Community: The Crews of MTV's America's Best Dance Crew

Yesterday, we looked at the group of dancers involved with the LXD and Step Up 3D. Today, it's the crews who've appeared on MTV's America's Best Dance Crew. After five seasons, there have been a handful of crews who've emerged to continue their career through teaching workshops, high profile performances, and collaborations with music artists on tour and in videos. Is there a community forming among these crews? Of course, but it's more behind the scenes.

Networking is crucial to any profession. So for these ABDC crews, they're wise to stay connected to each other. Sharing managers. Trusting familiar sources for jobs. And collaborating together on new projects. The Beat Freaks, Fanny Pak, and Kaba Modern share the same manager with KM founder Arnel Calvario. Renown street dancer and businessman Zulu Gremlin has advised many of them whether as teams or as individuals. To survive in the entertainment business, these crews need each other for support as much as they are competitors in some circumstances.

Due to the exposure coming from ABDC, the collegiate choreo scene has probably seen the biggest growth in ambitious young teams coming together with future hopes to become professional performers. We've touched on how there's an emerging "performance culture" happening in southern California right now with bigger venues being staged for events like the World of Dance Tour. Everything is getting a little more professional. And there's an undercurrent of pressure to find legitimacy in one's dance by getting famous. It's not clear yet how the high profile ABDC crews are reaching back to affect this scene, but they're definitely being upheld as role models.

For these ABDC crews - like Kaba Modern, Fanny Pak, Super Crew, JabbaWocKeez, We Are Heroes, Beat Freaks, and Quest, a professional circle has emerged. You could easily think of them as an alumni network for the show. Just like the generations of Real World and Road Rules cast members, these dancers are part of a legacy that the show is leaving behind. The question then becomes, "will this legacy inspire a greater appreciation of hip hop in pop culture?"