Hello everyone!
I hope October has been treating you well so far! Another late blogpost, I'm afraid, though I know some of you were looking forward to this, so I'm really grateful for your patience! If you haven't seen the highlight reel, you can find it on my @t.withqueens instagram. Also, if you haven't read my blogpost on the press conference, perhaps consider reading that first then coming back here!
The talent round was held at Northshore Plaza and it was good to see so many people stopping to have a look, and see the many supporters screaming for their favourite contestants. I'm sure you've got your favourite contestant by now too~ I know I do!
Let's begin with the Miss Singapore finalists!
Contestant No. 1 Wong Wei Yee
I love a good kpop dance number and I was so glad she set the bar with her glittery costume and stage presence - spicy chili padi indeed! It was definitely a great way to start off the talent round and I'm so happy for her!
Contestant No. 2 Eris Lim
I was excited when I heard the music - if you guys watch this idol competition show (I've no idea what you call these sort of competition shows) called Youth With You on iQiyi, you'd know this song because it was season 2's theme song. It's not an easy choreo - just find it on youtube and see how the contestants from Youth With You suffered learning the choreography. I think she did a great job!
Contestant No. 3 Gianni Heung
It's a little hard for photos to kind of show what Gianni's item was, but she did a sort of short skit revolving around Mulan and how she resonated with Mulan's bravery and empowerment. I though it was quite interesting since I've never really thought I'd see something like this on the Miss Singapore stage. It must've taken her some time to put it all together - she had props and a sort of wardrobe change in the middle too!
Contestant No. 4 Lynn Tan
How Lynn managed to pull her entire item off with her hurt ankle is amazing by itself, doing cartwheels, jumps and kicks alone would be so tiring but with a hurt ankle as well! I think she might have mentioned it was a recent injury while she was practicing as well, but she still pulled it off on stage so you go, girl!! Also, how cute is that end pose (middle picture)? So glad I caught that!
Contestant No. 5 Ganga Kannan
Ganga's item was a sort of skit, she had props/set design and even a wardrobe change as well which is always greatly appreciated! Unfortunately, I wasn't able to really catch what the entire thing about about, but I think it was mostly about a girl having a night out with her friends. But overall, I'd say the vibes were pretty good~say
Contestant No. 6 Care Lee
Don't we just love an amazing costume? This screamed kpop and that's exactly what Care brought to the stage. I thought she looked like an absolute star and she danced her heart out! If I remember correctly, she mentioned that she and her mum made the costume, and that's just crazy because it looked really good on stage (so did Care, of course!).
Contestant No. 7 Lynn Yeo
Lynn sang a song for us, it was a good way to slow things down on stage since the previous few were a little more high-energy so a little change for now was needed. I thought her dress looked really pretty as well!
Contestant No. 8 Alethea Yee
I enjoyed her performance quite a lot, I love watching seasoned dancers take the stage and show what they're made of. Of course, a prop could never hurt, it was really well done! Again, I love a good dance costume!
Contestant No. 9 Karen Ong
Karen did a really short but sweet dance choreo - if I remember, it was meant to be a Street Jazz item but unfortunately it was so short that I didn't get to take that many photos or videos of her item! But she did say it was intentional to keep it short and sweet!
Contestant No. 10 Celine Koh
Celine did a chair dance item for us! I haven't seen a chair dance in a while, and if I'm not wrong, she mentioned later that she did pole as well. Kind of made me wonder if she would have done a pole item if we were able to put one of those portable poles on stage. That'd be so cool!
Contestant No. 11 Krystal Ng
Another chair dance item! I really commend everyone who does a chair dance item on stage, especially if they've no background in dance. I'm not sure if Krystal mentioned if she did but it was a good effort either way!
Contestant No. 12 Sharon Lim
I really liked her item a lot! From the costume to the props. If I'm not wrong, she picked this choreography up just for the talent round, so that's really something to praise because I think she did so well!
Contestant No. 13 Dinh Thi Tuyet Trinh
I'm in awe of how flexible Trinh is, I wished I did get more photos because the ones I did manage to take don't really show how elegant and flexible she can be on stage. Even though she more or less stayed in one spot for her item, I couldn't take my eyes off her, I was so enganged!
Contestant No. 14 Jennifer Lo
Jennifer did a Kpop dance for her and what a way to liven up the stage again! I actually really liked her performance, and I think she has some dance background? But I think she did amazing, I really liked her stage presence!
Contestant No. 15 Chloe Cai Han
Last but not least, Chloe sang and played the piano for us, I think she mentioned she loved playing the piano, so what better way to celebrate that on stage than to play the piano for the talent round? I really appreciated the effort, you go girl!
And now moving on to the manhunt finalists!
Contestant No. 1 Dexter Sim
If you're someone like me who struggles with pushups, Dexter's item will literally motivate you to train them. Besides various martial arts moves with and without the staff (I'm sure there's a proper word for the apparatus), he showed off variations of push-ups. What an energetic start to the Manhunt talent round!
Contestant No. 2 Kester Tay
Kester sang for us and I was glad it was a slower song, so we could just appreciate stage presence and listen to his voice. I wish I could say I knew what song he sang but, I'm not exactly well versed with cpop so I need to leave you guys hanging on this one.
Contestant No. 3 Zane Ong
This man is an absolute vibe. He also sang for us, but he had a whole rap section prepared too (not really sure if it was part of the actual song because again, not well-versed with Mandarin songs) which was quite fun, I could tell he enjoyed himself on stage and of course that rubbed off on the audience.
Contestant No. 4 Steil Teo
I was really touched by this performance, it's not a very common sort of item to showcase but I actually found myself very intrigued. It was a sort of art performance to an entire track talking about suicide statistics in Singapore. It was honestly quite heavy if you listened to the words but I think he got the message across.
Contestant No. 5 Damon Chua
If you were there at Northshore and did not gasp when Damon taped himself up (hair and all), you're LYING. Damon's mentalist act was another unique one, he'd guess the age of a lady just by having a conversation with her and holding her hand. Pretty interesting if you ask me. If you're wondering, he did guess Christina's age in the end, and no, she wasn't sent up, he threw a ball (I think) to the audience and she caught it.
Contestant No. 6 Cyrus Lim
Cyrus sang and played the guitar for us, it was great and although there was a bit of a hiccup midway, he kept on going, he picked himself up and I remembered the crowd cheering him on as well. I'm glad he completed it and smiled through it all. He should be really proud!
Contestant No. 7 Kesavan Odatappan
Firstly, I know my pictures do not capture it but his eyes are absolutely MESMERISING. I felt like a bit of a creep because I kept staring at him, and I thought his performance was very magnetising as well. I'm not sure if he had dance background and whatnot, but I can say very safely that his performance was a crowd favourite!
Contestant No. 8 Aravinda Prashant Rao
Last but not least, Vindi also did a dance for us, but midway through, he swept his girlfriend from the crowd and brought her onto stage! Took us by surprise, but turns out the girlfriend wasn't as surprised. It was another performance to remember for sure.
Okay guys, I know what some of you are thinking - no belly dancers and 4 chair dance items? That's right you guys, literally NO ONE did a belly dance item (iykyk) and we had an abundance of chair dance items this time round. Talk about a change of scenery right?
But with that being said, I'd like to just take a moment to congratulate the finalists on all their hard work and putting up a great show for the audiences that day. I learnt that some of them literally picked up dance just for the talent round and they looked pretty great so kudos to them!!
And we have our top 3 Miss and Manhunt finalists for the talent round!
They will be competing again during the grand finals for the title 'Best in Talent' so keep a look out for that blogpost and reel soon!
Congratulations again to the top 3s!
I hope you guys enjoyed this blogpost, I'll see you in the next one!
xx
Shayne