Have-A-Jabba

The JabbaWockeeZ is a hip-hop dance crew formed in San Diego, California whose members are Vietnamese Jeff Nguyen, Chinese Ben Chung, African-American Kevin Brewer, Hispanic Chris Gatdula, and the two Filipinos – Phil Tayag, and Rynan Shawn Paguio.

MTV’s America’s Best Dance Crew, produced by American Idol judge Randy Jackson, is an American television show that has played a major role in exposing and sharing to the people how impressive the JabbaWockeeZ could be.

The said show features dance crews from all over the United States judged by rapper Lil Mama, multi-awarded hip-hop choreographer Shane Sparks and former Nsync member JC Chasez.

The JabbaWockeez possesses a trademark of wearing plain white masks and white gloves which make them appear like mimes, dark-colored long-sleeved shirts and pants, and headgears such as caps, hats, or bonnets which show more uniformity in their craft.

In the Live Auditions Special of the show aired on January 26, 2008, one of the members shared, “We wear the mask for the audience so when they watch us, they have to watch us, they are forced to watch us as a whole not as an individual.”

They worked on Apologize by Timberland featuring One Republic in the first official episode of the show wherein a video clip of their rehearsal was shown before they danced and people saw them goofing around event in practice but after their dance number, they showed that no matter how they goof around in practice, they can still hit the high notes of dancing that shows the personality of their group.

Freezing and body-snapping moves of Omarion in his Ice Box video was the challenge to their routine in the second episode which impressed the judges and Sparks even told them that this was the “best performance” of the dance crew he has ever seen.

Each crew has to carry out to a dance craze but still not losing their style in episode three. While performing, there were challenges that each has to do while performing since some of the dances are very simple and for the JabbaWockeeZ, they had to create an illusion that defies gravity with Lean Wit It, Rock Wit It by Dem Frachize Boyz which made them think of routines that made some of their members to appear like flying.

Episode four needed a storyline as a character in a movie, while performing on the set of a street. For them, it’s Ayo Technology by 50 Cent featuring Justin Timberlake and they had to act thieves hiding from a street set containing garbage bins, vandalized walls, and a parked car wherein one of the members had to dance above its hood. Chasez picked on their dance steps as “simple”, but Sparks disagreed with this and said, “(It’s) not about the choreography this time, it’s about the story, (and) the choreography was just a compliment to the story.”

With Michael Jackson’s Thriller album celebrating its 25^th year, each crew must perform a track in honor of its anniversary. It was the upbeat P.Y.T. (Pretty Young Thing) that they had to perform, and they still stunned the audience and their judges which made Lil Mama say, “You (guys) never forget that it’s a competition. (I) felt like watching Michael Jackson but I never forgot that I was watching the JabbaWockeeZ.”