So You Think You Can Dance

So You Think You Can Dance Malaysia Season 2 has finally wrapped up on the 1st August 2008 after months of auditions and live shows. A new star is born (congrats to CC who happens to be my housemate :)and the season ended with a bang. I feel very honored to have been part of the top 20 contestants of the show this year but in many ways, I am also relieved that its over and it is now time to move on and search for new directions and priorities in life.

My appearance on the show was brief as I was most unfortunately, the first female contestant eliminated. Luck truly was not on my side when my partner pulled Tango out of the hat for our genre for the first week. My forte is in Ballet/Contemporary/Jazz/Lyrical/Gymnastics and I have also been trained in Salsa/Street Latin/Street Jazz and Hip Hop. Anything from the ballroom genre would have been my kryptonite and it so happened that I picked Tango when my partner and I had not even established a close connection. The differences in our physique probably even made the whole performance agonizing to watch. I accept my defeat as the performance was severely passionless, void and clumsy even.

I was devastated when I left the show. I thought I'd never be happy again. For the past two years, the only thing that kept me going in life was the hope of making it to the top 20 and I did, but it ended even before it had really sunk in. I was crushed and sad at first to leave the show and the rest then I was disappointed that I did not get to work with any of the choreographers I had been hoping to work with and that I did not get to show Malaysia what I am capable of. And after feelings of sadness and disappointment subsided, I started feeling angry at myself for screwing the best thing that has ever happened to me then I started feeling angry at everything (the music, the choreography, the audiences, the judges, the producers, the costume etc), then I started feeling guilty for being angry. And after all the emotional roller coaster which all took place within two weeks, I woke up one day and it was like poof, I went back to being normal and happy again, as if none of these has ever happened.

It has been an experience for sure. There have been ups and downs. I can't articulate the whole of my experience on the show in a blogpost. I would not say it was the most amazing experience ever nor was it a bad experience, but it was an experience and I am just grateful to have had this chapter in my life.

I count my blessings, do you?

I am overwhelmed with gratitude. I look at my legs. There are scars, bruises (I get fresh ones every few days from the way I dance, the latest was from having pirouetted into the wall due to space confinement ), stubs (for I havent bothered with the shaving and waxing lately) and what nots. My calves are humongous  My legs are ugly and I have never been and never will be a leggy lass.

But I love them with all my might although they are not aesthetically pleasing. I love them because I am able to walk and God bless, dance. I can dance, dance and dance all night because of them. If writing was Marquis De Sade's constant erection, as proclaimed by his honorable self, then dancing is my perpetual mind orgasm in life.

I love the scars and bruises on my legs because a story lies behind each and every one of it. I love them because they are testimony to a fiery and nonperishable passion. I love my body simply because it materializes my piteous existence into perspective albeit a dust in the vast cosmos. I love my body simply because. And, this is not another narcissistic indulgence.

The Breakthrough

I think I just experienced my first major breakthrough in dance. I performed a solo contemporary dance two nights ago (a very Mia Michaels inspired routine) choreographed to Imogen Heap's The Moment I Said It. There I was dancing and all of a sudden, I felt a surge of internal energy and focus I never knew I had in me and I imploded. I was on fire and I was dance, dance was me. I was a tiny speck of dust in a sandstorm, I was free falling, I was spiraling out of control yet I was at the eye of a cyclone. I think I even had an out of body experience.

I could hear the eerie music but it seemed distant. I knew people were clapping but I felt I was on a different plane. I felt I was dancing for nothing but for dance itself. I felt I was dancing on a whole new level and on that level, nothing matters.

I wish I could die like this. I wish I could die on stage after my ultimate breakthrough someday. And so I shall die peacefully and I shall be remembered for a long long time.

Just some photos of me and Sis being silly after our performance