yoko.cool / Freestyle by the waterfalls (3:37)
Did you watch the latest season of America’s Best Dance Crew? All of the competing crews were past ABDC winners, with one exception: Kinjaz, a California-based crew of industry badasses who really like pretending that they’re ninjas. They didn’t win (the title was clinched by Quest Crew, another crew I love who just has a lot more TV-ready appeal), but the work that Kinjaz is generating is so insanely good that I was glad that it got some mainstream airtime.
This video is part of a series they’re calling “Global Getdowns,” which I think is just them recording themselves freestyling in wherever cool location they happen to be. In this case, it’s Anthony Lee (fedora), Vinh Nguyen (snapback), and Pat Cruz (beanie) busting some impressive improv in Jiuzhai Valley National Park in China.
I don’t have anything particularly insightful to say about this video. It just looks so, so dang fun, and it is so, so dang impressive that they just make this stuff up on the spot. Each guy has his own style of dance (I am floored in particular by Anthony’s musicality in the very first clip), but watching them groove together you can tell that they’re more than comfortable dancing as a team. So smooth!
Yoko
PS: If you haven’t already, you really, really, really need to see The Dojo (1:53), their Week 5 ABDC performance. Anthony is the “master” in white, Pat is the “marionette” in the beginning, and Vinh is center/point at 1:18.