So You Think You Can Dance

Have you ever heard of the Tiong Hua Dance Festival? If you have not, let me explain. It's actually a dance competition organised by the Anxi Association of Selangor and Kuala Lumpur. For 21 years, they invited various primary schools, secondary schools and dance troupes to take part. This year, it was held at the HGH Convention Center in Sentul. Of the 3 days, I attended the second day, which was dedicated to the secondary school category. 13 Chinese schools participated with 1 absentee. I was quite impressed with the performances. Most had good costume and music, but some of the choreography sucked. Actually, I was expecting traditional dance, but contemporary and modern dance influences had a big showing that night. I guess after 21 years, everyone wanted to try something new to get the judges' attention.

My favourite was the second contestant, a school from Petalig Jaya. The music was haunting and the costumes were ghostly and wispy. The dancers seemed like the were gliding across the stage.The first part of their routine started out normal. Towards the second half, they had gradually slipped into a frenzy of epileptic movements ala Madonna's "Nothing Really Matters" music video. It was superb. Some others were yawn-worthy. Some were downright annoying due to monotony and bad score selection. A boys' school tried to do something reminiscent of Hands Percussion, but kinda failed because their movements were erratic and their energy not focused. The worse was co-ed school who had the guys flailing around with giant bat wings. Talk about lame. Another boys school did a rendition of "Stomp" and failed miserably. They were too worried about losing their deposit for damaging the stage I guess.

I don't know who won in the end as I didn't stick around for the tally. But perhaps I sould have. One of the judges did get me 'dar pinging. Hehe...