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Now Two Families Say It's Their Daughter Dancing in Viral News Video

By Quinn Ford | July 26, 2013 6:39am | Updated on July 26, 2013 7:38pm
 Two families are saying it's their daughter dancing in the background of a June live report on NBC Chicago.
Dancing Girl Goes Viral
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WOODLAWN — There's a new twist to the "Dancing Girl" viral video story, with more than one family insisting it's their daughter dancing in the background of a live-on-the-street NBC Chicago news report.

DNAinfo.com Chicago reported that Janiyah Rush, 7, was the girl seen dancing behind Mary Ann Ahern during the reporter's live report last month outside Sexton Elementary School, 6020 S. Langley Ave.

But now another family says it's their daughter — Akira Gordon, 5 — with the moves that brought smiles to faces across the country after the video went viral.

Rush's mother, however, still insists that it's Janiyah, saying her daughter was outside Sexton that day and got in the camera shot. Her hair now looks different than in the June video, Cassandra Rush said, because she braided since then.

Dancing girl
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Crystal Seals

"I'm sure that's my baby," Cassandra Rush said.

But Akira Gordon has the striped dress from the video to back up her claim to fame.

"I wasn't going to make a big deal out of it," her mother, Crystal Seals, said.

DNAinfo.com Chicago showed the video on Thursday to Janiyah Rush, who initially questioned if it was her and then indicated it was. Her mother supported it, saying her daughter had been at the school in June.

During the news clip, a girl enters the bottom left part of the shot and showed off her dance moves with skill and sass. Her actions became a hit on the Internet, prompting the website Gawker to post a story headlined: "The Little Girl Dancing on the News Is the Only Thing Keeping Me Alive."
As of Friday morning, the story had more than 113,000 views.

Ahern said she hadn't realized what was going on behind her until a director told her in her ear: "You had a darling little gal dancing behind you."

"LOL too funny, Diana Ross had the Supremes, Gladys Knight had the Pips, I've got my own backup dancer!" she tweeted after the video went viral.