Wednesday, February 21, 2007

Dhool Finals

So, there we have it. The build up to the finals of the reality show-esque [at least that's what they said] dance competition, Dhool.

The final 8 groups who will compete for the $10,000 cash prize and other supplementary prizes:

ACID HOUZ - hot favourites, have all their competitors on their toes

TRIDIAC - seem to only reign over the Hip Hop genre.

STEPZ - Loved their quarter final dance

DIVERSITY - Riding on the "Female" wave.

KALI DANCERS - Announced publicly that they take their cue from their "guru" who does the marjority of their choreography

NUS VIDIYAL - Said to be the most original of them all. Specialize in throwing the women around and acrobatics. Have history [past NUS groups] to live up to.

ANARCHY 99 - aka Movesh. Much experience on the variety show telly scene. Angel outfits were surprisingly pleasing.

BORDERZ 1:59 - rank up there together with Acidhouz. Left to be seen how the titans battle it out.

While you await the live telecast, be it at the studios or on your couch, let's have a go at what we thought of the programme. This time around, unlike a shoddy beauty pageant aired not too long ago, our coverage was very limited. See, Sundays are not stay at home days for the KLKillahs. We have social lives too. We need to play our footy too. And 6.30 on a Sunday is much more suited to aging housewives, aged senior citizens and little runts who didn't get permission to go down and play.

Analysis

1. Reality Show Angle

Why is the reality show bug suddenly hitting all Yindian produced programmes. The website indicates a column of the "Latest Rumours". They make the judges and ousted groups face off. The groups of course go one up in true Yindian fashion. Just take a look at their Friendster profiles and the underground rumours and bitching going around.

2. The Layout

So, all in all, there were 3 dances each group did to get this far. One for the auditions, one for the quarters, one for the semis. Instead of testing the ability of all the dance-phytes across various dance styles and genres, in each episode, they were first allowed to put up something of their choice. Well, when you leave human beings in a competition and give them free play, they are definitely going to perform something to their strengths. Something of familiarity. Something they've done so many times, it's second nature. How then do you do a comparison? I only caught the episode where all groups were asked to do a village style dance. It was quite obvious to one of the judges there that most of them didn't know what the hell to do. How about ballroom dancing? That would have been a colonial hoot.

3. The Criteria

I think it's pretty fashionable these days to just let your judging criteria evolve over the course of the competition. I mean, is there no structure? Where all groups have equal knowledge on what categories and criteria they can rack up the points in? This is in contrast to getting chided for irrelevant props, garishly neon costumes, non-ability to transcend through different music and dance types. Weren't they all told? That these were sumsort what would take them through the competition? Or did everyone just go in blind?

For a more personal take on this competition, keling kween defends her NUS Vidiyal HERE.