america's best dance crew gives its "best" in breaking barriers

by amy chen

As I watch Kaba Modern's week six performance on "America's Best Dance Crew" on the ever reliable YouTube, the knowledge that they did not make it past week seven for the final round hangs over me. However, almost 200,000 views of the video and numerous comments of encouragement make it clear-Kaba's got a lot of support.

Produced by American Idol judge Randy Jackson, "America's Best Dance Crew" is a MTV show where twelve hip-hop dance crews from four different regions of the United States compete for the title of "America's Best Dance Crew." The three judges, JC Chasez of *NSYNC, Lil Mama, and choreographer Shane Sparks, provide feedback on performances and help persuade voters which dance crew to eliminate each episode. Like other reality-based talent shows, each group must garner the most amount of votes to stay on. Throughout the season, the two groups that dominated the competition were Kaba Modern and JabbaWockeeZ, both hailing from Southern California. At the end of the season, Kaba Modern placed third and JabbaWockeeZ placed first.

Despite ongoing disappointing depictions of Asians and Asian Americans in Hollywood, shows like "America's Best Dance Crew" are remarkably transformative in helping break racial stereotypes. As recently as this month, the movie "21" basically erased Asian Americans from the storyline, despite the fact that the film is based on the true story of a group of Asian American students from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). The fact of the matter is, when it comes to Hollywood, race sells, and white is deemed the race most "marketable." But "America's Best Dance Crew" proved Hollywood wrong.

Unlike scripted movies and other reality shows that look like they have been bludgeoned over the head with the tokenization of people of color, "America's Best Dance Crew" offers a very real and diverse look into an underground phenomenon that many would believe was dominated by African Americans. Yet the show features dancers of a wide range of racial backgrounds. It just so happened that two of the best groups by far from the season, JabbaWockeeZ and Kaba Modern, featured a good number of Asian American dancers.

Kaba Modern is a dance crew that hails from Irvine, California. First established in 1992 by Arnel Calvario for Pilipino Culture Night at UC Irvine, it grew to be one of the best hip-hop groups throughout California. Because of the large Asian American population at UC Irvine, almost all thirty-four Kaba Modern members are of Asian descent. The members that made up the performance team for Kaba Modern were all Asian American.

Dancing is not considered a lucrative or "safe" career choice for anyone. As seen on the audition tryouts for Kaba Modern, member Yuri Tag's parents were against her dancing hip-hop, believing it to be an unsuitable career. However, what "America's Best Dance Crew" has done right is promoting hip-hop dance as something that breaks the barriers of race. The show often focuses on the hard work and troubles each group goes through. Hip-hop dance is put at the forefront and it is all up to the viewers to decide who deserve the title of "America's Best Dance Crew." "America's Best Dance Crew" promotes diversity by not calling attention to it but accepting it as a given. And winning the $100,000 prize isn't all that bad either.