Pure World of Dance Season 1, Week 1 (Qualifiers) – Power Rankings

Well after the manipulation headache that was the most recent season of DWTS, I’m happy to say that the premiere of WOD was a nice palate cleanser last night 🙂 There was nary a whiff of manipulation to be found, and on the whole, everybody on the show – from the contestants, to the judges, to the host, to the audience – just seemed really excited to be there, and grateful for the opportunity.  My, what a difference a lack of arrogance and entitlement in the cast of dance show makes to my enjoyment! 🙂 Was also kinda nice that it was only an hour long, and we only saw seven acts in this first episode, which makes blogging a brand new show seem a bit less daunting.

That being said – bear with me (and Heidi, and Vogue) because we’re still trying to figure this show out, and how we want to approach it in our coverage.  If you have any suggestions, PLEASE – do share them, because we are quite literally making this up as we go along 😛 If there is some aspect of the show you would like us to cover, let us know – we are open to suggestions. In case you missed it, you can check out Heidi’s live blog of last night’s show here; if you’re looking for a list of music from last night’s episode, go here. We are still working on getting profiles posted for all of this season’s contestants, but you will be able to find all of them here.

Now, onto the power rankings – these are obviously going to be different than the ones I do for PureDWTS.  Since the contestants are currently only competing against other contestants within their division, it really only makes sense to rank them against the other acts in their division on a given episode. Since there were only six acts last night (that actually advanced to the next round), there were only two acts in each division – so it’s really just a matter of “which of these two acts did better?” And when I say “better”, I mean “more likely to stick around in this competition and possibly win”. So I just ranked the two acts within each division and gave my thoughts – and at the bottom of the page, I did “Court’s pick”, which was just my personal favorite from the episode, and also who I think fared the best out of all the acts on a particular episode. I also threw in the “eliminated” category to give my thoughts on any acts eliminated from last night’s show. And again – I’m totally open to suggestions if you think there’s a different way to do it that might work better. Shall we begin? 🙂

Junior Division:

1.) Diana Pombo – As I mentioned on Twitter, I LIKED Diana – but I didn’t LOVE her, and I think it was in good part due to her choreography (which isn’t really her fault). There was unfortunately a good degree of the “contemporary flailing” I tend to roll my eyes at on DWTS – additionally, I thought she maybe relied a bit too much on her gymnastic abilities/shows of flexibility rather than actual choreography.  No doubt Diana’s extraordinarily talented – amazing extensions and impressive height on her leaps – but I would caution whoever is doing her choreography not to fall back too much onto tricks and general angst.  She could be the next Maddie Ziegler, but she needs the choreography to show it. I personally preferred D’Angelo & Amanda to Diana (I’ve got a ballroom bias, sue me), but I think the judges preferred Diana to D’Angelo & Amanda.

2.) D’Angelo & Amanda – I was really excited to see their names on the master contestant list, because I’ve followed them on so many other reality shows (if you haven’t yet, check out the profile I did on them here).  And I love how they have matured these last few years – there’s definitely more of an adult “polish” to their dancing now.  Loved that they opted to do a medley with bits of paso, cha-cha, and salsa, and saw a few fun tricks (like the patented Sasha Farber cartwheel) that felt like they were inspired by DWTS).  I think the only issue I had (and it’s one Derek also brought up) was Amanda’s hip action – and I feel a bit bad for her, because I think she’s just gone through the typical changes a young woman’s body goes through as she matures into a woman, and she’s got a bit more hip to move now than she did four years ago on AGT. Back then, she was actually the one that the better hip action, and it was D’Angelo that struggled a bit more; but she also was a bit more wire-y back then, and she’s just a bit curvier now. Now it seems like D’Angelo has really hit a nice stride, and Amanda may have to work a bit harder to catch up to him.  But I still think they’re going to be big contenders this season in the junior division, so watch out.

Upper Division:

1.) Les Twins – I noticed kind of an interesting pattern when browsing the #WorldOfDance tag on Twitter last night – the people that seemed to really like Les Twins, didn’t seem to like Keone & Mari; the people that liked Keone & Mari seemed to dislike Les Twins. And I think it boils down primarily to this: Les Twins appeals more to those who really look at hip-hop technique, while Keone & Mari appeal more to those looking for stage presence and overall performance quality. I personally preferred Les Twins, because I felt like they were doing much more innovative and intricate choreography, and I liked that they went with a routine that had a darker, edgier theme than what they typically do – but I can see how some may not have been as impressed, because it did move a bit slowly and required more attention to detail to really appreciate what they were doing, I think. But they got the most generous scores and critiques from the judges last night, so I believe we’re probably going to see them make it pretty far this season – I think Fik-Shun could be in some trouble, because what they do seems to overlap quite a bit with his style – we’ll see what he’s able to pull out. I just think they’re adorable, too, on top of being talented 🙂

2.) Keone & Mari – I thought Keone & Mari were pleasant to watch and had a fun routine, but I didn’t find myself incredibly impressed by the choreography.  It seemed to take awhile to really get started, and once it did, it seemed a tad repetitive – but it was fun to watch and had good energy, so I’ll give them that. I didn’t hate it, but I’m not sure it’s really going to stick out in my mind a few episodes from now.  I think they’ll probably need to get out of the box a bit with their choreography in future routines in order to set themselves apart – I’m hoping we see something slower and a bit edgier from them later on. I do think they’re probably going to be more popular with the viewing audience than Les Twins, though – but since there isn’t actually any audience voting on this show, and it’s all been pre-taped, I’m not sure that it’s going to really have an impact on the competition itself.

Team Division:

1.) Super Cr3w – I remembered that they had been on America’s Best Dance Crew several years ago, but I had completely spaced that they actually won season 2 and came in third on ABDC’s all-stars season.  So they’ve got some definite chops – and I think they did a good job of showing us what they were made of last night.  Lots of impressive stunts, and I had never seen that unfolding fan/paper doll stunt that they did – and that’s the kind of innovative stuff I’m hoping we get to see on this show. My only concern is that b-boy routines can sometimes come across as a tad disjointed – just a lot of moving parts, and sometimes there’s just so much going on that it gets a bit hard to appreciate all the cool stuff they’re doing.  It’s a good problem to have, because it means you’ve got a lot to work with – and it should be easy to fix: just simplify it 🙂

2.) Kinjaz – I actually thought Kinjaz had a bit of the opposite problem going on as Super Cr3w – they didn’t quite seem to have enough going on in their routine.  It was cool, but it felt pretty slow-moving to me – you had to really focus in order to appreciate what they were doing, because they seemed to rely on very subtle, very refined moves rather than off-the-wall stunts like Super Cr3w had.  I have no doubt that they, too, have moves – I just don’t know that this piece of choreography really showed us what they were capable of.  I hope they add a bit more “oomph” to things in the coming rounds, because I do think they’ve got the talent.

Eliminated:

NXT LVL – Fun fact: this same group of guys (or most of this same group of guys) was on America’s Got Talent a few seasons back, but billed themselves as “All That!” and ended up making it to the semifinals – and it always kinda puzzled me, because I felt like they basically just did the same routine each week, to a slightly different song. And I think that’s the big problem clogging has with respect to other disciplines of dance – there’s just not a ton of variety/flexibility to it. Ultimately, I think that’s what the judges saw, and realized that these guys probably wouldn’t be able to hang with some of the powerhouse teams they have this season…hence, the low score and them being sent packing. Strange observation: that routine felt REALLY short – like it was only 30 seconds or so long.  More like a bumper of Dancing with the Stars than a full-length routine. Part of me wonders if the editors maybe cut down their performance a bit, since they already knew they wouldn’t be advancing.

Court’s pick for this episode: It’s a tie between D’Angelo & Amanda and Les Twins – I just felt that they both were doing some pretty unique, impressive stuff that we don’t see on a regular basis in dance today.

Who Court thinks will do the best in the long run: I think they set it up such that we will likely be seeing a lot of Diana Pombo – the judges seemed really enamored of her.

So those are my thoughts – what are yours? Who was your favorite/least favorite on last night’s episode? What do you think of the judges? The overall format of the show? Let’s hear it 🙂