Aronil

Wow lots of numbers on the title. Continuing from the previous post, So You Think You Can Dance Season 2 Malaysia, was the event I had gone to last night with a bunch of friends.

I felt really bad that I didn’t manage to bring a banner for Raymond Liew, the person I’m supporting there. But there is another person I’m supporting in the Top 20 , who happens to be Samantha Yee. We used to dance together at Celestar Studio, where we had learn jazz. Fun time that was, and I haven’t seen Samantha since then! So to see her dance her heart out on stage was a really wonderful sight.

This season the show is hosted by Aisha Sinclair, a well recognised face on TV. The little lass was really sweet and held herself well on stage. Although it felt like her voice was a bit muffled - maybe she’s sick or something, i dunno - She held up to her part as the host of the show. I don’t want to make excuses, it was the first episode, hence cutting them some slack.

The judges of the show are the same from the previous season, with Pat Ibrahim, Ramli Ibrahim and Judimar Hernandez. I don’t want to be comparing, but it’s hard not to. In all honesty when you have judges like Simon Cowell and Nigel Lythgoe sitting on the panel or even Piers Morgan.

You kinda start wanting to hear some heavy, straight yet truthful constructive criticism. That was a mouthful. Thats all I’m saying. But I’m no judge, i’m just taking it from a spectators point of view, who likes to obviously talk about things and discuss.

So here we are in Ruums KL, which is right opposite Shangri La Hotel in the Golden Triangle. And the contestants are

Girls:Farah, Zen, Samantha, Cecilia/CC, Vivian,  Jorida, Sim, Jojo, Zef, Sarah

Guys: Ray,Hanafi, Black, Hong, Raymond, Belalang, Sly, Chee Wei,  Billy, Fairul

Btw do you know how difficult it is to get pictures of them???? I searched all over and finally found a site that could give me quality pictures of the all the contestants and even some behind the scenes shot. You can view the press conference with the images HERE.

Here’s your top 20 folks. The Show started at 9.30 which means since we were there early we waited for a good hour. The boys got bored and because of that, they started making their own fun by ‘making’ fun of things around them. Sheeeeesh!!

Below were the sequence for each dance couple and what was the genre they dances to.

It’s one thing to see the dancers just performing, but seeing them live and being in utter stress and worry bout being kicked out. It really makes me feel for them. They announced the bottom four which were BIlly, Napi, Vivian and Zen.

The rest of the other dance contestants, were brought to stand where I was standing, now I know why they had that red tape at my foot. it was to give some space for th the dancers who were going to be watching their pals get eliminated.

Billy and Napi. One of them are bout to be eliminated. In the end Billy was the one picked to be out for the first episode. Too bad, but Napi really did deserve to stay. Ballroom was not Napi’s forte but at the same time the dance was just not happening for the Waltz he did with his partner. Billy’s Beat it Remix with his partner, was just alright. It was not great and i don’t fault him for that, he’s a good dancer but I think the choreography was not enough to bring out his potential. It’s very sad that he had to go on the first round.

When they had announced who were the bottom four after like 20 minutes of votes, which i think is really dumb. Honestly who will vote in 20 minutes. There is not enough time and in fact I couldn’t even hear that the voting process for elimination had already started.

After Billy had been the first to be eliminated, the other boys took a moment and had a group hug amongst themselves.

This is Samantha Yee, one of the contestants who also happened to be one of the dancers I danced with at Celestar Studio. She had probably the best bod in the class heheh and she’s still a on going strong dancer. Her dance was choreographed by Manuela Oliviera who I think is a fabulous dancer and choreographer. She has wonderful vision for the dancers and brings out the best in them.

Now so what can I say about SYTYCD Malaysia. Well first of, I’m glad that they are at least having the show here. But on another hand, the standard of dance is … quite well far apart with the ones I’ve been watching on the American version.

But hey the one thing that is still a strong point that I like about the show is that it allows those who have the passion to dance, to really express themselves here on this stage.

The new season of So You Think You Can Dance, the Malaysian version, is back again on 8TV. Auditions were out like about a month or so back and tonight was the first time it was aired live on TV. After the dancers have been stationed it some forbidden area away from everyone else and the internet (The horror!!) for a good one month.

I went there to support a friend, who is in the TOP 20 of SYTYCD season 2, Raymond Liew. So we managed to get tickets to go see and cheer him, as well as the rest of the dancers on.

I was suppose to meet one of his friend Wan Yeu, to collect tickets the tickets, but we arrived a tad bit late… because of a ’somebody’.. ahem.. We made it in time, so I forgive you! :P

Min Li and Tony were already there waiting for us at the bottom of rooms. It was quite a big crowd with the 8TV crew only allowing family and friends of the dancers in first. We were called base on the name of the dancers like..”Supporters of so and so.. here please”.

Here we are finally inside and we are directly in front of the stage. Or at least my sister and I. Min Li was standing right behind me. And woman charge your camera next time!! :P

Mervin, Tony, Giden, and Min Li.

I thought this pic was so cute hehe. My bro Lincoln, me, Nessa and Reuben.

By the way if you look at the live video on 8TV. I’m somewhere way in front of the crowd with my sister and Min Li trying to cover her face. haha… ish you can see my mouth go like.. “wo wo wo wo”.. lol

I have much to say but i’ll save that for another post on So You Think Can Dance Malaysia Season 2.

Splitting this in too a three part story. I’ll start off first with me getting to Singapore on Friday afternoon. I had bought a bus ticket from Aeroline online for RM164 for a return ticket from KL (Chorus Hotel) -> Singapore (Harbourfront Plaza). Mom and Nessa had sent me to Chorus Hotel which was the drop and pick up point for those heading down to Singapore. I have never been so happy to hear a traveling point that is close to home.

Getting there took about half an hour and thankfully no jam. I was hanging about at the Chorus hotel lounge to get my free coffee which came with the Aeroline ticket and grabbed meself a hotdog bun too, since I had zilch to eat that day. And was more worried about getting my documents right, my piano score right and getting my voice/head used to the lyrics for the audition the next day.

Before I go on, i have to say the Cab Comfort line is so cool! All i need to do if i need transport is just call the cab line 65521111. They actually remember where was the last stop off and the usual place you always get picked up from. Omg! So cool! It was so ‘comforting’ to hear “Press 1 for Mount Emily” or “Press 2 to be picked up in front of 84, Coronation Road”. I wish for the day that Malaysia has a cab system like that.

Now on to the story. Warning image heavy here, so please patience.

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And that was day two amazing.

Right so after the whole Singapore trip was basically to try for Wild Rice audition. Let’s have my breakdown on what happened that day.

That morning it took me a while to get out from bed, but I finally did and got there one hour early. The whole point of going for any audition early is to get yourself ready, wamr up the body, calm yourself, do some breathing exercises and so on so forth. But the minute I got there, I managed to only catch my breath for a moment, I signed up and next thing I know. Right after I handed my registration form to them they said ok *smile* you can go in now.

…

Hah?????

“But isn’t my appointment at 12pm?” I asked.

“Yeah it is but you can go in early.” The lady said.

Like whoa whoa whoa. I’m not ready, I’m not warmed up yet. I just got out of the cab, spent 15 minutes searching for the place and I JUST woke UP! hARLO!!…

That didn’t stop them though from opening the door into the audition room, which was were I met the person auditioning me. Really nice guy and of all things the song I picked - I had issues with it because I hadn’t tried it out on the piano prior to that. Thank goodness though I brought the minus one. Think I should’ve just stuck with “I Don’t Know How To Love Him” from Jesus Christ Superstar, rather than picking a new song. I picked Anastasia’s “Journey To The Past”.

On a nice note, he said that I had a nice voice, just that I had some pitching problems. At that time in the morning (ok it was 11am but i just woke up), I’m not surprise. He was nice enough to let me go through to the next stage which was to see me dance. The audition was for A Snow White pantomime done in hip hop style. I’m guessing that’s why they wanted the pop song.

So on to the dance phase, which was just next door and Thank The LORD there was water for the auditionees. The dance choreographer didn’t teach us the steps till they had at least 6 people. I was people number 3 so we waited for another 3 more people. When there were 6 of us, he started showing the steps and oh my gosh it was fast!!!! Actually according to my sports aerobics group, I should be able to handle but I’ve been out of practice.

We danced to Britney’s A Piece of Me and I will give it that she’s always had good dance numbers. It was 4 sets of 8 counts and each darn count had a step. Ai… and it wasn’t 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8 counting. Noo.. it was 1,2,3,4 and 5 and 6, 7,8….Joy, but great practice!

After learning the 32 steps in a span of 10 -12 minutes, he then called the same guy who auditioned me for the singing into the room. The choreographer mentioned that we didn’t have to get the steps, step for step, they were just looking to see how one moved to the music and attitude. Right! We so needed to get the steps right!

We were placed in two rows. Three on each. I was placed at the back first, see that red humongous dot.

We all got two chances to dance,

because doens’t matter where you were standing you’ll have to do it twice. I managed to get everything - so I thought - for the first two rounds, which was the ones I thought they were observing. All of a sudden, the choreographer said “Can we have the three girls again please, I wasn’t concentrating on them just now but more on the guys. So could you please come out and dance one more time.”

Needless to say that caught me off guard and I lost my focus at that point. Sigh. So for the third round, I really did screw up the steps and my counting, even if i did continue, like nothing had happened. The other two girls from what i saw at the corner of my eye, had the right counting (i think) and steps, yet they didn’t make it either for the second callback.

So lesson here: BE PREPARED FOR ANYTHING! Twice in a row I was caught off guard. I will say that I should have been prepared even before I got into the cab. Overall though it was a great experience, for me to see what was the difference between our KL auditions and with an international audition. Granted it’s not Australia or another more well established performing arts country. But it was a step and man was it FUN! That was a first time just jumping from the gun and going straight to a different country to try and audition.

But it was such an ouchie on my pocket..sniff. Plus I got to meet some really nice people and catch up with an old friend along the way. A trip very worth while.

Watch out for next year, i’ll improve!!!

A few days ago I was out for pretty much the whole afternoon onwards. Me, Mister G and his lil bro had gone to visit their Bro up in Universitr Utara Malaysia (UUM) located in some jungle in Kedah. The drive was about 2 hours from Penang and it was a rather slow drive. It didn’t help that it was starting to rain too.

We decided to make the trip cause well, Mister G and I haven’t really seen the Uni before. Furthermore, we went all the way up there to go go-karting.. hehe yeah. We took a 2 hour drive just to go for a short 45 minute go-kart.

Getting into that area meant we had to pass Alor Star, which was just filled with either some mad drivers on the road thrown in with some cows or goats wondering around the place. I was quite surprise to find that my gps on my phone actually did work! Needless to say though, because UUM is some really ulu (rural) area it couldn’t even detect a landmark close enough to it. All it showed me was a patch of green lol.

When we finally got there, I didn’t expect UUM to be so..well.. nicely done up - In certain areas that is. The landscape is gorgeous over there and probably one of the biggest unis I’ve seen to date. The biggest I’ve seen was UM then that got beaten by UKM.

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