The third season of American reality competition television series World of Dance premiered on February 26, 2019, on NBC. Ne-Yo, and Derek Hough returned as the judges for their third consecutive seasons. Access Hollywood co-host Scott Evans replaced Jenna Dewan as the new host.
Production
Format changes
The required qualifier score to enter the duels increased from 80 to 85. The duels feature a redemption round where the Top 2 eliminated acts (in each division) with the highest score compete head to head for a second chance to advance to The Cuts. In the redemption, the 2 acts compete back to back to the same music. Afterwards, the judges vote to decide which act will advance.
In the Divisional Final, the judges pick one more act to advance to the World Final as a wild card. In the World Final, each act performs once instead of twice.
The guest judge is removed this season.
Show concept
In preparation for season three, handpicked competitors, being talented in any styles of dancing, from qualifying events around the nation and thousands of online submissions, are divided into four divisions: Junior (groups of 1-4, under 18), Upper (groups of 1-4, 18 and older), Junior Team (groups of 5+, under 18) and Upper Team (groups of 5+, 18 and older). In some cases dancers who didn't apply were directly contacted by the producers or their agents.
Scoring
The judges are scoring in 5 categories. Each category is worth 20 points, with a perfect score of 100: Performance (20 points): :) Effort: How many different elements put into the routine without overloading or rushing through it. What was the whole effort to dance the performance by the act. Personality: How characters and personality put into the performance, in the sense of acting to stimulate emotions by the audience, telling a story or framing pictures. Technique (20 points): Transitions: How smooth and elegant the transitions from move to move were without lacking a performance moment. Cleanness: How synchronized, ordered by a pattern, precise and committed the movements were within the act. Execution: How flawless the execution of the performance by the act was to the performance song. Choreography (20 points): Difficulty: How difficult it was to perform the figures and movements by the act from judges point of view. Musicality: How well pictures, figures and movements were choreographed to the sound and beat of the performance song. Tricks: Are unexpected show elements included by properties, clothing or the bodies of the dancers and how well was it done. Creativity (20 points): Originality: How unique, new, fresh and interesting was the performance. Artistic Choices: What styles of dancing were shown and merged. How well was it done regarding basic dance styles and style culture, e.g. costumes, shoes. The performance song and the use of properties are artistic choices as well. How well did they fit to the performance. Dynamics: How energizing and powerful the performance was and how much action was on stage. Presentation (20 points): Crowd Appeal: How the crowd around the show stage reacted to the performance. Impact: How memorable, influential and worth talking about it later the performance was.
Judges, host, and mentors
Jennifer Lopez, Ne-Yo, and Derek Hough returned as the judges for their third consecutive season. Access Live co-host, Scott Evans replaced original presenter Jenna Dewan as the host for the third season. Evans became the first male host of the show and the first host/judge to be on the show with no prior dancing experience.
This season there were only two mentors in two different rounds. Original host Jenna Dewan, returned as a mentor for the Junior teams in the round of The Cut. Hip hop dancer, choreographer, entertainer, and former So You Think You Can Dance contestant, Stephen "tWitch" Boss served as a mentor for the Divisional Final round.
Dancers
The Qualifiers
The qualifier round took place between February 26 and March 10, 2019. In season 3, the number of points you need to advance to The Duels is now 85. While seasons 1 and 2, the average points was 80. The qualifier round got harder to get past. Some people from last season would not make it this season.