The 'diversity' show

It's the first time that I participated in the Colorado Springs Cultural Diversity show. I did not know that there would be a big crowd and a floating crowd of around 5000...Booths, volunteers, performers, kids - it looked like a festival. Car parking was not at all easy although I went with my co-participants in one of their cars. When we entered, there was some African dance that was going on. Then there was a song by a very small girl. Once that got over, it was the Indian community's turn which started with a classical Bharatanatyam dance by kids. Believe me, although there were performers from different countries, with the outfits and the expressions, the Indian community performance stole the show. After the Bharatanatyam performance, there was a 'Krishna Jayanthi' dance by high school kids. They looked charming and so as their dance with the bamboo attempt. Then came our performance for 'Jai Ho'. It always happens to me that my heart pounds fast till I enter the stage but once I enter, I dont know where I will get the energy and excitement. I did forget one step and did something else but people said it was not noticeable and we were the only ones on the entire show who got 2 rounds of applause :) This is the first time I put a thilak on my forehead to depict 'Jai ho' and I loved it. After our performance, there were lots of other performances but I loved two of them - One is the ballet dance and the Taekwando show by the US group. It was amazing! Overall, I enjoyed performing as well as watching others perform. A good experience!!!

'Dance' season...

It's been more than 6 months since I danced and now it's the season. Starting with a diversity show and then Diwali and much more on the cards :) Although I am not a great dancer and been doing the same styles so far, it was quite a surprise when I got introduced to salsa and hiphop steps during the practise yesterday...I was trying hard to get into the groove :) It's for a fusion of 'Jai ho' which has both the Hindi and English mix. Before I put efforts to remember the steps, this has been my strategy - Listening to the song as many times as I can which would help me to tune myself to the step...And dancing is a great workout...See, I've got a good reason to dance :) Let's see how it goes...

A breakthrough act...

This is one of the best dances that I have seen in the recent times. This one is by 'Strikers - All stars' for America's best dance crew which caught my attention while I was flipping through channels and saw Randy Jackson elaborating on the finest performances so far. The challenge was to perform 'Gimme more' of Britney Spears' with a mirror. Those guys did a fantastic job especially when they had to and break away from sides and finally a 'clinging' moment...

After watching few perfomances tonight, I have planned to watch the new episode that is about to start from next Sunday.

Watch this now :)

M(V)acchan, Mix 'n' Match

The post title is from a latest song of the film 'Silambattam' and that's from the voice of Maestro. As before, I do not watch dance shows like UYAPrabhudeva, Jodi #1, Ma..Mayilada and the rest..nowadays. But I got this video from one of my friends and I wanted to post a blog about it. After I watched the dance video, I did watch the original video song from the film. IMHO, the song's visual clipping with a blend of Simbu's lip movements to the song and Maestro's voice did not jinx well. A good song to listen, though :) Coming to the dance show video, the significant point to be noted is the free flow of the dance...It was awesome. The girl in particular, had the most flexible movements in the whole dance. There was no full stop...It was a continuous flow is what I felt. And the neck twisting on sides first and then falling down and getting up on the other side by the girl - It's not easy without practise...The dance bit by another guy in between - I felt it was not necessary and it did not have 'the worth watching' tag either. If I had to give a positive word of mouth about this dance on the show, it would be only an applause to Sai Pallavi, the girl who danced with so much flexibility.

And now for the mix n match part:
I did not know how to do this but suddenly an idea striked my mind and I mixed this song's audio and the video from one of the 90's movie song (the so called slow motion song) - Malliga mottu manasa thottu. I thought that it was well synched when I muted the video song Malliga Mottu(Sakthivel) and played the song with the verses from Vacchan (Silambattam), I ended up with laughs. If I knew the technique of mixing the audio/video stream, I would have posted the video here :(

Go for the other two videos here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cmgPUPS8T9U
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lWzgjstlRlQ&feature=related

Ha..ha..ha...

I got the CD of my group dance at the Diwali show with the local folks here. It was unusual that I was not excited to watch it. Usually, I will be on all highs when I get to watch all these stuff. But later I realised that it was good that I was not. I did watch it today evening and ended up laughing all the way through. The reason being it looked like we all danced in a fast forward mode and at times, it looked like I was trying to fight with someone. I couldn't focus on anyone in particular bcoz it looked that everyone was dancing in a haste. And I felt that I came like 'Vaama minnal' comdey girl in the entire dance video...Hilarious :) I guess whoever captured the video did it in a great angle that a dance show ended as a comedy show in the video (according to me) but I have to thank that person for taking the video. I will see if I could upload it in Youtube and give you all the feel of 'Laugh n Laugh!'.

Deadly Critic...

If I remember correctly, the number of times that I have criticized on anyone or anyone's work is very less. Even though I feel like criticising sometimes, I just let it go and leave it as it is. But for the past few days, I am so into this mood after watching few shows.

1. I watched the prize ceremony of the show Maanada Mayilada. When great dancers like Suchi Bala and Lokesh had to bag the third prize and innovative athma like Gokul and Kavi had to get out without anything, I was so shocked to see the comedians Aarthi and Ganesh bagging the second prize. I admit that they are good at comedy but this was a dance show. They hardly danced in most of the episodes and all they did was a funny performance to enlighten audience. IMHO, this in turn will degrade the other dancers morale. I am totally against this judgement.
2. The famous on-going criticisms againt Raginishree, the popular singer of Super singer. When it comes to performance, people should accept critisicms as how they do for favoritisms. There were few singers who were really good but had to be out of the show when they did not perform well in a particular episode. But this lady has been given chances repeatedly irrespective of her poor performances.
3. The most recent one is on the Jodi# 1 semifinals where Tinku and Santhoshi did exceedingly bad :) but judges admitted them to the next round after some kasa musa talk among this TS jodi and the judges. Similar kind of great showmanship was shown between Simbu and Prithivi last time and this time it's TS jodi's turn.

I wish the performers in #2 and #3 get out of the show soon since they do not deserve it. But if they go beyond the next rounds, it's either luck or their hardwork to come out well. Lets wait n see...

Morph...

Kambli came and did a Kuthu
Irfan came and stood shy
Nikhil came and acted
Bhajji came and did a Bhangra
Sreesanth came and did it casually
Dinesh came and rocked

I watched it yesterday. Seeing these cricketers in a different form is not so interesting. It started it in the first show itself where they had difference of opinion. Poor gals...They were so great in dancing and looked good; And it has become a fashion nowadays that people doing without any reluctance in front of a big crowd...Bhajji did to SSen yday; Sangeetha did to Sanjay in other show; Rakhi did to Salman in DKD; What was that? Newspapers claim it as a proposal...And I am like, Pls..grow up!

Cricket Vs Dance

'Ek Khiladi Ek haseena' - I just saw this TV show promo in youtube. This show is about to be premiered in Colors TV (I did not know that there was one such existing) from Sept 26. It will be aired on Fridays & Saturdays at 9 P.M IST. What a combo to anchor - Wasim Akram and Sushmita Sen. And the six teams comprises of Sreesanth with Surveen Chawla, Harbhajan Singh with Mona Singh, Irfan Pathan with Ashima Bhalla, Dinesh Karthik with Nigar Khan, Nikhil Chopra with Barkha Bisht and Vinod Kambli with Shama Sikander. I don't know any of the lady pairs here except Ashima since she acted in a Tamil film with our PK Vijayakanth. As Sreesanth is a good dancer, it will be good to watch him performing here. But I am curious to watch one man here - Irfan Pathan as I am a great fan of him. Irfy, will you serve swingers in your dance too? ;) With a passion for cricket and dance, I am not going to miss this show. And here is the youtube promo video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9V6ewCpKWns

Performances...

I don't know what should I call this as! Last week, I wrote a post about Maanada Mayilada dance show where I mentioned about Lokesh - my favourite contestant to emerge as the best performer. And he has got the best performer award this week :) That was an unanimous decision. And he deserves it.

Watched Super Singer show and was dumbstuck to see so many good singers in Chennai zone alone. My judging capabilities has grown so intense that I can say whether the person would be selected by just listening to the beginning lines and the shruthi that matches it. I was almost right in every contestant's try. And my favourite performer cum singer MKB is a contestant again in SS this year. I am hoping that he will atleast come till the final level this year. His forte is his performing attitude...

Keeping fingers crossed XXX...

Maanada Mayilada...

Having a passion for dance, I did not leave this show too...Have been consistently watching the show since the day of its inception this year. When I started watching the first show, I was like 'Whatz this title - Maanada Mayilada? Kevalama irukumnu nenaikiren' - This is what I told my roomie. Later, my interest in watching the show increased because of the theme and the variety the contestants show. 2 hours easily passes away...Today is one another day like that...I was totally engrossed in watching the Celebration round.

Although most of them dance well, I have my set of favourite contestants for different reasons. Among the male contestants, my vote goes to Lokesh. Being consistent in expression, attitude and dance (of course :)), he deserves to get the best performer award. He humbly accepts whatever comments are given by the judges. Among the female contestants, my vote goes to Priyadharshini. What a delicate dancer she is - To be frank, I used to think - Indha nelivu sulivellam epdi ivlo easya varudhu? ;) She never overreacts or over express herself...I like that :) Apart from all these, I should confess one thing that I am a fan of dancer Bala...:)) Whenever me and my roomie watch the show together and Bala appears on the stage, my roomie used to say - 'Ungaalu vandhachu' for which my response would be a smile with a full stop....:))

I miss my dance :((