which crews would YOU pick for ABDC 4?". I'll be interested to see how (or if) the two surveys yield different results.

Tickets NOW available to ABDC4 tapings - first taping on Tuesday August 4

1iota.com is the source for free tickets to attend tapings of America's Best Dance Crew Season 4. Though most shows are set to tape on Thursdays for this season, the first show will tape on Tuesday, August 4 at 5pm. Click here to order tickets.

At this point, tickets are only available for the first week. Check back frequently at 1iota.com since they often release tickets for several weeks at a time.

Video: Interview with ABDC Audition Judge Napoleon D'umo

Voting has been heated and heavy in our survey about who readers think that MTV will pick for America's Best Dance Crew Season 4. To help inform any further voting, here's our interview with Napoleon D'umo, ABDC audition judge and choreographer. He also talks about his plans for this season, and about whether it's easier for 'classical' dancers to learn hip hop, or vice versa.