Take a mixture of hip-hop and break dance, blend in a basketball and put it all on skates and you’ve got Breaksk8, one of the hottest teams on “America’s Best Dance Crew Live.”
Breaksk8 is rolling through Everett on Monday when “Randy Jackson Presents America’s Best Dance Crew Live” stops at Comcast Arena during its 2008 North American tour.
“It’s pretty much non-stop entertainment,” said Breaksk8 member Diamond Walker, who prefers to be called just “Diamond.”
The tour arrives hot on the wheels of the top-rated MTV show, “America’s Best Dance Crew,” which attracted more than 6 million fan votes on its last episode and recently won the Teen Choice Award for Best Reality Dance Show, according to press material about the tour.
When asked why “Dance Crew” and Breaksk8 in particular are so hot, Diamond said today’s youth are responding to the newness.
“People have said we are an inspiration and that’s it, the kids really look up to us,” Diamond, 20, said in a phone interview from the East Coast. “And I’ve seen adults too be inspired and how now everybody wants to put on a pair of skates.”
As for Monday’s live “Dance Crew” at Comcast Arena: “It’s definitely worth every penny, let me just say that,” Diamond said.
Breaksk8 spilled out from Indiana and is a crew of five guys who perform some stylized and stymieing moves on roller skates while occasionally introducing other props such as basketballs and plastic crates. During the 2004 National Basketball Association season, Breaksk8 became the official skate team for the NBA, the Women’s National Basketball Association and the National Collegiate Athletic Association. The group started on America’s Best Dance Crew in 2007, according to their Web site bio.
Besides Breaksk8, the tour will feature four other hot teams from “Dance Crew’s” first two seasons.
“Dance Crew” season one winners, JabbaWockeeZ are known for their “Phantom-of-the-Opera” approach to hip-hop by wearing masks during their dizzying dance routines. Members of the Los-Angeles-based group Fanny Pak sport their own, you guessed it, fanny packs. A.S.I.I.D. (And So It Is Done), a Detroit team, puts their faith in God and diverse dance moves and the West Coast conglomerate of Super Cr3w sports one member who had heart surgery at the age of 4.
“We all interact with each other during the show. It’s kind of like a little play and we all work together,” Diamond said of what the audience can expect to see.
Diamond, who joined Breaksk8 in about 2001, said he’s never taken any formal dance classes but trains a lot to remain fit. Being part of a dance team has forced him to keep in shape, eat right (“though I don’t always do that”) and drink lots of water, he said.
“Pretty much your body will get used to anything you put it through. But you can’t just go out there … you definitely have to train your body,” Diamond said.
There’s a segment during Monday’s show called “party dances” in which the “Dance Crew” teams will go out into the audience and get people to dance on stage, Diamond said.
As producer Randy Jackson said in a prepared statement:
“America’s Best Dance Crew has the greatest fans, and we just want to say thanks by giving them the hottest show of the year.”
Reporter Theresa Goffredo: 425-339-3424 or goffredo@heraldnet.com.
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