There was a lot of pressure on Sean and Kaycee going into the Duels round on “World of Dance.” Their Qualifiers performance earned them an average score of 96, which made them the highest-scoring Junior Division act from the first round. The hip-hop fusion dancers had their choice of opponents, so they decided to face off against another hip-hop act, the trio 3 Xtreme. So how did they do. Watch their routine above, and read what the judges had to say below.
Ne-Yo: “Performance, technique, choreography, creativity, presentation — one here that sticks out [on our scorecards] above all else is musicality. Every single move you made the song better. If I must critique anything, I was missing an emotional connection. That’s what I saw. I’m sticking to it.”
Jennifer Lopez: “Ne-Yo, no! Knowing that [Sean is] choreographing this at 16-years-old, you have a real talent. It’s amazing what you did, and it’s so innovative and so new. It was poetry in motion.”
Derek Hough: “First of all, the back bend from [Kaycee] was sick, absolutely stunning. And brother, seriously, a little prodigy right there. It was a musicality clinic. It really was. I think that as a choreographer, for all that musicality, I think you want to frame it with some other elements as well because you want everyone to enjoy it, to feel it.”
While the judges seemed to disagree about some of their critiques, they didn’t disagree much when it came to the scores. Despite having the strongest criticism, Ne-Yo actually gave them the highest marks (95), while Lopez gave a 93 and Hough gave a 92, for an average of 93.3, which was more than enough to overtake 3 Xtreme (average of 87). Did the judges get it right?
