Gil Asakawa's Nikkei View | Part-Asian American Super Cr3w wins ‘Best Dance Crew’ title
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22 Aug Part-Asian American Super Cr3w wins ‘Best Dance Crew’ title

Posted at 12:53h in asian american, food & dining, music by

Super Cr3w, the Las Vegas-based group of b-boys that includes Asian Americans, has won the top honors for the second season of producer Randy Jackson wildly popular show, “America’s Best Dance Crew,” on MTV. Congrats to the six-man group.

We took a break from incessant Olympics viewing to watch the live MTV season finale program last night, and were holding our breath. An astounding 39 million votes were cast for these two finalists, a reflection of how huge the hip-hop dance culture has become.

We wanted the other finalists, SoReal Cru from Houston, because they’re all Asian Americans, two of the members are women, and one of the members said poignantly during the season premiere that their parents expected them to be lawyers and doctors but they wanted to pursue their passion for dancing.

Super Cr3w is super athletic and breathtaking to watch, but SoReal felt more human to me, and likable. Their choreography was not as flashy but was in some ways more striking for its synchronized precision and beauty. I felt bad for them when the winner was announced, but they took it well and were gracious good sports.

You can see both groups’ final performances from last week online.

Hip hop dance’s popularity highlights a great trend — almost all of this season’s groups had at least one, and in many cases a lots, of Asian American members. And many seem to be Filipino. What’s the cultural gene that is feeding this drive? It’s cool — even though I can’t dance worth a damn.

BTW, last season’s top crew, Jabbawockeez, a team that’s almost all Asian American, is traveling with other groups from the first season as well as now, Super Cr3w, on a U.S. tour starting at the end of September and going into October. They’re coming to Denver October 8.

We’ll be there.

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