Male dancers with Alabama’s Prancing Elites not swayed by haters

https://youtu.be/QZDctzfeOeo (click to watch)

It’s up for debate, which shines more: the Prancing Elite’s sweet dance moves or the sparkling smiles they flash when performing before unreceptive faces.

The troupe composed of five extremely outgoing black, gay men is swinging onto cable television with its “J-Setting” routine — a style traditionally performed by women dancing alongside marching bands at college football games.

Their hip thrusts are fabulous enough to get a reality show on Oxygen Network, and racy enough to have garnered scrutiny in their hometown of Mobile, Ala.

“Being gay in the South is already hard. So you already know that, doing this, people are going to call you every name in the book,” 24-year-old Jerel Maddox told the Daily Beast. “We don’t even feel it.”

Maddox is joined on “The Prancing Elites Project” by Adrian Clemons, 23, Kareem Davis and Tim Smith, both 24, and Kentrell Collins, who is 27.

The team’s path to fame started in 2013 when none other than Shaquille O’Neal spied one of their performances on Youtube.

“THESE DUDES B JAMMIN,” the former NBA big man tweeted as he watched the Elites twerk, twirl and kick up a scene in white boots, orange booty shorts and flawless eye makeup at a basketball game.

 

Shaq’s endorsement helped the group secure an appearance on “The Real,” and an audition with “America’s Got Talent.”

Their first appearance on the documentary series, “We Came to Dance,” aired April 22 and showed the troupe coming face-to-face with prejudice in Saraland, Ala., when they were denied permission to march in a parade, then turned away by the police officers who patrolled the parade’s sidelines.

The rejection came one year after the Elites wore tight Santa costumes to march in a Christmas parade in Semmes, Ala.

The event organizers later tried to deflect complaints — residents complained they were “insulted” and “disgusted” by their presence — saying they had no idea they’d booked an all-black, all-gay male dance group, according to AL.com.

Despite the negative reaction, the Elites were determined to march in Saraland. They crashed the parade in white, sequinned leotards and held hands before prancing down the side of the street to a chorus of jeers.

“We just want to dance, and at the end of the day we’re going to dance anyways whether you like it or not,” Collins said in last week’s episode.