JabbaWockeeZ voted America’s Best Dance Crew

MANILA, Philippines – After more than seven weeks of jaw-dropping pop-locks and crazy-cool breakdancing, JabbaWockeeZ took home the grand prize and the title as America’s Best Dance Crew.

In an epic battle between East and West, the San Diego, California-based “Jabba” beat Boston’s Status Quo after more than a record-breaking 38 million votes were cast on the March 25 finale for MTV’s reality-based dance competition, Randy Jackson Presents: America’s Best Dance Crew.

Jabba took home the $100,000 cash pot and a tour contract where the group is expected to dish out more of their electrifyingly theatrical hip hop moves.

Following their victory, they guested for the popular Regis and Kelly show and has gained enormous fan base in the US.

The oft-masked Jabba members who performed for the competition were Vietnamese Jeff Nguyen, X-box fanatic Ben Chung, music producer, Kevin Brewer, Phil Tayag, graphic designer Chris Gatdula, and the only confirmed Pinoy in the group so far, Rynan Shawn Paguio.

US-based Filipino fan Erwin Bermejo emailed to GMANews.TV that Jabba actually has two other Filipino members in the competition aside from Paguio.

GMANews.TV tried by e-mail to confirm the Filipino ethnicities of both Tayag and Gatdula but our efforts have so far been unsuccessful. Tayag, 23, is from Sacramento, California while Gatdula, 26, is from Las Vegas, Nevada.

“They are also part of the movie Step Up 2. Reynan Shawn Paguio, member of the Jabbawockeez has lots of appearances in that movie. You would see him dancing in the last part,” Bermejo tipped off.

Jabba has 11 members but America’s Best Dance Crew required only six performers in a competing team.

“Being on the show gives us opportunities, but we like to get down in ciphers and circles and just dance. We battle people all the time,” Paguio told freelance journalist Maggie Furlong after the competition.

When asked who they thought was their biggest competition in the show, the 26-year-old newly-wed namedropped another kababayan crew.

“Honestly, the biggest competition we thought, when we first got on the show, was Kaba Modern and Live in Color,” Paguio said.

Kababayan crew

Kaba Modern, an Orange County-based dance crew was formed in 1992 by a group of kababayans at the University of California in Irvine during one of their Filipino cultural nights.

Originally called “The Modern Suite,” the group carved a reputation in the competition as a cutting-edge hip hop crew for their synchronicity and killer isolations.

In the tense semi-final bout with Jabba on the competition’s seventh week, Kaba wowed judges N’Sync member JC Chasez, rapper Lil Mama and choreographer Shane Sparks.

Jabba however prevented Kaba from reaching the finals after winning the semi-final round and went head-to-head with Status Quo.

Despite this, Kaba still left a strong impression among the show’s fans who even agonized their sudden exit.

“Kaba Modern did some stuff with their heads and some mouth thing [popping his head from side to side], and I was like, OK, they’re taking it to another level right now,” Sparks said after the competition.

Following the success of the hip hop dance competition, MTV announced that it will open the show for a second season this summer. Auditions in the US will start in June.