Randy Jackson Presents America's Best Dance Crew

America's Best Dance Crew is a reality show where hip-hop performers compete in an American Idle style game. Where the top 12 dance crews from around the country will battle it out. The crews – representing Atlanta, Chicago, New York and Los Angeles – will need to bring their best moves to win over the judges, JC Chasez (N*Sync) and choreographer Shane Sparks (“You Got Served”), for one of the eight coveted spots on the weekly competitive group dance series. Randy Jackson Presents: America ’s Best Dance Crew” promises to be one of the most visual and inspiring performance competition shows to ever hit television. It is the first dance competition series for dance crews rather than individual dancers. The top hip-hop crews from around the country will take to the stage floor to earn dance supremacy, a cash prize and touring contract.
Shot on location in Los Angeles, each dance crew of five to seven members will rehearse and demonstrate their most innovative choreography and skills as their intimate life stories and personal drama unfold within the show. Every performance themed episode will tap into the crews’ emotion, spirit and inspiration – from recreating dance music videos seen recently on MTV, to using dance to tell the story of a favorite feature film, to paying homage to the classic grooves of the past.

From “So You Think You Can Dance” to “ Dancing With The Stars” to “ Dance Wars” and now America’s Best Dance Crew. Dance has come back to television. Some viewers might think that this show is just a competition of unprofessional dance groups and so cliché. Your right. These groups are non professional dancers, pulled from the street but put there heart and soul in what they love to do. Some of them choreograph the dances together or have one solo choreographer. Trying to make a name for themselves and one day be sitting in the chair where the judges are and critiquing other dance crews. The media tries in so many ways to reach out to the public for some type of entertainment for them to view. This particular show is good because it’s just not for those who do dance as a profession but for those who love to dance and know what looks good and what doesn’t.

I appreciate that the dance crews are so diverse. Of course society thinks hip hop only pertains to African Americans but it doesn’t. There’s an all white female dance crew as well as an all Asian dance crew, who by they way are FIERCE. The eliminations for the crews are based on the judges opinion but more on America’s vote on who stays and who goes. The crews that stay are the ones who hype up the crowd, the one’s who have the most energy, precise movement and most of all dance well together. If the dance crews keep bringing the same energy every show and new choreographer and great tricks they are bound to keep your attention until the show is finished.

Columbia's Big Mouth

Valentine’s Day is a holiday celebrated on February 14th. In the Americas and Europe, it is the traditional day which lovers express their love for each other. If you didn’t have a love one to celebrate Valentine’s Day with, come to 1104 S. Wabash to attend Columbia’s Big Mouth. It’s a great place to listen to live music, bond with fellow students or to meet new people. You never know, you might have found your Valentine that night at Big Mouth.

The Conway Center was packed with Columbia and non Columbia students. The hosts were full of energy and entertaining between acts. The band was amazing, you had no choice but to get up out your seat and start dancing. This being my first Big Mouth experience at Columbia, I was quite satisfied and didn’t realize how much talent there was at Columbia. Of course it had its downfalls but there was only one performance that got a little bit out of hand.

The night was going well, everyone was participating and singing along with the performers until it came down to our second to last performance of the night. There is this guy who attends Columbia, who people say is a pretty good gospel singer as well as performer, but this particular night they had me fooled. By his appearance I wasn’t sure if he was a man or a female because he was sure dressed and danced like a woman. His back of dancers were impressive, full of energy and really involved into the choreography. His first song, it was obvious that he was lip singing and stumbling over the dance steps. The second song, he has a solo, and he is dressed in a jacket singing about how much he is missing his baby, assuming that his baby is a female. Third song, him and his two female back up dancers come out with chairs. Mindful at this point, he is dressed in black tights, tight shirt, and female panties. Grinding in the chair, as well as doing provocative gestures on the floor. For his fourth song, he did a song with one of his male dancers. His dancer was topless with black slacks and a mask. At the end of the song his dancers gets down on his hands and knees, with his pelvis up. He gets down on his knees, in front of his dancer and puts the mic on his dancer private and makes it look as if he is giving him head.

As soon as that happened, the audience starts screaming and people are cursing. Packing up their stuff, putting on their hats and jackets and leave. Everyone was shocked and couldn’t believe that a person would do such a thing, especially when we are at a college related event. Once that was over he had the audacity to sing a gospel song. For many it was their only and last Big Mouth they will ever attend, for others it was entertainment and are interested to see what happens next year.

An Ode To Deodorant

An Ode To Deodorant

Every day we go to work, eat our lunch, and watch TV. Learning, Growing, Living our lives never mindful of the thick, white substance that stays idle, caked along the outer lining our arm pit. The chemical compound of cosmetic fragrance and manufactured bodily protection, is assembled into a plastic tube and put on a store shelf, which can only be described as an armory of weapons used to fight the forces of odor and defend the freedoms of hygiene. We give them names like “Old Spice” and “Secret,” defiant and loyal to its purpose in the universe we wake up day by day and slap it on, knowing its job and meaning of existence: to de-odor.

Deodorant; our guardian from bacterial breakdown known as perspiration, our protector of bad looks, curled up noses, and smells which leave bad impressions upon us, our body guards of our bodies; well mainly our arm pits . . . sometimes the crouch. We are subconsciously praised by its use and admired by its scent. Never thinking about that time that we had to run for the bus to get some where and said to our self “Man I sure am glad that this deodorant, which I have under my arms, stopped my bodies natural release of sweat and perspiration, which in turn will keep my body as well as the air around me dry and smelling like which ever brand I have on from Walgreen’s last Thursday.” We leave it to perform its duties no questions asked, trusting it with our lively hood and reputation which we are given via the benefit of the doubt as a “clean person.”

How ever we are only truly mind full of our unsung hero during two instances; when it had come to its slow demise, and when it appears smeared on the most likely of places, our shirt. Then the unofficially, scientifically named Aluminum zirconium tetrachlorohydrexgly aka deodorant becomes our subject of ridicule. We detest the presence of it, scolding its being, and for the one and only time, we think the unthinkable, we wish we didn’t have it on. Only then does it become a bane in the world. Its creators are forced by the mass public to “remake it.” Funny how something so useful, recommended, and sometimes wished upon a fellow human, can be turned on by the masses because it got on their little black dress, assumingly ruining their date. How can we down on something that has done nothing but help the lively hood of man. We would never turn on air, why would we turn on deodorant.

We can not, we must not forget that it has done its job, and done its job well thus far. We must recognize and acknowledge our sentinel of smell and not look down upon what keeps us sanitary. Because think, what if we woke up tomorrow and it was all gone? No more Speed Stick, no more Axe with its clever and catchy body spray products.

We must never forget deodorant

C.U.M.A. “Fashion Show”
Columbia Urban Music Association

I decided to attend Columbia’s first fashion show of the semester on February 1, 2008 at 1104 Wabash Street Chicago, IL. It went from 7:30pm until 10pm. It was $10 at the door, $7 general admission and $5 for Columbia students. They had a flyer around Columbia for this event which the flyer was well advertised and diverse, that it made you have a curiosity of how the fashion show would be. They pretty much had a sell out because it was full and the posters and lights and run way made you feel as if you were at a real live fashion show. The MC’s for the show were good and tried to keep the show running when it started to drag on for too long. The models were all shapes, sizes and color. Some of the outfits looked good on those who were tiny but for those who had more curves it wasn’t a pleasant sight to look at. Some of the girls didn’t know how to walk down the run way and had to much unnecessary upper body movement. Each female and male had a turn of walking down the run way and some of the guys were tripping over each other. The males did not know how to pose at all when they had to come to the end of the walk way. They would try and do something sexual or throw up a gang sign, not to professional like. The acts they had in-between didn’t seem rehearsed at all. The dancing was bad. They were falling out of turns and weren’t together in the choreography. The singing/rapping was horrible. The rapper had another guy on stage with him holding a mic not saying anything and just followed where the other guy went. For the singers, his/her music was too loud and you couldn’t here their vocals. Observing the audience reactions to the show was quite interesting. The crowd went from the ages of 4 to 50 years old. The students were more enthusiastic while the elders were more content and just focusing on what was going on. You could tell after an hour and a half they started to lose interest and people eventually started to get up and leave. There were definitely favorites in the show. Some would walk down and you would hear a bunch of people scream and those who didn’t know the person the crowd gave no response. I thought the outfits were very eclectic but once again not everything looked right on everyone. Before and during the show they a slide show showing those who were in the fashion show just having a good time with one another and had head shots of certain people. It had me wondering why they didn’t have head shots of everyone else. Overall the show was very good for a “college” fashion show. You could tell that they worked long and hard to put this show together. The only thing that I would be careful with is the outfits that you put on some of the males and females and making sure that the show doesn’t start to drag on for too long.