Poll: Who do you think SHOULD have won America's Best Dance Crew Season 8? #abdc

Join us now for ABDC Finale Party Room and Critics Corner! #abdc

The Party Room/Critics Corner for ABDC 8's Finale is now open! Join lots of other readers, fans (or not) as they vent on what they love and what they hate. IMPORTANT: If you want to write a long comment, write in in NotePad or Word and then paste it into the comments field. Otherwise, all your work may disappear if someone posts something new while you're in the middle of writing. 

What did you think of the result? Of the season? How would you improve it if ABDC came back for a new season?

Join us NOW for Live Play-by-play blogging of America's Best Dance Crew finale! #abdc

This is live play-by-play for tonight's America's Best Dance Crew Season 8 Finale. Follow along or keep up with the show if you can't watch it immediately. You should be able to sign in on the platform the first time you try to leave a comment. So --turn on your viewing machine and comment along with us.

Poll: What was your favorite performance during ABDC Season 8? #abdc

What do you think was the best dance for this season of America's Best Dance Crew. The poll answer choices are the 1 or 2 that dominated our weekly polls. But which was your favorite -- the best of the best?

Survey Results: Kinjaz' O.G. smashes competition for ABDC semis! #abdc

We do not know how people chose who to vote for to win America's Best Dance Crew, but in our survey, Kinjaz' routine to O.G. was the overwhelming favorite with 53% of the vote (with 513 votes cast). The next favorite was Quest's Shut Up and Dance with 18% of the vote.

The least favorite based on our unpopularity poll was Super Cr3w's Where are You Now, with 35% of the vote.

Join us tonight for ABDC Finale live play-by-play, surveys, party room ++ #abdc

Tonight is Episode 6 of America's Best Dance Crew's Road to the VMAs - the Finals! We find out who wins the $100,000 prize and performs at the VMAs. I think all six of the competing crews will return for the show. The show airs at 10pm ET/PT (check your local listings for other time zones) and will open our live-blogging post about 15 minutes before showtime. We welcome the comments, observations, and clean snark of the community. 

We'll also have a Party Room/Critics Corner post for you to comment on what you've seen, and the information for voting,as well as a few surveys. And, let us know if you feel inspired enough to write a recap in the next days. 

Ninjaboi's review of ABDC's Semi-finals: who he thinks deserves to win! #abdc

Mman what a semifinals for ABDC this season.  Some of the best performances of the Season this episode, and an ABDC first with a three person finale. Let’s not waste anymore time and jump in. 

These views represent my own personal opinion and are not meant to be gospel truth or anything - just a conversation starter for you to think about dance and these performances in a hopefully somewhat objective manner. I really respect all the crews on this show and think they do amazing work. I’m just a guy who likes to try to categorize things by numbers and compare things for the sake of comparing them. 

Who deserves to win, based on this episode or the season?  For this week my rankings (out of 20) are

1) Kinjaz Dojo - 17

2) Super Cr3w Rocking Beats - 16

3+4+5) All Three Crews First Performance - 15

6) Quest Mad Max - 14

Overall across two weeks, the totals (out of 140) are

1) Kinjaz - 17 + 15 + 14 + 16 + 14+ 15 + 15 = 106

2) Super Cr3w - 16 + 15 + 14 + 13 + 14 + 19 + 12 = 103

3) Quest Crew - 15 + 14 + 18 + 14 + 11 + 15 + 14 = 101

4) I.aM.mE - (12*) + (12*) + 13 + 14 + 12 + 12 + 12 = 87

5) Elektrolytes - (12*) + (12*) + (12*) + (12*) + 13+ 13 + 11 = 85

6) We Are Heroes - (9*) + (9*) + (9*) + (9*) + (9*) + 10 + 8 = 63

Click here to read the full review. Thanks Ninjaboi!

Video: Dance lesson for one step from tomorrow's ABDC Finale #abdc

On Mashable, Tabitha D'umo (half of Nappytabs, who are the choreographers for the group routines for America's Best Dance Crew), breaks down one of the steps that will be used on tomorrow's ABDC Finale. My guess is it's one of the easier moves!

Last week for our ABDC Top 5 contest -- and here's the tie-breaker question for all entrants! #abdc

Okay, so the judges' decision was useless in narrowing the field for our America's Best Dance Crew Top 5 contest, so you can enter one more time if you want -- until noon ET on Saturday August 29. Most important -- for all past, present and future contest entrants: leave a comment below saying how many votes you think were cast during the voting period. I will use that as the tie-breaker for the contest. Whoever got the top 5 order right and comes closest is the winner. If you don't give an answer to the tie-breaker question, the prize will go to the person who got the contest right and did answer the question (it pays to pay attention to this site!) If they don't give this statistic on the show, I'll randomly pick a winner.

  The Top 5 contest: Submit the names of the top 5 crews -- in the order that they'll finish. For example, in Season 5 the winning entry would have read " FINAL 5: 1. Poreotix 2. Blueprint Cru 3. Hype 5-0 4. Jungle Boogie 5. Saltare"  The prize goes to the first person to get it right, based on the week they submit the answer. If more than one person submits the right answer in that same week, we'll employ the tiebreaker rule described above.

First recaps of ABDC semi-finals, complete with the best video clips! #abdc

Haven't voted often enough yet? Here are two opinions on America's Best Dance Crew from the media:
- Vulture weighs in for the first time in the season, calling ABDC "the elixir of reality television life." They demonstrate it by describing and linking to performances from each crew: Quest's "Shut Up and Dance", Kinjaz' "O.G" and Super Cr3w's "Block Rockin Beats". So -- arguably the three best performances of the night in one easy location!. Thanks Vulture!
 - Entertainment Weekly disagrees with the judges' choice to keep all 3 crews to the finals, but has kind words for each crew (corresponding exactly to the clips shown by Vulture). 

Survey: What was your favorite dance on ABDC's Semifinals show? #abdc

Survey - What was your least favorite dance on ABDC's Semi-Finals show? #abdc

Vote now for the winner of America's Best Dance Crew -- here 's how! #abdc

The lines for voting are now open. It looks like there is only one way to vote:
---Go to abdcvote.mtv.com.  You can push a button for your favorite. Voting ends at 8am Pacific time (11am ET) on Saturday August 29. 

Support your favorite!

Join us now for ABDC Semi-finals Party Room and Critics Corner! #abdc

The Party Room/Critics Corner for ABDC 8's Episode 5 Semi-Finals Challenge is now open! Join lots of other readers, fans (or not) as they vent on what they love and what they hate. IMPORTANT: If you want to write a long comment, write in in NotePad or Word and then paste it into the comments field. Otherwise, all your work may disappear if someone posts something new while you're in the middle of writing. 

Who should win the season?  What did you think of the judges' decisions tonight? Would you watch another season of ABDC?

Join us NOW for live play-by-play of ABDC's Semi-finals! #abdc #abdc8

This is live play-by-play for tonight's America's Best Dance Crew semifinals. Follow along or keep up with the show if you can't watch it immediately. You should be able to sign in on the platform the first time you try to leave a comment. So --turn on your viewing machine and comment along with us.

Video: Super Cr3w rehearsals for ABDC Semifinals show #abdc

Better late than never -- MTV released the video of Super Cr3w's rehearsal for tonight's show. Their VMA Choice dance will be to a Justin Bieber song and their crew choice dance is to Block Rockin Beats

Poll Results for ABDC Crew Control Challenge: Quest Crew on Top! #abdc

Quest Crew dominated last week's poll for the favorite performance on America's Best Dance Crew's Crew Control Challenge, with 38% calling their dance their favorite, followed by 27% for Kinjaz. The IamQuest Megacrew beat out SuperKinjaz with 12.5%.

In our poll for least favorite performance, Super Cr3w was at the bottom with 37%, followed by I.aM.mE with 26%. Come back tomorrow to give us your views in our polls on tonight's semifinals.

Join us Tonight for ABDC Semi-finals - live play-by-play, polls & VOTING! #abdc

Tonight is Episode 5 of America's Best Dance Crew's Road to the VMAs - the Semifinals! Tonight we'll see Quest Crew, Kinjaz, and Super Cr3w each perform twice, and the tweets suggest that there will be a shocker! Plus, the fans FINALLY get a change to vote! We'll be watching  at 11pm ET/PT, 10pm other timezones and will open our live-blogging post about 15 minutes before showtime. We welcome the comments, observations, and clean snark of the community. 

We'll also have a Party Room/Critics Corner post for you to comment on what you've seen, and the information for voting,as well as a few surveys. And, let us know if you feel inspired enough to write a recap in the next days. And, let us know if you're planning to attend Sunday's live finale!

Video: Quest Crew's rehearsals for ABDC Semifinals - we're here to win! #abdc

MTV interviews Jo Lee and Feng of Quest Crew about their preparation for the America's Best Dance Crew Semifinals episode. He talks about exhaustion and their goal to "affect people" by stepping outside their comfort zone, and how they are now focused on winning the season. Scenes from the rehearsal are interspersed with the interviews

Video: Kinjaz rehearse for ABDC Semi-finals & talk about their 2 routines #abdc

MTV released a video showing snippets of a Kinjaz routine for the America's Best Dance Crew semifinals airing on August 26. Vinh Nguyen also talks about how this week is difficult because they have to prepare two routines, one smooth and one dojo-style. He also talks about his surprise at making it so far on the show.

All about Howard & Karen Schwartz, ABDC Exec Producers! #abdc

Forward runs a delightful profile of Howard and Karen Schwartz, who founded Hip Hop International and are Executive Producers of America's Best Dance Crew. It describes how they met, how they got involved in the world of hiphop dance, and why events like Hip Hop International are so important to the dance community, having "spread the gospel" for over 13 years.  The article also talks about how HHI and ABDC helped rocket the careers of D-trix (Quest Crew) and Parris Goebel (ReQuest Crew).

From the article: “They’re so passionate about every single aspect. What I think they are the most passionate about is giving these kids a platform to show their creativity.” When the couple was getting started, however, not everyone in the hip-hop community welcomed the aerobics producers and their vision.“When we first approached the b-boys to try to get them involved with us and support us, they were very dubious and very concerned,” Howard recalls... “Even to this day,” Howard admits, “the b-boys are still not 100% accepting of what we do.”
 About America's Best Dance Crew:  It took us five years to pitch the show ‘ABDC,’” Howard recalls. Finally getting it on the air was one of the most rewarding experiences of his career."

Photocredit: Karen & Howard Schwartz, Randy Jackson, Toni Basil, from Sthanlee Mirador/Pacific Rim

So how's ABDC doing? Ratings for Season 8 #abdc

America's Best Dance Crew Season 8 has aired 4 episodes. So, how's it doing in the ratings? Will numbers help or hurt the show's chances of being picked up again?At one time, ABDC was a powerhouse for MTV. Several premieres and finales had the top cable originals ratings for their core audiences (people 12-34) and the seasons were quite successful in this demographic:

• Season 1 average rating P12-34 - 2.5
• Season 3 average rating P12-24 - 2.23
• Season 6 average rating P12-24 - 1.8

The show's ratings started their slide after Season 3. According to Variety in 2012, "Ratings never bounced back for “ABDC,” however, likely due to viewer fatigue and dance crew saturation on bigger tent shows like “America’s Got Talent.” The increased emphasis of hiphop dance on So You Think You Can Dance may also have diminished ABDC's pull.

This season of America's Best Dance Crew has been placed in a late time slot in the summer months, when ratings are lower, so it is only fair to expect ratings to be lower than earlier seasons. But, we can compare it to its lead-in show "Catfish" which airs just before ABDC starts, as well as 2 original shows that aired at the same time -  "Nick Cannon Wild and Out (on MTV2) and Conan (on TBS).  

The Season premiere of ABDC on July 29 pulled a 0.51 rating with P18-34 and was the 5th most popular show for the night in that demographic. In contrast, Catfish pulled a .82 with people 18-34 and was the most popular show with that demographic. So far, not bad.

Since then, the ratings have plummeted for ABDC. Episode 2 lost almost half its total audience from the prior week -- so much so that my sources (Showbuzz Daily and TV by the Numbers) only show the larger P18-49 ratings . That week, ABDC slid from being the 14th most watched overall cable original show for the night overall in down to 54th most watched. The only other time that the show cracked into the 40 most watched cable originals for the night (August 12), it averaged a .29 rating for P18-34.  Both Nick Cannon and Conan did better with that demographic group in the same time slot.

Upshot -- not rosy for fans of ABDC. Sorry.
 

ABDC recapalooza - all about Crews Control #abdc

• Aaron's Little Blog of Dance found most of the dancing cool but found that the episode made him emotional -- saddened by Quest's dance I.aM.mE's elimination, touched by Moon's marriage proposal
• LA Times provides a well-summarized recap short on editorialization, except for their questioning how a bottom 2 will be picked next week
• In contrast, Entertainment Weekly's recap is all judgement on the dances (mostly positive except I.aM.mE's use of airboards which they feel distracted from choreo) and wants to give T-Pain a hug 
•  If you've got half an hour with nothing to do, you can watch a video recap featuring Beat Freak's Shorty posted by Afterbuzz TV