Faye
Listening to all these old Faye Wong songs on a mystery person’s iTunes playlist on the School LAN brings back all those old memories – the queen of chinese pop can really sing, some of the recordings are from her live concert, airy but perfect. I wish she’ll release another album soon, or has she really permanently retired…. She probably has enough moolah to do so anyway.
B/urn the F/loor was not as good as the DVD – I’m not saying its bad; the performers were exuberant and when you have 30 passionate, sexy, exuberant dancers onstage giving their all to the audience – you can’t help but be awed and impressed. However, I’ve watched the DVD at least 3 times over prior to this franchised showing, and you know first impressions are always the most lasting – the show on Saturday had good dancers, but not as powerful duos with solos. On the DVD it looks like the couples were really battling to outdance each other, and their routines in their individual solo bits really get wilder and wilder. Well, in the franchised version that came to Singapore, the solos lacked bite – they looked great together though, but when it came to solos, the tricks were a bit stilted.
It definitely was better than expected I must say. When I entered the hall for the first time I was totally disappointed with the stage (which was like a ¼ the depth of the DVD) and DIDN’t extend out to the audience like the original staging. Thankfully, the curtains parted to reveal another half of the stage, but it was still short of half. For the costumes bit, according to memory, only the very last item was really authentic, some of them were new, and even those they brought in were in limited pieces (3 or 4 sets instead of the original 10 sets etc.). I remember the stunning lit up skirts in the waltz piece from the DVD – those were sorely missed, so was the costumes from the whole matador section they snipped out to accommodate the vocalist – Angela Teek, who did a fine job I must say.
I’m so glad S/o y/ou t/hink y/ou can d/ance! Has finally got to the meat of the performance! Finally! After last week’s episode where they spent totally just recapping the previous episodes and eliminating contestants, and totally trying my patience. Blake was truly truly truly stunning, his turns were so perfect, and he nailed them so beautifully I cry out everytime he executes them… haha so drama right? He made his dancer – who herself was a decent dancer, look bad.
And Channel 5, please STOP calling Jive “Lindy Hop” in your promotional trailers! Lindy Hop is Lindy Hop, Jive is Jive, they can’t possibly be any more different than each other. Stop using Lindy Hop just so you can say “from lindy hop to hip hop….” Hahaha, it’s an insult to all lindy hoppers and ballroom jive dancers everywhere – and also quite embarrassing.
Clocked 2 SIFF movies this weekend, of which the Giant Buddhas was well worth the 11am early wake up torture. It definitely deserves to be seen by more people, and should deserve a general release. I love the way C/hristian F/rier structures his documentaries. Like War Photographer, he never fails to bring the story back to the human aspect of the story. He reminded us very cleverly in Giant Buddhas that the destruction was most importantly an erasure of memory, not dignity, not culture. I like also the way he paces the film in such a way that constantly sways the audience’s stand – before I went in I felt strongly that the Buddhas should be preserved, or at least reconstructed for a memorial, during it, my opinions fluctuated, and at the end I think they should just leave the Buddhas as such.
