So You Think You Can Dance Malaysia 2 - Top 20

5th June 2008

The show was telecast live from Ruums, KL and was compered by Aishah Sinclair. To judge the contestants were Ramli Ibrahim, Judimar Hernandez and Pat Ibrahim. The winner of this competition will 'dance' home with a RM50,000 cash prize and a scholarship from 8TV.

Last week the contestants had been paired off at random and had to perform a dance picked also at random. Luck can sometimes play a part in whether the contestants can proceed to the next round or not. The contestants who were paired off and the dances they had to perform were as follows:-

1) Black & Farah - Hip Hop

2) Ray & Cecilia - Mambo

3) Chee Wei & Samantha - Contemporary

4) Fairul & Zen - Hip Hop

5) Belalang & Jorida - Malaysian Contemporary

6) Hanafi & Sim - Viennese Waltz

7) Sly & Vivian - Argentine Tango

8) Billy & Zef - Street Jazz

9) Raymond & Jojo - Hip Hop

10) Hong & Sarah - Street Jazz

The best couple was couple number 5, Belalang and Jorida. While Belalang is a trained Malay traditional dancer, Jorida learned ballet during her younger days and is not well versed with contemporary dance. The couple however managed to pull it off with a beautiful rendition of the Malaysian traditional dance. The three judges -Ramli, Judimar and Pat were full of praises for them.

There was a tie for the worst dance performance - the Vienesse waltz danced by couple number 6, Hanafi & Sim and the Argentine tango performed by couple no 7, Sly & Vivian.

The Viennese waltz was not the standard Vienesse waltz danced with the natural turns, reverse turns and fleckerls.What was danced was a insipid watered-down version with the couple going round in circles and trying to catch up with the quick tempo of the dance. The couple struggled to dance one natural turn and one reverse turn and it looked very unnatural. Even Ramli remarked that the performance was a total flop!

The Argentine tango performance was a big let down. The couple tried to dance some figures like the ochos, ganchos and cruzadas but looked stilted and amateurish. Maybe to impress the judges, both of them even did handstands! A handstand figure in Argentine tango? Heaven forbid! This is sacrilegious! "No passion" and "tidak ada api (no fire)" were some of the comments made by Judimar and Pat.

At the end of the show the Bottom Four dancers were chosen by the judges. They were Billy, Vivian, Hanafi and Zen. All of them had thirty seconds to perform a "Dance For Survival' to ensure that they survive to the next round. After the sms votes were received and tabulated, two of them - Billy and Vivian were told they were going home.

We are now down to 9 couples. Next week another couple will be told to go home. Who will they be? Don't miss the next episode of 'So You Think You Can Dance Malaysia 2"

Warmest Regards,

Dance Aficionado