Dance Related « a look into a young reporter’s life

Posts filed under 'Dance Related'

Lindork’s Top 4 So You Think You Can Dance Season 5 Dancers!

June 4 2009.

Here’s a summary of four dancers in this year’s Top 20 who I think deserve the the public’s support and who will likely (I hope) make it far in the competition.

1. Kuponohi’ipoi Aweau (KUPONO)

Name: Kuponohi’ipoi Aweau
(pronounced: Kupono-hee-E-poi Avay-ow or “Kupono”)
Style: Contemporary/Lyrical
Age: 23
Audition City: Seattle
Hometown: Hawaii, HI

Bio: 23-year-old Pono Aweau started dancing in the 5th grade and has been doing it ever since. He has been a part of Hawaii’s popular 24-7 Dance Force as both student and dance instructor, and was also a dancer, dance captain, and in charge of wardrobe with the Norwegian Cruise Line in 2005. Along with dance, Pono does costume design, set design, decor and interior design. Auditioning in Seattle, Pono was praised for his strong movements, look, and quirkiness. During Vegas Week, Pono excelled in all style challenges, group challenges, and solos. (Note, this) article says Kupono started dancing at grade 5, but the Fox Blog bio here says at the age of 16).

Personal Opinion: Pono is a very interesting dancer with an extremely interesting “look.” He’s got this quality about him that is hard to ignore, especially when watching him dance. His moves are clean, he hits it hard, but at the same time has a very soft and fluid motion with his movements. I think he can really go far in this competition. I love his style of contemporary, I love his hip hop, I love his “quirkiness”, and he’s also got one other thing going for him that is both advantageous and a disadvantage and that is his connection to S4’s Mark Kanemura. Plus side – it’s pretty much a guarantee that all Mark fans are going to latch onto and support/vote for Pono, thus taking him far in the competition. Down side to that – it may be that he’s only “loved” or appreciated (at least at first) JUST because of his Mark connection. This could (and already has actually) lead into unfair Mark/Pono comparisons and Pono sort of dancing in Mark’s ’shadow’ to speak. Fans need to see that while there are smiliarities & while Mark & Pono are great friends and have danced together before, they’re two completely different people with two different styles. Pono should be given the opportunity to show America who he is and what he can do and fans should vote for him for him, not how much he may remind you of your Season 4 SYTYCD favourite.

That said, I love Pono. I think he’s got the technique, style, versatility, and personality to take him to the top. Emphasis on PERSONALITY! I love his personality!!! (The LISTS? Way cute. And I do that too. Lists for everything). I’m throwing my absolute support behind him and I can’t wait to see what he brings to the So You Think You Can Dance stage!

Go Pono!

Audition Clip:

Miss Hawaii USA Step Down Performance:

Pono did the above December 2008 performance’s wardrobe, concept, and set design. He’s also in it, the one with the black hat. Seen most clearly opposite Mark Kanemura at about 1:44 until the end of the video.

One way to Support:
Join the Kupono Aweau for So You Think You Can Dance Facebook Group.

2. Phillip Chbeeb

Name: Philip Chbeeb
(also known as “PacMan”)
Style: Hip Hop/Popping
Age: 20
Audition City: Los Angeles
Hometown: Los Angeles, California

Bio: Phillip “Pac Man” Chbeeb is a 20-year-old hip hop dancer and choreographer from Houston, Texas. Phillip pops, locks, break dances, and does underground and commercial hip hop. He first auditioned for SYTYCD back in 2007 (Season 3) and made it to Vegas. He auditioned again in 2008 (Season 4), and was also given a ticket to Vegas, but was unable to attend due to personal illness. The judges have praised him for having one of the “sickest” and unique hip hop, popping styles they’ve ever seen & that no one does what he does better than him. Last year Phillip hip hop “pop” battled Robert Muraine on the SYTYCD stage.

Personal Opinion: Phillip is incredible. He does things with his body that I’ve never seen before. He’s fantastic in his own style and he’s proved more than exceptional in other styles. After failing to make Top 20 for Season 3 and 4, I think this is the year for Phillip. He absolutely deserves to be on the show and he absolutely deserves to make it far in the competition. He’s shown so much growth since his first audition and his personality is so likeable. I think he’s got a great odds in making Top 4 this season. When he dances it’s hard to tear your eyes away and the fact that he’s auditioned twice before means he’s already got a well-established fanbase that’s only going to grow as the season progresses.

Season 5 Audition Clip with Arielle Coker:

Season 3 Audition | Season 4 Audition

“Fidelity” with Arielle Coker:

^ So freaking fantastic! Intricate, creative, beautiful!

One way to Support:
Become a Facebook Fan of Phillip.

3. Evan Kasprzak

Name: Evan Kasprzak
Style: Broadway/Jazz
Age: 21
Audition City: Memphis
Hometown: West Bloomfield, MI

Bio: Evan is a triple threat. He excels in dancing, acting, and singing. He first auditioned during Season 4 and made it through to the Vegas but didn’t make the Top 20 cut. He also starred in “After Hours“, a homage to dance sequences during the golden age of Hollywood musicals and has done many pieces choreographed by brother Ryan.

Personal Opinion: I think Evan is so good. His audition was so relaxed and gave me the same feeling I get when I watch Travis & Donyelle’s ‘Georgia on my Mind‘ performance (S2 <3) He seems versatile, he’s personable – his personality is fantastic! As well, his relationship with his brother is so incredible and it was absolutely heartbreaking that it had to be between him and Ryan. At this point I’m not sure how far Evan can go in the competition and I’m not sure how versatile he will actually be but I thought he was fantastic during the contemporary round of Vegas, which definitely showed his versatility, and I hope that continues throughout the season.

Audition Clip:

“After the Lights Go Down Low”:

One way to support:
Become a Facebook Fan of Evan.

^ The above choreography also by Evan’s brother Ryan.

4. Brandon Bryant.

Name: Brandon Bryant
Style: Contemporary
Age: 19
Audition City: Denver
Hometown: Miami, Florida

Bio: 19-year-old Brandon Bryant first auditioned for Season 4. Judges loved him and he was sent to Vegas where he made it to the very last stage, vying for the final Top 20 S4 spot with Gev Manoukian. This year his audition brought Mary to tears.

Personal Opinion: Brandon is a very strong dancer. He’s powerful, he’s technically sound, there is absolutely no doubt that he is good. His personality just may not translate as well to audiences. I think Brandon can go very far in this competition though and I hope that he does. He may fall into what last year’s Will Wingfield fell into however, very strong dances and very good performances, but an early exit. And for whatever reason, Mia seems to hate Brandon which isn’t going to help him but I thought he handled Mia’s comments very well, very smartly. I like his smile FYI.

Audition Clip:

Season 4 Audition Clip:

One way to support:
Join the Brandon Bryand for So You Think You Can Dance Champion Facebook Group.

Notable S5 Mentions:

Tony Bellissimo
Jason Glover
Jonathan Platero

Incredible dancers I will be supporting in future SYTYCD seasons:

Nathan Trasoras and Alex Wong for SYTYCD Season 6 (and/or) 7!

Conclusions:

I really don’t care about any of these girls at this point. This could be an issue as the girls are going to end up paired with either of these 4 favourite guys of mine. Also, Mia’s personal attack on Brandon was uncalled for and really unjustified. My early favourites are all of the male persuasion, as they are each season, but this year my disinterest in the girls is the most its ever been. I was devastated about Alex Wong. Absolutely. As well, I thought the actual episode tonight was pretty boring. Highlight – Pono’s lists. Heh.

Random information – SYTYCD performance shows used to tape on Monday’s, this year they appear to be taped on Tuesdays. (Probably due to Season 6 prepping coordination).

And here’s a list of the entire Top 20 So You Think You Can Dance Season 5:

1. Kuponohi’poi (Kupono) Aweau
2. Phillip Chbeeb
3. Evan Kasprzak
4. Brandon Bryant
5. Vitolio Jeune
6. Jonathan Platero
7. Tony Bellissimo
8. Maksim Kapitannikov
9. Ade Obayomi
10. Jason Glover
11. Janette Manrara
12. Kayla Radomski
13. Paris Torres
14. Jeanine Mason
15. Caitlin Kinney
16. Melissa Sandvig
17. Ashley Valerio
18. Randi Strong-Evans
19. Asuka Kondoh
20. Karla Garcia

So how about you? Are you liking the Top 20? Who are your early favourites? Who would you like to see paired up? Are you just as clueless about the girls as I am?!

Linda (:

18 comments June 5, 2009

The show that will, starting tomorrow, consume and define the next 3 months of my life.

May 20 2009.

So You Think You Can Dance.

My #1 summer show. The show that will, starting tomorrow, consume and define the next 3 months of my life. Okay maybe that’s a bit dramatic but it’s very important for me to stress how much of my time, energy, and emotion goes towards this show each summer.

This show is responsible for the two fansites that I created and painstakingly (well maybe not painstakingly, again being a bit dramatic here) maintain – even after the show/season is long over. This show introduced me to, in my opinion, two of the most talented and inspiring dancers, well, ever. Travis Wall (Season 2) and Mark Kanemura (Season 4).

Travis Wall, Season 2.

I don’t dance. I mean, I have taken a few dance classes and I really wish I could be a better dancer, a good dancer, but while I don’t label myself as a dancer, I strongly insist that I am in love with dance and that I am in love with dancers. I love it. I love them. I love watching them. I’m moved, inspired, and impressed by dancers. By dance. I think what I absolutely love the most about So You Think You Can Dance, is that the dancers are just regular people. They’re just normal, regular people, trying to make it as a dancer. And this show is a wonderful platform for that, and for incredible pieces, art, movement to be brought to a national stage, weekly.

Mark Kanemura. Season 4.

It brings these regular people who are so passionate about what they do, into the living rooms of you and I. And they spark something in us, in me, in the thousands of viewers each week. To watch them grow, to watch them become even better each week. To watch them become household names and see them pushed hard, performing their hearts out. This show, the dancers, and the love I felt for it and them, made me find ways to vote for my favourite dancers each week despite the fact that I’m from Canada and it’s an American show that Canadians technically should not be allowed to participate in. (Is that cheating?) I was dedicated. I was obsessed. It was time consuming, but I loved it. I love it.

I’m what you would call the above-average SYTYCD viewer. There’s actually a lot of us. We are the ones that watch the show, go online, discuss, examine, theorize, search for video clips and pictures from the show, background information on the dancers, create graphics and fan-made montage videos dedicated to the dancers, defend the dancers, critique the choreography, the judges, look for signs of results-rigging and agenda-planning by the producers (it’s not paranoia, no reality television show is without interference from administration). And all of this takes us to the next week’s episode. We cry, we laugh, we get into bitter arguments and cry out exasperatedly about what should have or shouldn’t have happened in the past week’s episode. You know those Youtube clips that ‘infringe’ and get taken off the site all the time? We’re probably the ones who are putting them up. Providing videos of dances that others like ourselves, go online to try and find after seeing it performed on TV, because we NEED to see it again and again and again. That’s us. That’s me. Oh, and then you get the real crazies who even go as far as making fansites for the dancers.

People always ask how me how I have the time to invest in this show. People actually often ask how I have the time to do a lot of the stuff I do online. And my response is always the same. I make the time for it. I find the time for it because it’s important to me. <3

Anyway, as I've said. The show starts again tomorrow. Season 5. I was really disappointed with the winner last season (and a lot of obvious rigging and favouritism by the judges last season, but I won't get into that now..), but I have high hopes for this one!

And as for fansites for dancers like the ones I have for Travis and Mark, TW-O & MK-O, I’ve decided those 2 are it for me. The more I make, the less special the ones I already have are, you know? And I don’t want those two to be any less special in my eyes because they truly are incredible.

Also, I’m going to see if I can try to use this season to hone my entertainment/reality-TV writing. I’m thinking weekly blogs? I’m always totally jealous of the The Edmonton Sun’s Lindsey Ward for her sweet gig writing about reality shows each week!

Now I leave you with FOX’s official Season 5 preview:

( Mark is shown several times in the preview.

)

2 comments May 20, 2009

STOMP out hunger (Article)

Hi everyone!

Since I am extremely interested in dance as a whole, I make an extra effort to come on here to post up any dance-related stories I write so this is a story I wrote for the school paper this week about STOMP in the city, helping out the Edmonton Food Bank in their “STOMP Out Hunger” campaign. To be fair STOMP is I guess more musical than it is dance but it still has several elements of dance and movement so it definitely counts!

I was kind of bummed I hadn’t brought my digital camera with me because I’d love to have filmed their impromptu performance and also get a fangirly-type photo with them because, well, I can’t turn away a photo op with performers!

Anyway here is the article including a photo I took of one of the STOMPers, John Angeles:

STOMPing out hunger

Hitting ceramic bowls. Shaking macaroni and cheese boxes up and down. Slapping an empty paint can. Slamming drum sticks onto the bottom of a flipped-over trash can.

Members from the international percussion sensation STOMP used all of these and more to create an improvised musical show at Edmonton’s Food Bank Tuesday as part of their STOMP out Hunger campaign.

“They wanted to collect food and money at all of their performances to help out as they were in the community,” said Marjorie Bencz, executive director of the Food Bank. “They’re encouraging people to come to their performances and bring a loonie or a toonie or a can of food.”

A few STOMPers performed an impromptu musical piece for volunteers using items found in the food bank’s warehouse. They then spent a part of the day volunteering by sorting food.

“This is like a day in the park for us. We just have a lot of fun,” STOMPer John Angeles said. “It’s such a good feeling to do something to help out.”

The brief performance, which received cheers and applause from food bank volunteers, was just a sample of what STOMP is doing during their Jan. 20-25 run in Edmonton.

STOMP uses trash like plastic bags, plungers, boots, broomsticks and hubcaps – everything except real instruments – to create an exciting and interactive musical production.

“They’re just fabulous. For me, I see a can of food, I see a box of macaroni and cheese, I don’t see it as something to be creative with as they do, so it’s really inspiring,” Bencz said.

She said STOMP Out Hunger is important as it helps highlight the food bank’s need for donations year-round.

“Our needs are throughout the year,” she said.

“We have people who are experiencing poverty throughout the year so it’s important for us to create awareness at various points throughout the year.”

What started as a street performance in Europe 14 years ago, STOMP is now an internationally acclaimed, award-winning show that has been performed in over 350 cities in 36 countries worldwide.

STOMPers can create music out of practically everything.

“Absolutely anything can be made into an instrument,” said Nicholas Young, who has been touring with STOMP for six years. “With STOMP, you walk around and start to learn what things really produce a good tone and the best way to get that tone.”

“I found a paint can here that works great as a hand drum,” he said.

STOMP performs at the Northern Jubilee Auditorium until Sunday.

Here’s a video of their performance and some quick excerpts from John Angeles from the Edmonton Journal’s site:

STOMP OUT HUNGER!

Megan Lawson – Dance Crew Star originally from Alberta (Article)

Hi everyone!

I had meant to post this earlier but I hadn’t gotten around to it until now.

While I included this story I wrote in my list of stories I wrote during my internship with the Edmonton Journal over winter break, technically this story was written before I actually started my internship so it was technically a freelance job I did for the Journal.

This story is right up at the top of the list of stories I’ve written that I’ve absolutely LOVED interviewing for and writing up and clipping out the final version.

It’s an article about Megan Lawson, a 23-year-old dancer originally from Calgary, Alberta, who moved to Los Angeles to pursue dancing. She wasn’t there long until she became a part of the very talented and very popular dance crew “Fanny Pak”, competing with the crew on season 2 of America’s Best Dance Crew.

I absolutely loved talking to Megan, she is an amazing person and a brilliant dancer, and I absolutely loved writing up a story about a dancer whose been on an extremely popular television show that I watch!

Reporters will always talk and reflect on who some of their best interviews were with and when I talk about mine I will say that early on, while I was still in school, I got a chance to interview this incredible dancer from Fanny Pak and it ended up being the first article I ever got published in the Edmonton Journal!

So again the link to it from the paper (online version) is here: HERE!

And here it is for this blog’s sake:

Dance Crew star returns to Alberta
Calgary woman a hit on reality TV

An Alberta dancer from the popular U.S. dance crew Fanny Pak is performing Thursday as the hit MTV show America’s Best Dance Crew brings its live tour to Edmonton.

Megan Lawson, 23, who grew up in Calgary, will be back in Alberta after a week of performing and meeting fans in cities across Canada, and after finishing a 25-city live tour across the U.S. last month. The tour show includes Lawson’s Fanny Pak, along with three other top crews from the show’s second season. Several Edmonton dance crews will also perform as openers.

“I’m so excited. We’re doing new stuff. … It’s going to be awesome,” Lawson said. “We’ll do a few pieces that we did on the show so people can get excited for that, but for our own sanity we had to do some new stuff.”

Lawson, who trained in tap, jazz, ballet, contemporary and hip-hop, left Alberta only a year and a half ago to go to Los Angeles to pursue a dance career. She calls L.A. the “epicentre of the dance industry.”

As a Canadian dancer, she felt the need to work even harder to make it in L.A.

“Because there is so much competition, it’s very easy to get discouraged. You try not to compare yourself to others. You’ve got to keep going no matter what.”

Lawson shot to stardom this past summer when she and six of her friends formed Fanny Pak to compete on the reality TV dance show America’s Best Dance Crew. She is the only Canadian in the crew.

Fanny Pak was praised each week for their innovative and creative dance style and routines. They garnered legions of supportive fans, and were crowned the third best dance crew.

“I’m doing everything that I had hoped to do coming here (to L.A.), performing, travelling … . It’s so much better than what I ever expected in such a short time. That’s the power of TV. It’s so crazy.”

Now that Lawson has achieved success as a dancer, she hopes to inspire more Canadian dancers to break out of their comfort zone and try to make it in the industry.

“There are actually a lot of Canadian dancers in L.A. but not nearly enough because they say it’s a struggle. It’s expensive. I hope to inspire people to come, to know that it is possible to make dance a career and make something of it, whatever it be — in music videos or tours or movies, commercials, or in a random dance crew.”

Lawson said choreographers and other dancers in L.A. often comment on how talented the Canadians are. “That’s probably because the ones who really want it are the ones who make it out (here) — the ones who are fighting for it.”

Lawson said Fanny Pak sneakers will be released at the end of the month. A Fanny Pak clothing line is also on its way, along with more touring plans and maybe another TV gig.

“We’re going to try hopefully to do a tour of Europe and a tour of Asia with a few of the other crews,” she said. And what’s next beyond that? More dancing, teaching and performing, but Lawson doesn’t like to plan too much.

“You never want to make plans because they always change. You’ve just got to go with the flow.”

DANCE PREVIEW

Best Dance Crew Tour
Crews: Fanny Pak, Sup3r Crew, Supreme Soul, SoReal Cru
When: Thursday at 8 p.m.
Where: Edmonton Event Centre, 8882 170th St.
Tickets: $41.95 plus surcharges through Ticketmaster,
780-451-8000

As a side note, I went to the ABDC show and met Megan and Matt Cady (also from the crew) afterwards, here are some shots from the show (the actual performance photos are shoddy quality because I actually just screencaptured them from the video I took):

Me with Matt & Megan
Fanny Pak, December 18 2008

All in all, it was a great experience and I’d do it all again in a heartbeat!

Also, can you tell yet that I love dancers, dancing, writing about, watching, and listening to people talk about dance?

Linda

Add comment January 14, 2009

My So You Think You Can Dance Canada Article

Hey everyone! It has definitely been awhile since my last post. I returned to school a few days after the last post on here and I’ve been crazy busy ever since. I wrote for the school paper very briefly – the first two weeks/issues, then I stopped because school assignments started picking up and my fansite (http://markkanemura-online.org) started taking up a lot of my extra time! (still does).

I am back to post the latest article I wrote. It was the second assignment for my Reporting III class. It’s written in an ‘hourglass’ format and I’m actaully really happy with how it turned out.

It’s a story about two girls who auditioned for So You Think You Can Dance Canada and just a story about their story. I had SO much fun talking to them – Lindsay Eales & Harmanie Shairp – it was one of the best interviews I’d ever done. Really comfortable, really interesting, and we were all American SYTYCD fans so we started off the conversation and ended the conversation just talking about the season that had just ended and who our favourite dancers were and it was just a really, really great experience. I’ve made new friends out of it and I’m just so excited to tell their story! (This article is going to be printed in our program’s newspaper)

This is their audition clip followed by the story I wrote. We’ll see how well it gets graded…

A local pair of inspirational dancers brought out tears and applause from judges and the audience during the Calgary auditions for So You Think You Can Dance Canada last month.

A current University of Alberta student, Lindsay Eales, and a Grant MacEwan College graduate, Harmanie Shairp, travelled three hours to audition for the dance reality show So You Think You Can Dance Canada (SYTYCD) back in May, but they weren’t auditioning to get to the final rounds of the show—instead, they had a bigger, different goal in mind.

Shairp has the most severe form of spina bifida, a birth defect where spinal nerves are damaged and paralysis in the legs occur, causing her to rely on a wheelchair in order to get around.

In short, Shairp can’t walk. But, she can dance.

“If you have a heartbeat, you have a rhythm, and if you have a rhythm, you can dance,” Shairp had said during her audition. “I want to challenge each and every body individually to challenge [themselves] to dance with somebody who [they] don’t think is maybe perfect in a dancer way – just give them a chance.”

“[We auditioned] because we hoped that we could challenge dancers in their ideas of what a dancer looks like, what a dancer moves like, what it means to be dancing, and [break] down barriers for people with [or] without disabilities,” Eales said. “I had said to the audience, ‘All of you dancers here, if you could go home to your dance studios and open up one class at each studio for people with disabilities, we could totally change dance [and] change the people who have access to dance.’”

The pair didn’t make it to the next round of the show, but they said they found the success they were looking for anyways, after one of the judges, Tre Armstrong, told the two that she was so inspired by what they did and what they had to say, that she was going to go home to her studio and start “integrated dancing” there.

Shairp began “integrated dancing” in her wheelchair in September 2006, when she first met Eales.

Eales, who had been dancing since she was ten years old, decided to do an independent study in dance on ability and disability back in 2006.

She recruited five volunteer dancers from the University of Alberta’s Orchesis dance group, then found Shairp and another wheelchair user who was interested in dance, through the U of A’s Steadward Centre, a centre for physical activity for people with disabilities.

“We went through a process where there was a lot of talking, bonding, dancing, and building a really safe environment for people to explore and push their personal boundaries,” Eales said. “Over time we came to a fabulous piece and the way it changed people’s perceptions about ability and disability and what they think people can and can’t do and even their idea of what a disability is, was astounding.”

Eales, Shairp, and their dance group performed their piece at Orchesis’s dance concert in January 2007.

Ever since their performance in 2007, Eales and Shairp have been trying to promote integrated dancing, wheelchair dancing, and dancing with any kind of disability.

Shairp said that when she was in the first grade, she had wanted to learn how to dance like a ballerina, but her mother had told her they couldn’t afford dance classes.

“What actually happened was the dance teacher told my mom that I would hold everyone back [because of my disability], so she wouldn’t teach me,” Shairp said.

She says dancing with Eales and learning how to dance in a wheelchair changed her life and she hopes that by spreading the message that people in wheelchairs can dance and be danced with, what happened to her as a child won’t happen to anyone else in the future.

“The ultimate idea is that there is some little girl in some town that is going to be able to take that ballet class because her teacher isn’t afraid to include her,” said Eales.

“And she’s not afraid to ask to be included,” Shairp added.

Since auditioning for SYTYCD, the two have received a lot of attention from newspapers and TV stations, as well as being offered opportunities to dance and talk about integrated dancing at different dance showcases.

Eventually, Eales said, the pair wants to see integrated dancing become a normal, natural, everyday occurrence.

Eales and Shairp are performing for Orchesis’s 2009 concert Jan. 23 and 24.

Lindsay Eales & Harmanie Shairp. Photo by Linda Hoang. Oct.1.2008

There’s so many wonderful things that they told me that I wish I could have just written it all in the article though. It’s really great what they are doing and what they’ve done so far and I really believe that they’re going to change dance – and that their audition has already put the change in motion.

As I said, I am really happy with how it turned out and I hope my Reporting III professor (who is brand new this year and he’s been great so far!) likes reading it as much as I liked writing it.

Hopefully I post a blog again sometime soon,

Linda

2 comments October 6, 2008

a look into a young reporter’s life

Posts filed under 'Dance Related'

Archives

Blogs I Frequent

Linda Hoang's Network

My Friend's Blogs

Categories

Recent Posts

My Twitter Feed

Pages

December 2009
M	T	W	T	F	S	S
« Nov
	1	2	3	4	5	6
7	8	9	10	11	12	13
14	15	16	17	18	19	20
21	22	23	24	25	26	27
28	29	30	31