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Q&A with Super Cr3w’s Ronnie Abaldonado

The America’s Best Dance Crew winner makes us wish we could dance

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Photo: Beverly Poppe

One look at nearly any Strip production show and you have to admit it, Vegas can dance. But when local b-boys Super Cr3w won the top prize on MTV's America's Best Dance Crew they not only put b-boying on the map, but reminded Vegas that not all our dancers do their best work in tights and sequins. Super Cr3w's Ronnie Abaldonado took a break from savoring victory to chat with Weekly and even throw a few moves for our video cameras.

How did Super Cr3w get onto America’s Best Dance Crew?

We actually auditioned first season, which no one really knows about, and we didn’t make it. … But we talked to JabbaWockeeZ during the audition and we were like, “If you guys make it this season you have to take it all the way,” and they told us the same thing. [The producers] didn’t even want JabbaWockeeZ at first, some of the judges had to convince the executive producers to put them on.

Ronnie and the Supercr3w

But it just so happened that the day of the audition (for Season 2) we were all free. So, we all just kind of got together last minute and we ended up auditioning and we made it, … The exact same thing happened – the executive producers were kind of skeptical of having us on the show, so when we met them during the casting special they were like interrogating us, like “What have you guys done? Why do you think you’re good for the show?”

What’s Super Cr3w’s main style?

I think Super Cr3w we kinda have this explosiveness, our charisma, ‘cause we’re battlers. Our stage is mainly based around the audience, like they feed fuel to our fire. During our tech rehearsals, they’re always telling us to go full out, “Do all your tricks. Do all you can,” but it’s hard for us to really do that when we don’t have an audience. Normal dancers they can just go perform in front of no one, because all they’re doing is dancing to counts; it’s all choreography. We really need the audience there in order to do well. And that’s what we bring to the stage, … our battle mentality. Any time we were put in the bottom two, there wasn’t anything new to us, because we always had that mentality, like “this is our last round, we have to go all out.”

He's not a breakdancer, he's a b-boy

Did you have a favorite challenge?

One of my favorite shows was the challenge were we had to create an optical illusion, and we did “Fly High.” It was our superman piece. … All season long, I kinda had that concept in my head, like I knew I wanted to do Clark Kent Superman theme, so when we actually got that song, “Fly High,” I just thought it really fit with the challenge.

What’s been your reaction to winning it all?

I’m still kinda soaking it in right now. I kinda saw the end of the tunnel; I saw the light. I knew we had potential to win, but everything in between that experience, as much stress as we were all going through, I just didn’t know how far we were going to get. .... And we just didn’t know if America was really feeling us. It’s still overwhelming. I’m just happy to be back home.

Did you get to be a stronger crew or better dancers from being on the show?

Oh yea, we learned a lot. We came into the show as b-boys, … but being on the show we actually had to learn choreography to cater to the judges. So when we did Janet Jackson we had to learn a Janet step or when we had all these different challenges we had to pick up certain routines from the music video. We matured a lot as dancers.

What was the best complement that you’ve received since going onto America’s Best Dance Crew?

All season long JC would complement us but there would always be a “but.” It would be like “But you guys aren’t doing enough choreography… but you guys aren’t as clean.” But there was one show, I believe it was the Missy challenge, and he just said, “That was an amazing performance,” and there was no “but.” We were waiting for the “but,” but he didn’t say it.

What are your plans for after the America’s Best Dance Crew tour?

I want to be everywhere. I want to be able to travel abroad and showcase our talent in front of a mainstream audience and have them appreciate our talent and what we do as B-boys. I want to put our culture out there and represent it the right way. … I just want to expose that, the raw side of our culture, and show what it’s about.

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