ABDC Finals: Hip Hop Decathlon

Its the next-to-the-last episode of America's Best Dance Crew. This week the final three groups were challenged to a decathlon of hip hop styles and steps. They each had to incorporate house and crump style while performing waves, threading, and tutting. Since I know so little about hip hop history, I personally found this challenge illuminating.

Beat Freaks opened with an excellent routine: tight synchrony, great formations, dynamic changes. Unfortunately, once Quest Crew finished dancing, it was all over.

This was some of the best contemporary dance choreography I’ve ever seen and QC performed to perfection. It finished with one dancer doing a back flip from sitting to standing! No hands! It was astonishing. Even their final number, OrQuestra, which featured head spins on the top of a grand piano while another dancer played it, was brilliant. Congratulations, Quest Crew. Right from the beginning, you stood above the other groups. Heck, I’ve been cheering for Hoc since his first appearance on SYTYCD!

Tune in next week for the big finale. They’re bring all the crews back.

Postscript: I can never resist passing on these cultural nuggets: Shane Sparks was complementary of Beat Freaks “King Tut” section. Stacked in one ascending line front to back, they wave the arms on either side creating the look of a multi-armed goddess. But the image is not Egyptian; it is decidedly Hindu. I pulled out my reference books and could only find one, six- to eight-armed Hindu goddess: Durga. She’s an insubordinate warrior goddess, protectress of the cosmos, slaughtering demons and answering to no man, human or god. Her potency is not for nurturing but for doing battle. She’s a perfect model for hip hop women. They should name the step after her.

Daring to dance for joy

In the last 5 years, Americans have witnessed an unprecedented increase in dance activities in film, television, and on the internet. This of course reveals a huge increase in personal involvement and commitment to the art. Why, I wonder, has this passion for dancing arisen now? Why do we collectively need to dance more? How is it serving us?

Barbara Ehrenreich argues that dance is an evolutionary trait creating a group synchrony designed to help the group face threats to either the group or its individuals. If so, then it should not come as a surprise that we are turning back to dancing. The threats inflicted by the Bush administration on our society and on our person are serious: loss of jobs, inflation-recession-depression, wars with unimagined human rights violations, failing banks, and a crippled constitution. In response, to save our own lives, we soothe our wounds through kinesthetic reunion: we dance.

In dancing—and watching dancing—we resist socio-economic pressures. We replace our grief with camaraderie, physical pleasure, and spiritual joy. In dancing, we stand up on a stage and shout “Look at me! I’m still here. I’m still alive.” As long as we dance, as long as we dance together, we can take anything they throw at us.