'America's Got Talent' : Teen Outcast Finds His Dancing Feet

How about those tiny dancers?

Like John Travolta in Saturday Night Fever, Arcadian Broad took the stage on Wednesday’s episode of America’s Got Talent and found his creative self during a leaping and twirling performance set to Elton John‘s “I’m Still Standing.” Arcadian, 13, said he’d been teased in school and was always bad at sports but he gained the confidence he lacked when he discovered dance. And he showed it with an electric energy when he hit the AGT stage, causing judge Sharon Osbourne to say he has a “God-given talent.” Take that, bullies!

Rickie and Erik, 8-year-old ballroom dancers from Seattle, also brought down the house with their acrobatic interpretation of “Proud Mary.” Asked twice (once by host Nick Cannon and again by judge Piers Morgan) if they liked each other, the kids weathered the dating questions and focused on dance like professionals. But Rickie did confess that Erik was adored by the girls in her class for his “cute” looks, making him put his head in his hands. Erik described her as “one of the coolest girls I know.” Aww!

While Wednesday’s show was the best of dance, it was also the worst of dance. And here’s the worst:

Jennifer, a 28-year-old from Miami, dressed in a pink wrap and a hat for her sultry dance, but quickly flopped when she failed to unlatch her high heel. The sloppily rehearsed set, which bizarrely had her dance partner coming out of a suitcase, was labeled “probably the worst act we have seen on this show,” by judge David Hasselhoff.

• A 30-year-old student and dance teacher named Jennifer James, who went by Nubian Beauty onstage, performed what she called African bohemian dance. Wearing a colorful peacock headdress and a rose-covered dress, Nubian Beauty gyrated on all fours as Cannon looked on, grimacing.

• A 40-year-old bouncer Rafael Serrano described himself as “tough” and “no nonsense.” But then he ended his song and dance in the splits after an embarrassing performance that was more suited for the bathroom mirror than AGT‘s panel of judges and audience. He was not even wearing shoes. Osbourne threw him a sympathy vote, but it didn’t matter. He was sent packing. — Nicholas White

Tell us: Who did you love on Wednesday’s America’s Got Talent? Who made you cringe?

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