The Heima introduced themselves in the season premiere of “World of Dance” as “The best b-boy crew in South Korea.” Those are some boastful words for the first qualifying round of the season, so did they live up to the hype? Watch their performance above, and see what the judges had to say below.
Derek Hough: “First of all, I can’t sit down for this. I know we’ve got a translator, but I’m going to express my excitement though my body. Here’s the deal. Usually with B-boys, when somebody’s in the middle of doing their set, in the back everybody’s kind of waiting. you guys were doing beautiful lines, beautiful pictures surrounding him, complementing what he was doing up there, which was, by the way, one of the most incredible things I have ever seen.”
Ne-Yo: “Translate this: Whoo! … I am so pleasantly confused right now. It’s like ‘Huh?’ but ‘Ah!’ It was elegant breaking.”
Jennifer Lopez: “I thought it was well-crafted. It was tricky and sneaky — those are negative words, but I’m just saying it was spontaneous and surprising. It was one of the most interesting routines I’ve ever seen. I love you guys.”
Those critiques translated to scores of 87 from Ne-Yo, 88 from Lopez and 86 from Hough. That gave them an average of 87, which was enough to advance them to the next round, The Duels. But it was actually a close call. In seasons one and two of “World of Dance” you only needed to score 80 to make it past the first round. This year they bumped up that threshold to 85, so the standards are already higher than they ever have been before. Did you think they deserved to advance?
