Thursday, June 24, 2010

SOUL KRAZY's Journey in 8TV Showdown from Top 12 to Top 7

Written by Von from Soul Krazy, linked with Rentak Sejuta.


The journey of SOUL KRAZY started off with a JOKE..........


A joke? Haha. I'm sure now people start to be REALLY curious.

The earliest ones to know each other were Becky and Von. Becky was once a student in a studio where Von was belonged to. It was 2004. But both didn't manage to talk, as Von is as cool and quiet as usual. Haha!

One fine day after Becky & Cynthia's dance competition, both of them together with Lady Seven and Yvonne went for a "YAMCHA" session. They were joking about forming an all-girls crew and started to rank the size of their cup from smallest to the biggest! So you see, before SOUL KRAZY was formed, these people are already crazy.

But at that moment Becky and Cynthia were attached with their previous crew. Not long later after the first SOUL-KRAZY-gonna-be joke, Becky and Cynthia left the crew and officially formed the SOUL KRAZY on 9 December 2009.

5 of them came from a different background, different place and different history. They were brought together by fate, by a joke. But what really brought everyone together was dancing, the passion heart for dancing!

Each of us has their own style, their own speciality, their own strong points and their own strength! What people see in pictures may be 5 elegant ladies trying to be really elegant in their dancing. People might have thought FEMALE will always be FEMALE. But what people are watching in television are 5 girls trying to be like guys! We love to take up the challenges of doing something that certain girls will never ever try to do! We try to prove that we can be all 5 girls and we also can be all 5 guys!

We love power! We love crazy!





OUL KRAZY had their first meet up at Sunway Pyramid Honey Moon to discuss about what were we gonna do for 8TV Showdown 2010. After everything was planned, Cynthia decided to quit the competition as she has to focus on her tough semester! Spirit was totally lost! Flame was gone! But we had got advices from Bobby (founder of Street Nation Dance Studio) that we should go for it! So we had been trying to search for new member who is unique.

A day later, Becky told us our member Cynthia is back! SOUL KRAZY is going for 8TV Showdown 2010! Oh yes! Let's do it! January audition here we come!

First routine was the TIK TOK! We actually cut queue because Becky was in a rush for the next class. We were picked directly into the next round! YES!!! I think it was because we executed the TIK TOK choreography more entertaining than the other teams who used the same song as well? 
:P



SOUL KRAZY went for the 8TV Showdown 2010 battle. Their first opponent was FREAK SHOW! Although we won the battle but FREAK SHOW are really great dancers. It was our first battle together. Somehow WACK but good experience. We just need to gain more of this!

SOUL KRAZY in Meltdown with the other 13 teams! We had been given a remix version of BEP Boom Boom Pow! I think Maple and Joe like us for being a unique girls team than the others out there because we make girl style and street style a fusion rather than executing girl style alone. As what most people thought a girl crew can only manage to do sexy moves to present their body gestures but what SOUL KRAZY believes is as long as the guys can do it, girls can do it too! SOUL KRAZY believes that a girl must be powerful enough to protect ourselves! All the ladies in the world, let's be independent! X) And so, we made it to the 8TV Showdown 2010 Live Show!!!




While training hard for the first live show, SOUL KRAZY took part in a club competition called Can U Dance at Caribbean Pub & Bistro with other cool and well-known dancers. They had to compete every Tuesday night 11pm. Even though we did not win the Top 3 prizes but we were entitled THE BEST CHOREOGRAPHY! Thanks to Ikuyo Ken and Wesley!





SOUL KRAZY in official photoshooting...

Yeah! SOUL KRAZY moved on to the Top 12 of 8TV Showdown 2010! Busy life started with the official photoshooting directed by Paul Poh and fashion designed by Stevensunny! We're the only all-girls crew in Showdown, so we believed Stevensunny had something great for us! And yes, HIGH HEELS!!! Interesting!!!

8TV crew felt that the heels limited our movements that we couldn't express what we wanted to express. For us, it was fine. But we couldn't do extreme moves like TOE POINT, breaking moves, splits. Yeah. So hard to even stand and walk properly. 
:P But in photos, high heels looked great on us! Too bad......

We changed to our dance gears : Nike Air Troupe! Our all time favorite. The series for dancing! We were like charged up! Tried all of our crazy moves but in the same time, being more elegant with the camera due to our pretty and elegant outfits! 
:) I Felt so ROAR due to the leopard-print legging! X)










SOUL KRAZY in 8TV Showdown Live Show 1...

The Top 12 crews were appointed to have their first meeting with the 8TV Showdown production crew at Sri Pentas, to brief all of us regarding the contract, rules, regulations, etc... (But I wasn't there on Sunday. 
:P I was in Melaka.) Come on guys~ It's LIVE SHOW soon! We actually didn't know what should we dance for the first live show. We just practised and discussed what we could.

Monday (3 May), we had our first practise at IDC Studio in Kepong along with the song given by 8TV. Yes, it's Beenie Man : Gimme Gimme Gimme. The tempo is fast, uprising from the beginning until the end! OMG! 8TV seriously wants us to go as crazy as we can! We were given 2 hours to practise in the studio. Most of us had the problem of feeling suffocated practising in the studio! It was hot! We could hardly breathe seriously. Even if we just stood there without dancing or doing anything, we could sweat like as if we're standing in the middle of the rain! Ooppsss... Sounds too exaggerated? Haha. But yes! It's true! Cynthia seldom joined the practise as she was facing her attendance problem at university. She couldn't miss any classes.

We were there from Monday to Friday and Sunday. Tuesday, Lady Seven fever. Wednesday, Von and Yvonne fever. Thursday, Becky's turn. Great? Haha! Because the temperature in the studio is so different with outdoor. In addition, the weather keeps changing. It was a hard week for SOUL KRAZY to SURVIVE.

We had a roll call meeting with Pat Ibrahim on Sunday, in the same studio. After watching our short routine for roll call, he actually allocated us to dance on the judges' platform! Which means, behind the judges! OMG! That's crazy but interesting! Haha! We were gonna GOYANG GOYANG with Joe Flizzow, Maple Loo and BBoy Born from Korea! Von and Lady Seven's favorite! Haha!

Monday (10 May), it was the stage blocking for all the Top 12 crews. Our slot was the last one. So many eyes were watching. But we did it! Everybody thinks that we're really crazy with the routine, although it was messy! Because the tempo is fast. And guess what? 8TV put us in the last segment, the last crew to perform! OMG! Pros or cons? Haha. The last crew, means performance sure kena GEMPAK; the last crew, people who want to vote for us have the least time to do so! But it's alright. At least our showcase proves that we're great!

Tuesday, camera and stage blocking. We had to perform with our costume on, although there was no costume for SOUL KRAZY yet. As there were 12 crews in total, the full dress rehearsal took long time to end. Becky and Yvonne had to leave at 7pm because they had class in Klang and Kajang at 8pm! It was raining and jam! We left around 8pm. 8TV Showdown first diaries! SOUL KRAZY in Bottom 4!!! OMG!!! So hard to believe it! All of us were so scared! We voted until our phones got barred!

Wednesday, THE LIVE SHOW! So nervous! So scared! Can't describe the feelings! We kept practising the battle routines, the showcase, etc! Couldn't stop moving around to calm ourselves down!

We heard screaming from the crowd! Very positive comments from the judges! I remember seeing few girls among the audience shouted, "Girl power!!!" YEAH!!! Thanks for such a lovely comment!!!

The Bottom 4 announcement. We hugged each other like how hard we hug our parents. Feasible Crew, Backyard Revolution, Borneo Soul Breakerz... The last one : Funky Ux Force!!! We shouted like we hadn't been shouting for a century!!! We gave our homies Famous Crew a big hug too! Because we expected both of us would be in the bottom!!! SO HAPPY OKAY!!!!

But anyway, SOUL KRAZY in 8TV Showdown 2010 Top 11! 





SOUL KRAZY in Live Show 2...

MY LIFE... What we tried to deliver, is to prove to our parents who are so worried about our future, being a dancer for career, which seems so impossible in their eyes. In our parents' era, dancers were only the commercial ones, at the pubs, etc. It couldn't be taken as a career to earn a living for our future. So we chose the song FAME by Naturi Naughton, to express our feelings in our dance. We didn't try to impress, but we tried to express, to make people feel our struggle to achieve what we wanna achieve. We knew the routine is not impressing, but at least we had put much feelings inside, to let go our emotions, sadness, stress, doubts and hardships.

We had very negative comments from the judges. Probably they couldn't feel us, couldn't feel what we tried to deliver with the theme. What they expected wasn't about the theme, it was about the showcase, was it entertaining enough, impressing enough. After all, the theme wasn't so important at all. Or probably no one actually cared about the theme of the week. They just expected an entertaining show.

Honestly the dance style isn't what we really mastered. From bgirls, hip-hoppers, to Jazz, Girl Style, etc, we tried our best to deliver something different so that people not just recognize us as bgirls, but versatile dancers who can adopt any kind of dance styles. We never complain any single thing. We just try to do our best, to cooperate with anyone, to enjoy the whole progress in Showdown.

Anyway, SOUL KRAZY, saved from Bottom 4, moved on to Top 10!!!





SOUL KRAZY in Live Show 3...

We had a down week working hard for MY LIFE theme previously. But we're proud, lucky and glad to have BEAT IT as our showcase song! I think 8TV wants us to go fast and hype in every showcase.

In this routine, we believe the real identity of SOUL KRAZY had revealed, which is strong, impulsive, violent and attitude. We never tried to be one of the sexiest girls in the world, but we are not afraid of being one. BBOY FARHAN was right, "This routine brought you all back." Maybe we really belong to style, power and attitude. But of course we'll not give up of doing the elegant moves because after all, we're still ladies. We have the benefits of outshining the gestures and poises of a lady!

The concept of the whole routine is, we're a gang of good dancing buddies who always dance together. Then 2 members crash each other while executing some dance moves (in the routine, it was the MOONWALK, a lame one 
:P ) and start to fight, like in the MTV of Beat It, Michael Jackson appeared to bring peace to the members.

I couldn't remember what comments we had got, but all were positive. Thank god they liked it!

Happiness couldn't remain until SOUL KRAZY was announced to be in the Bottom 4. What we couldn't expect was, we had to battle with BORNEO SOUL BREAKERZ. We knew we could make it into Top 9. But first time battling in live show, we were all nervous. We looked emotionless and speechless in the same time. I knew we should lose to BSB, but being announced as the winner, I was really kind of.. HUH? Maybe that was our first battle in live show, so the judges liked our spirit? I don't know. I was really speechless, but in the same time happy for going to Top 9! And we believed BSB could make it into Top 9 too! And yes, they did! Thank god!

When we reached home, we couldn't believe with what we read, comments from the audience. So negative. It was like as if our fault to be announced as the winner. I was really speechless, angry and sad. We're a bunch of people who love dancing. We just try to dance whatever we have to in Showdown, to make it a better show, not to impress, not to win and not to make anyone loses in this competition. It's all about experience and exposure. Even though we battled hard on the stage with BSB, but behind the stage, we're just another best buddies playing together and never bother about winning each other, taking the fame from one another. If all the dance crews can peace together, I believe all the audience can peace too. Support your favorite dance crews, and not criticizing on the others. The dance crews never scold you, never curse you, never fight with you, but all of us are trying hard to put on a great show for viewers, we never try hard to make the viewers down and hate us. If you don't like any of the crews, just ignore them and give your best support to your favorite crews so that they can beat the crews that you don't like. Isn't it more useful, adorable and lovely? Hatred brings you to hell. Why don't we live peacefully in this world? We're all human-beings after all. You can voice out your opinions, I'm sure everyone can accept it with open heart. And not bashing the negative words that have no point at all. I believe the whole competition will be more fun if all the viewers, supporters, contestants and production crews can join together like a big family, to share their life, experience and heart together, to make the whole show seems more interesting and lively. It's like a party in the competition where everyone chills together! YEAH!

Anyway, SOUL KRAZY into Top 9!






SOUL KRAZY in the 1970s (Live Show 4)...

And all the negative comments continue... Being in the entertainment world is always not easy. You gain your fame, you gain supporters but in the same time you gain haters that you can't even understand what have you done wrongly to them. So we thought of doing something impressive in our 70s routine. But when we think carefully, why should we impress them than missing all our fun on stage? We dance not to impress, but to have fun. I believe if someone hates you so much, regardless how hard to try to make them love you, they will still give you the same feeling, even more disgusted I supposed. As long as we're still FEMALE, we'll be titled as GEDIK no matter what. Regardless how man, how macho we dress up, behave, talk, we're still the GEDIK in people's eyes. But, not every girl is GEDIK? I think that is the nature of girls, built in by God. 
:) That's why girls look lovely in guys' eyes.

Anyway, I couldn't believe with what I had to put on myself! The costume seems so ridiculous okay! But the effect of 1970s is really perfect! HAHA! Thank god I had a shade on to cover half of my face! I think not many people could recognize me though! Since I looked funny already, so let's get fun, ugly and crazy! HAHA!

Alright, the concept. It just came across Yvonne's mind when she suddenly thought of making 4 of us as the mannequins where Becky is the owner of the SOUL KRAZY BOUTIQUE. When she's trying to adjust our "hands" to make a better pose, suddenly we transform into real human-beings! We pull "our owner" to dance together with us! She seems confused and surprised with our transformation, but then has to accept the fact that it's really fun to dance together! When the music finishes, mannequins are back to posing! Just like the mannequins will be alive when there's music, and back to dolls when the music finishes!

Repetition of steps and moves? Ummm... Like which? It's only a technic move in Waackin'. Yes Kuma you are right! How about the windmills, power moves, the salsa steps, the six-step in BBoy? Every crew has their own significant moves that trademark their speciality and uniqueness to stand out from the rests.

Once again, we were the bottom 4 again. This time our opponent was another BBoy crew, RETURN CREW. And of course, we knew it wasn't our time yet to get eliminated. We improved in our spirit for battle. We were all ready to fight! Although we lost to RETURN CREW, explained that they improved, have the spinnings like windmills, flares, although the crashed in their routines; then SOUL KRAZY also crashed in our moves, messy routines, same skills, but at least we're satisfied with our own spirit and improvement, I'm sure we can do much better and tidy in the next battle!

Standing beside of FUNKY UX FORCE, we had confident to survive for another episode. And yes, we did! SOUL KRAZY into Top 8.

And all the negative comments are never ending... Such as, why not SOUL KRAZY got eliminated, they GEDIK, they repeat their steps until I can even dance their steps, SOUL KRAZY should out out out, etc etc and yada yada. One day you will learn to know the feelings of SOUL KRAZY, how much pain we have to go through for reading such negative words written by you guys, how hard we try to survive and forget of what you scolded us, how you stereotype and bias us, when we're not guilty of doing anything. Just because we have the heart, soul and passion in dancing. We stand with pride on the stage without fear, because we're not guilty. No, your words will not make us surrender in dancing. Even if we leave the stage, it will surely not because of your words that make it real, but it's the crews who can do better than us. And we'll seek for another platform to expand our dancing life, whether you like it or not, we're still SOUL KRAZY, so crazy in dancing, so crazy in living...

PEACE.





SOUL KRAZY With Street Flava... Live Show 5!

I know this comes late, very late. Haha. I know plenty of people are expecting this, I guess that's where the pressure came from, the expectation made me blank for a couple of days. Whatever I wanted to express, it can be found from the previous posts. I'm trying hard to figure out how should I make this post seems different from the old ones.

After the week in 1970s, I believe most of the people can feel the soul in SOUL KRAZY has gone. We don't look like whom we used to be in Showdown - energetic, powerful, noisy, active, etc. It's like, we don't care already, we just wanna finish it as soon as possible! We wanted to do something, that is really totally different from what we had done before. We tried to blend in everything that we can do, or a better word to explain it, SHOW HAND. People always said we repeat, we repeat and we repeat. So now, we gave you something different. Krumping.

We had already minimized our signature style - Waackin' in the routine. We tried to Krump more, with Single Ladies. We tried hard to find a slot where we could Krump. The song doesn't sound violence. It's like when we hear the song, it's sexy and bouncy. Krump is fierce and attitude. The song gives us a feeling that we should smile more. But however, I think this is where the challenge came. Anyhow, JUST DO IT.

We felt very glad that we were given the dance KRUMPING. We have been so tolerating with all the negative comments, perhaps those nonsense ones. We didn't bother if the song makes us smile. When it comes to Krump, you have to be fierce. Delete all the happy moments, delete all the funny jokes, DELETE EVERYTHING. Remember those who had written nonsense about us, remember those who hate us so badly like we owe them a million dollar, remember those who wish so hard that SOUL KRAZY would be eliminated, REMEMBER THEM and present the attitude of Krumping in the showcase. DON'T EVER THINK SOUL KRAZY CAN BE BULLIED EASILY! Our supporters can smoke you too! If you dare, you just come and show us your face, HOW MUCH YOU HATE US.

Oppsss.. I forgot the most important part of this showcase, SOUL KRAZY TRANSFORMED INTO 5 BOYS. It was the moment we were waiting for. 5 new handsome boys in Showdown, like a dream, show the world how boyish we can be, and perhaps WE ARE BOYISH for your information. I still remember when I was on the stage, what I really kept in mind was the human sea of haters right in front of my eyes were watching us. I know they want us to fail so so so so so badly. And I was not going to look friendly on the stage because I cannot forgive them how they tried to ruin our mood, our life, our feeling, our friendship among each other between ourselves and the other crew members, and everything.

And what was the most surprise gift for SOUL KRAZY was, we were not in Bottom 4. We were waiting for our name to be called. The first one was HMC Phlow, very surprising. Famous Crew, and we were expecting our name to be announced after Famous Crew. But Return Crew. We got more nervous. We had to battle with Famous Crew? Our homies? And the last empty blank was filled in by Giller Battle Crew and we went like, HUH? We're not in Bottom 4? We're in Top 7? We didn't scream, but usually we would, but instead, we sighed. Then we ran to the other side of the backstage to scream for Famous Crew. I could feel they are going to be in the same situation like us since the battle of SOUL KRAZY and Borneo Soul Breakerz - the negative comments in Showdown page, because people started to notice them, what they're doing. But I know they can handle better than us. I think only a few of them visit the Showdown page. XP

However, we gain more haters but in the same time we gain more supporters and respect from others. Being an all-girls crew who is able to stand up from the negative side and show we are still steady and ready. We wish to leave the stage with peace and love from everyone. No discrimination, no bias, no stereotype and NO NONSENSE. We are all the same human- beings, living hard in Earth to achieve what we are targeting.

Lastly... Opppsss.. SOUL KRAZY in Top 7!


The End of Journey for SOUL KRAZY as the Top 7 in 8TV Showdown 2010...


Finally, it's a relief for SOUL KRAZY to have a full stop in Showdown. Elimination was what we had been waiting for since Live Show 5. But we were given a chance to stay for another week, for another greater challenge. SILAT, was what we had drawn from draw lots. We prayed for it, but we didn't know why. Maybe because we wanted to try the malay martial arts instead of chinese martial arts as most of the people think Chinese should be able to do the Chinese martial arts easily as we have already known the history and knowledge of it. But for silat, we didn't know a single thing. It's always great to learn something new.

We were grateful to have Ray from So You Think You Can Dance to teach us Silat. As he has much experience in SYTYCD, he had actually prepared a routine and choreography for us to be useful in our Silat and Hip Hop fusion! And we tried to search for more information in YouTube. There are few types of Silat such as Silat Gendeng, Silat Harimau, etc.

Accidents happened during our stage blocking. Becky fell down from top when she tried to climb on Yvonne's shoulders. Yvonne had her head greatly hit when Becky fell down. As we were barefoot, the percentage of getting hurt on the feet is very high. But although we had our knees and wrists hurt more than the feet. All the blue-blacks, sprained, old injuries, etc, had never been revealed to anyone. We cured the injuries ourselves, we fought against the pain ourselves. It's like, "Wow... These girls are really tough. They never got hurt." Or perhaps, "Alah... Kan diorang tak buat benda gempak, tak buat power moves. Mana la datang cedera?" Whatsoever.

Silat Lagenda is the most synchronized routine ever done in Showdown by SOUL KRAZY. Maybe it's because the movements are slow and simple. And basically we had put almost 70% of silat in our routine. And it's greatly performed with our silat costume on prepared by Stevensunny! And the batik was ready by Cynthia, she borrowed from her teacher. 
:)

We expected to battle with HMC Phlow but it was Floor Fever's "responsibility" to knock us out. We battled with peace, we battled with fun. Like what Maple Loo said, it wasn't as furious as it should be. Maybe we had got used to perform together, winning to us no longer meant anything, because we knew we'd lose. So, we just tried our best. No matter how good we tried, we knew, we somehow felt it in our heart, SOUL KRAZY would be going home that night.

Standing in the elimination round again, standing beside Borneo Soul Breakerz, both crews have own specialities and strength to remain on stage. The BSB boys quarreled behind the stage after the battle with GBC. Maybe they thought they were the ones going home. They were ready too. It was a surprise for us to hear our name to be announced but yet we did not feel sad or disappointed with the result, because we had expected it. Instead, we shouted for joy, we kept smiling with positive thinking. We had done this before last 2 weeks during rehearsal, how should I quit the stage, how should we act during the elimination, to get ourselves really ready for this hard time. We ran to the board holding the spraying can like a bunch of kids. As discussed, we wanted a smile on our name SK. We thought of spraying 5 crosses on it to represent 5 happy ladies but it'd be time consuming. Instead Becky sprayed a big cross with a smile below it. And the outcome was a XD .

A smile in the middle of the stage, to remind everyone including the audience, contestants, production crews, judges and invited guests to keep smiling. Elimination was supposed to be cruel, but we made it fun. It was supposed to end up in tears, especially for female, but we remained tough and happy until the end. We want Malaysians to remember, we made a legend in 8TV Showdown, we are still the happy-go-lucky ladies in Showdown who give laughters to everyone, right in front of everyone. Hope the rests of the crews who will be eliminated this week onwards to quit the stage with smiles too. 
:)


We are the five legendary ladies, first ever all-girls crew in 8TV Showdown.

However, Cynthia and Yvonne cried when we were back to the backstage. Tears of joy. 
:) While Becky and Seven, tears rolling in their eyes. For me? Oppsss... Feeling nothing except loneliness. As we are no longer involved in Showdown activities, we are not meeting the Showdown family no more, no more training for currently, my life seems so peaceful. Too peaceful perhaps. 6 weeks being together with the other crews, so many friends to accompany in life, so many laughters together. And now life has become so quiet.

When Kuma asked, should the girls be given a handicap in this competition, something came across my mind that, NO, girls should not be given handicap. It's a fair and equal world we're staying in. We admit that we couldn't present blow-ups and crazy power moves to the judges and audience, which brought us to an end in Top 7. It's not because girls are softer, they cannot do those blow-ups, so we must be given a handicap. Girls can do it, but we haven't achieved it yet. It's really a good challenge for us to try all the stunts so that in future, we'll grow as a stronger and tougher team, equipped with tough stunts that will be beneficial in competitions.

However, dancing is all about fun, not the stunts, if anyone of you has received the information mistakenly. If only the stunts can give you the fun, how about those disabled people, old folks and young kids? They cannot dance? What they are doing is not dance? Since we knew we were too far away from doing more stunts to create more blow-ups, instead we stick to the basic of dancing, which is having fun. But I think having fun is not what judges and some Malaysians are looking for in Showdown.

Anyway, our journey had ended in Showdown, although we will be back every Wednesday to support the rests of the crew, especially FAMOUS CREW, who is our homie crew. And we'll also be back during Final on 14 July. We will look for another platform that is more suitable for us to continue our journey.








Some of SOUL KRAZY's past videos in 8TV Showdown 2010. Missing videos are Live Show 2 : Fame by Naturi Naughton for Wild Card "My Life" and Live Show 4 : Reach Out, I'll Be There by Gloria Gaynor for Music "1970s".

Live Show 1 : Gimme Gimme Gimme by Beenie Man

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=szbbwX7D7EI

Live Show 3 : Beat It by Michael Jackson for Artiste "Tribute To Michael Jackson"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DM2e8EdTkiI&feature=related

Live Show 5 : Single Ladies by Beyonce for Dance Style "Waackin' and Krumping"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MyTUAXmdOvI

Live Show 6 : Silat Lagenda for Wild Card "Martial Arts"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-ZPOEQj7wU

Fan Made video by Rain Bow!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r9SFNNRFaFE




Soul Krazy, Top 7 of 8TV Showdown 2010, first ever legendary girls crew in official live show. Remember our name...

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