Fuego Dance Crew of San Diego has advanced in NBC’s “World of Dance,” partly on the strength of an illusion — Shawn Jones Nguyen appearing to float in midair.
But the affection between Fuego and Siudy Flamenco — their seven-woman competition in the Duel episode — wasn’t faked in Sunday’s taped telecast.
Fuego, with a Qualifier round score of 93.7, chose the ladies (86.7) as their Upper Team rivals because “only one group could represent Latin America,” said leader Eric Payan. “I thought it should be us.”
Judge Ne-Yo immediately branded it the Latin American Battle of the Sexes. (The women would wear bullfighter-style pants.)
Appearing first in the two-hour broadcast, the “rookies” (as Payan labeled his group) had some rough spots, but still prevailed 91.0 to 89.7 over the professionals out of Miami.
Near the end of their 80-second hip-hop routine — danced to a G-rated version of 50 Cent’s “Just a Lil Bit“ — Fuego’s Paul Lopez lifted his T-shirt to display his chest to the women, who made heart symbols with their hands in return.
Judge and executive producer Jennifer Lopez commented before revealing the scores: “I didn’t know if you were battling them or [flirting]: What’s up? Maybe a little of both.”
Months later, Payan said: “We actually became really good friends with all of them.”
He said Siudy Flamenco’s director is married to the troupe’s lead dancer and has the same birthday and name as Paul (but goes by Pablo).
“He really liked us a lot,” Payan told Times of San Diego. “Turns out he’s a professional director for music videos.”
So a couple months after wrapping up taping of the $1 million-prize reality show, Fuego’s Payan, Lopez and Andretty Lucatero were brought to Los Angeles to dance in a music video starring Latin pop stars Gloria Trevi and Karol G.
The video, posted March 15 on YouTube, is closing in on 26 million views. (The Fuego trio can be seen from about 2:10 to 2:40 below.)
The Flamenco women, who rehearsed with Fuego for a week, even showed the San Diego quintet some of their techniques.
“They taught us how to tap behind the scenes,” Payan said. “We couldn’t go as fast as they do. I didn’t see it as a battle — that they’re mad at us or we’re mad at them. It was pretty cool.”
The women ultimately got the boot Sunday. But they won Fuego hearts.
“We’re making good friendships,” Payan said of the East Coast troupe. “Still staying in contact here and there.”
It was the lack of contact that wowed the judges, however — with Nguyen seeming to levitate.
“Shawn jumped at pretty much the same time that Paul lifted him,” Payan said. “Paul is pretty strong already…. The hardest part was getting [Shawn] back down at a slow pace.”
Payan has gotten used to the show branding Fuego as “arrogant” or “cocky.”
Even the Flamenco dancers played into the narrative, saying in a preview (in Spanish): “The weakness of Fuego Dance Crew is too much confidence.”
(Payan is shown laughing in reaction: “I told the guys [to] spend three hours a day practicing being charming in the mirror.”)
Fuego dancers say their cockiness is being “amplified” by WOD producers — which goes along with the “boy band” motif.
”That’s just the vibe that we give off sometimes,” Payan said. “We never want to have a vibe that we’re scared. People can take it … as being cocky, but we’re just happy with the area we’re at.”
All shows have been shot, so now Fuego is just waiting to see how they look on air. (They can’t tell how they ultimately fared.)
But if Sunday’s show was any indication, their odds are long. One reality TV site showed 5% saying Fuego had the best Upper Team Division performance.
After the Duels episode, Fuego was one of six Upper Team acts advancing to the Cut round — after The Kings (99.3), Unity LA (97), The Heima (96.7) and Radiance (93.7). The Exiles won the Redemption duel.
Payan isn’t sure when their third dance will air. He’s guessing two or three weeks.
But he sees Fuego as warming to the routine.
“The first week, it’s all new,” he said. “The second week, we’re kind of used to the system. We wanted to get as comfortable on that stage as possible.”
