'America's Best Dance Crew' judge Shane Sparks on B-Girls, 'So You Think You Can Dance' & Britney Spears

Before this week's Randy Jackson Presents: America's Best Dance Crew, I had the chance to chat with choreographer and judge extraordinaire Shane Sparks. We talked about potential front runners, the influence of B-girls, and how Britney Spears might determine the eventual winner this season.

Usually you can tell which groups are going to be in trouble after the first challenge week but I thought they did a good job overall. Do you think any crew in particular will be in trouble down the line?
I think America's finally getting it right right now. Last week we had a bottom two and it was exactly who should've been in the bottom two. Usually we're really skeptical, like "Oh my god, why are they in the bottom two?" So the two [that were in the bottom], they're good - Team Millennia, I like them, but there's so much competition on this show right now they've almost gotta do three times as much as they did last season to maintain. We'll see what happens this season or this episode. And I think this episode is gonna be the deciding factor of who's really, really hot and who's not because now they all have to come up out of their element and show a different side. The one or two or three that impresses us the most are gonna be the ones I feel like will last on the show the longest.

Whose idea was tonight's Britney Spears challenge?
I don't know actually who did this one but I think it's a really good one. The only thing I'm sad about is the fact that Britney's not gonna be on the stage with us. [leans toward the recorder for comedic emphasis] Britney, I hate you for that.

*laughs* Since she couldn't appear, are you going to be doing another spotlight artist challenge this season?
I'm hoping we get somebody this year. I don't know who it could be but it would've been perfect for her to come here -- it would've set the tone for our whole season. But we'll see.

When I talked to you at the finale, the hope was for the really good all-girl crew to come in. Now we've got one...
We've got two.

We have two, but one is not coming with the choreography yet.
Who?

Fly Khicks. They're good but they're not quite coming with the choreography yet.
Oh! Yeah, yeah, yeah...

But we have Beat Freaks who are...
Just B-girls ripping the show, yeah.

Do you think that's going to influence future seasons?
Totally. Beat Freaks is going to influence the world. I think they're going to impact the world like JabbaWockeeZ did. Because there's a lot of B-girls out there that you would never know about. Some B-girls are better than B-boys and you're gonna see that. I still think that they haven't done their best stuff yet. They're still waiting, you know what I mean?

Yeah, I do. I feel like there's another level there. So switching gears a little bit, now that this season is happening separately from when So You Think You Can Dance is airing, are you gonna be able to do some work with them this season?
We're working on it right now, trying to get me in more this season, get me on camera for some of the show.

Judging?
Yeah.

And with that, I let our dear Shane go to do his judging duties. Having seen the taping, I assure you tonight's episode is a really good one. America's Best Dance Crew airs Thursdays on MTV, 10pm EST.

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