MinnaCon: The Convention Two Years In The Making

22 June 2013 marked the end of a long two year journey to bring the NUS Comics and Animation Society's (NUSCAS) very first major event to fruition.

It started with a dream I had to put NUSCAS on the anime map. To have a hallmark event that people will mark down on their calendars as an event to look out for. For a year, MinnaCon stayed as an idea, slowly being fleshed out in the back of my head, occasionally bouncing ideas of other like minded people in NUSCAS to see how we could make this plan a reality. Finally, at the beginning of 2012, concrete plans were laid out for MinnaCon 2013. NUSCAS brought NTU Visual Arts Society (NTUVAS) into the picture, making MinnaCon not only the first university-organised ACG but also the first regional cross-university anime convention. This partnership also allowed the scale of MinnaCon to grow even larger than anything NUSCAS could have undertaken by itself. 

We originally slated MinnaCon for January of 2013 to fill in the gap in the anime calendar that was once occupied by the now defunct Start Of Year (SOY) organised by the Japanese Tsubasa Club from Ngee Ann Polytechnic. In hindsight, it was a blessing that we delayed the event to its final date in June because even with the extra six months of preparation, there were still a number of hiccups that happened at MinnaCon due to a lack of preparation. This would've been obviously compounded by the fact that I would be absent due to my student exchange to USA.

So just before I flew to USA, the decision was made to postpone MinnaCon to 22 June 2013 after some fierce discussion amongst NUSCAS and NTUVAS. One major concern with the new date was that it was perilously close to Cosfest, quite possibly among the three biggest ACG events in Singapore so rather than directly compete against Cosfest, we decided to leverage on these circumstances and struck a deal to include the organisers of Cosfest, Singapore Cosplay Club (SCC), in the planning of MinnaCon.

During my half year absence, MinnaCon was left in the capable hands of Yanxu and Shawn from NUSCAS, Stifler from NTUVAS and finally Stephanie from SCC as they fleshed out the skeleton of MinnaCon that had been built over the previous two years. In the beginning I tried beating the time zone difference and attempted to join in the discussion over Skype but the 13-hour difference very quickly beat me back. So I resigned myself to being the man behind the Internet facade of MinnaCon, answering emails, designing and updating the website and maintaining MinnaCon's presence in Facebook.

Fastforward to 24 May 2013, one month before D-Day. The day I touched down back in Singapore. A lot the pieces have been put into place so all there was left to do was some aggressive publicising. Balancing Rag and looking for an internship along with MinnaCon was tough but fortunately still doable. There were some setback such as internal conflicts within the executive committee but fortunately for us, we managed to dodge any mission critical mishaps so MinnaCon moved forward like the steadfast ship that she was.

One week before MinnaCon, disaster struck. One that was beyond the control of the entire committee combined. Singapore was struck with the worst haze situation ever recorded in Singaporean history. The day before MinnaCon, the Pollutant Standards Index (PSI) reached a record 401, obliterating the previous recorded high of 272 set in the 1970s. The government was constantly advising the public to stay indoors and rumours spread that MinnaCon may be cancelled due to Singapore's ever worsening haze condition. Once again, the God of Fortune must have been smiling on us as we had all along planned MinnaCon to be an indoor event and the air-conditioning shielded us from the brunt of the haze's force so MinnaCon could proceed mostly unfazed. Nevertheless, the publicity department had to go into overdrive as we had to not only settle last minute entries to MinnaCon's various events but also constantly assure the public that MinnaCon was going to proceed as planned.

And finally the time had come. 22 June 2013. The morning was hectic and tensions ran high as the day opened with hazardous levels of haze (PSI = 320), the crew was scrambling about setting up the event and a miscommunication between one of our external event organisers and their participants had some participants showing up a 2.5 hours earlier than expected. Luckily, the entire crew held its own and order was quickly established just before the doors opened.

Things were looking up for MinnaCon as the day progressed. The haze dropped below unhealthy levels (PSI < 100) in the afternoon and participants continually flooded throughout the afternoon. The stage events had to be delayed due to a delay at another event which some of our participants were participating in but our stage crew very efficiently handled the situation and the rest of MinnaCon ran smoother than an arrow sailing to the bullseye.

At the end of the day, I honestly couldn't be more proud of how MinnaCon turned out. Though I was practically grounded at the stage the whole day due to my emcee duties, my few trips around the venue along with our ticket sales and the reports I hear from other friends and staff blew my expectation out of the water. There were definitely a number of problems which arose throughout the journey to this point and the haze situation put a major dent MinnaCon's success but despite all that, MinnaCon's success, being a first time event, surpassed all the benchmarks set for it. It has been a long an tiring journey to this point but there is certainly an undeniable sense of accomplishment to see a dream two years in the making come to life and become something greater than even my wildest imaginations.

An Exchange Student's Academic Experience

So in the post below I talked about the greatest thing the University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill (UNC) gave me, friendships that changed my life. However, at the end of the day I'm still a student, exchange or otherwise, so it'll be irresponsible of me if I didn't talk about the academic side of these last semester.

Now future exchange students from Singapore or other major Asian universities, there is a grand rumour of how easy studying is going to be if you go on exchange in USA. I learnt the hard way that there are exceptions to this rule, even outside the set of legendary universities known as the Ivy League and other similarly prestigious colleges. I spent my semester in UNC, a university that no one outside of the US has even heard of, and I got my ass handed to me by the workload. Back in NUS, most lecturers gave students a week or two to settled down before ramping up the pace. Here in UNC though, you hit the ground sprinting. Within the first week, the first of our numerous assignments comes in and the pace doesn't drop at all till the end of the semester.

Sure if you intend to coast right through, you could forget about doing all the coursework and attempt to barely escape a failing grade to get your credits transferred back but you could very well do that in your home university. If you wish to get a respectable grade however, you're going to have to work hard for it. And work hard I did. I was stuck in the drawing studio till at least 3am no fewer than twice trying to finish off an assignment and countless more times in the comfort of my own room.

Those of you who were closely reading that last sentence would've noticed I said drawing studio which brings me to my favourite part of UNC's academics. UNC boasts its own studio art department, together with its own art museum. Now I'm a computer science major but graphic design has always been a point of interest for me, so much so that there was a point in my life where I actually considered the possibility of pursuing a BFA instead of a BComp. NUS does not offer anything remotely close to digital art or studio art so when I found out that UNC had a studio art department, I immediately jumped on the chance and took two studio art courses. Doing studio art was certainly a refreshing change of pace from my coding-intense 2.5 years. Considering that this is the first time I've ever done art properly since forever, I'm actually quite proud of what I managed to produce.

Nevertheless, being a Comp Sci. major, it's impossible to completely avoid coding so I took a serious game design course because that was the closest thing they offered to game design course. Let's just say that it wasn't a particularly pleasant experience. The lecturer spent half the semester covering game design topics that I was already familiar with and spent the second half making all the students present 'research topics' which were essentially 10 minute guest lectures by the student in the class. The second half was mostly hit and miss to say the least. However, what took the cake was my final project group. Since the course was a special course which non-computing students could take, we had one person in our four man team who was an English literature major and fellow Singaporean exchange student so the remaining coding had to be managed by the remaining three of us. The kicker was that the two team members who were supposed to be the most likely to go AWOL ended up being the two who had to carry the entire workload of the team. I'm not asking to be given my regular coding team from back in Singapore but at least give me a team that could do work. When 95% of your code base was contributed by the one person who's grade doesn't transfer, you know you should either reconsider your field or some of the life choices you're making. Needless to say, our final product was lacklustre at best, salvaged only by the design document which was written almost entirely by our non-coding team member.

To sum it all up, this exchange experience taught me a couple of lessons which I feel should be shared . Firstly, for all you software engineering folk and other similarly team-oriented majors, never ever underestimate the importance of team dynamics. If you find a team that works well with you, never ever let that team our of your sights. Secondly and by far more importantly, don't just treat an exchange as a semester long holiday. I'm not saying that one should forsake experiencing the country for a regime of book bashing in the library nightly but do not forget that even if your grades don't transfer back, you're here as a student and nothing else. Choose to study things that aren't offered back home or at very least things that would interest you greatly. If you find an intersect between both sets, it's as good as finding gold.

Friends From a Foreign Land

Just after the turn of the new year, I stepped into USA for the very first to start off my very first experience as an exchange student. There were a number of mishaps and oversights following up to that moment but despite all the setbacks, I was insanely excited to be in North Carolina.

"Wait a minute. Did you just say North Carolina? Why of all places I USA did you choose to go to North Carolina?", you may be asking as you read that last sentence. The reason is quite simple actually. Because that was the best choice left when I applied. Now don't misunderstand me. In retrospect, I couldn't have made a better choice.

The University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill (UNC) and her students have treated me so well I cannot ever do enough to repay them. I'm fortunate to have gone to a university with such a large exchange batch from NUS because that just made road trips and all my other travels across the US that much easier to organise. They have been a wonderful bunch of people and I do hope that we continue being close once we return to our lives back in Singapore. 

Nevertheless, while it's certainly nice to see familiar strangers in a strange place who have similar tourist dispositions as myself, anyone who goes on exchange should know that the gem of an exchange experience is getting to know the locals. And indeed I did. I'm grateful that I managed to meet so many locals and make so many friends in my short stay here in UNC, perhaps too many friends even.

What makes North Carolina such a wonderful place for me is its budding dance community. From the outside looking in, nobody recognises North Carolina for its dance community so I was incredibly fortunate to have found this active hip hop dance community here. The community has a unique flavour that I might not have found in other states like LA or New York. All the dancers in the state are like a giant family.

They don't have the luxury of having established dance studios which teach hip hop dance so they have to rely on themselves to build themselves up. They have community workshops almost every other weekends and more often than not, these workshops were conducted not by professional dancers but college students like myself and people travel up to three hours from all around the state to participate in such workshops. In a single semester, college dance clubs participate in numerous small performances and each performance is choreographed and produced in house by its 20 odd members.

It was all an immense culture shock for me coming from NUS Dance Blast! where our yearly intake is more than twice the size of the entire club here and we can get professionals to produce all our performances. Yet, I wouldn't trade my experiences with college dance clubs here for anything. They're small so I honestly felt like I was a part of a family rather than a person in some random club and because they don't have the same support that I could get back I Singapore, everyone had to push all that harder, myself included. Granted the end product may not match the polish that Blast! dishes out for their performances, there is a certain appeal being a part of something homegrown.

The semester is now over and under normal circumstances I would have been elated to bid farewell to exams and welcome in the holidays. However, as I boarded my LA-bound plane leaving North Carolina, I was filled with only conflicting feelings. I've made so many amazing friends in here and it crushes my soul a little to know that I probably won't meet most of them in person ever again.

As I finish writing this on my way back from the Grand Canyon, it is no doubt that the sights and sounds I've experienced from my travels all over USA from Miami, the Key West and Washington, D.C. to LA, Las Vegas and San Francisco are all a spectacle to enjoy but the memories from this exchange that I will truly cherish are those of the people in North Carolina that impacted my life forever.

The Extroverted Introvert

So here's another one of those private confession posts that I'll be writing. It's about a small misconception that people may have about me. If you take a public opinion on whether I'm an introvert or an extrovert, I'm sure that it'll generally be swayed towards me being an extrovert and I can't fault that impression. On the outside I look like a textbook extrovert. I like public speaking, emcee-ing, etc. I like meeting new people in social camps and such. I like being a mascot or public figurehead for things.

But then again, all of that is just on the surface. There's more to introversion than just an aversion socialising and at its core I personally identify more strongly with the qualities of an introvert than those of an extrovert. A great series of videos called 'The Power of Introverts' inspired by Susan Cain's similarly titled book helps elucidate the world of an introvert. 

Introversion is not shyness which is driven by a fear of social rejection. Introversion is a response to external stimuli, including social stimuli. While an extrovert would crave and re-energise themselves from exposure to social stimuli, an introvert would actually re-energise themselves from being alone. Introverts are not afraid of excess social stimuli, they get overwhelmed by it. 

Personally I build up a persona to handle excess stimuli. That overly-friendly, outspoken and slightly hyper version of me, that extroverted version of me, is the persona I build to handle the excess social stimuli. In situations where I can't hide behind that persona to protect me from all the excess stimuli, my brain just shuts down and I stop reacting altogether. Those who know me better may have seen that side of me. I can only handle the socialising once it's broken down into smaller, more intimate exchanges.

I'm a seasoned performer so I'm kinda used to crowds. It's easy for me to do things like emcee-ing, public speaking and dance performances. However, there is one very important feature about these activities that I need to highlight. They're all performances of sorts. Speaking at people (for the lack of better wording) is not the same as speaking to people. When I'm performing, I just activate my 'performer mode' and run on auto-pilot from a pre-rehearsed script or on my improvisation instincts.

I'm perfect comfortable with performing because at the end it all, I still have the performance aspect to hide behind. I'm totally uncomfortable with being thrown into a crowd of strangers and being expected to socialise. It scares the shit out of me. I like to think that my dealings are very calculated. I need to know the type of people I'm dealing with, the social environment I'm in and how far I can stretch before I start accidentally insulting people. I need to know this because I need to adapt to the situations I'm in. I don't have the luxury of such knowledge when dealing with strangers in alien environments. A true extrovert would probably just pick a simple set of social choices and just run with it. I can't do that no matter how hard I try simply because that is not how I function. 

Since I was young, I've always been a little bit of an oddball introvert. I didn't have too many friends and I didn't particularly like mass socialising too much. Since then I grown up a little into a more outgoing and (slightly) less socially awkward person but no one can truly outgrow who they are. For better or worse, deep down I'm still that little introvert I was born as and there's little I can do about that other than embrace who I really am.

After the Burnout

For the third time now, my latest Blast! concert endeavor has come to an end and like every other major event in my life, here lies the blogpost recounting my journey.

This SUAD journey is slightly different from my previous concert experiences thus far. This is the first concert which really burnt me out completely. My first SUAD concert I did one item and the only extra academic work I had was CS2020. My first EMCC concert a semester later I did two items and had a rather normal workload for an SoC student. This time around I was doing four items while having to juggle Rag commitments for the first half of practices and CS3216 commitments for the second half. It didn't help at all that I was a lot more committed to Rag this year than I was when I was doing EMCC last year.

I've detailed quite a bit of this in an earlier blogpost so I won't repeat myself too much. After the second vetting, I somehow managed to catch up with most of the choreo and I felt a little better with myself. All was good until our first full dress rehearsal the day before the concert. Like all the practices and runs before that, I tried my best and gave what I thought was my best on stage but during the debrief after our stage run, a couple of my choreographers told us that that was perhaps one of our worst runs to date. Those words weighed a lot on me. I had a midterm test on the morning of the concert and I hadn't even begun to study for it yet I still couldn't bear to screw up the concert. Right then, I felt the lowest I have ever felt in a very long time. Thankfully, the dance captain, Glenn, and some of the alumni posted some words of encouragement on the club's facebook group and I managed to get back on my feet quickly enough for my midterms in the morning (which I believe I managed to do well enough for =D).

And then here we are, concert night. To be brutally honest to myself, I wasn't happy with how I performed during the concert at all. My first item went pretty well but it only went downhill from there. Throughout my second item, both my legs felt like they were going to give way at any time and I couldn't give it my everything on stage (the minor wardrobe malfunction of my scarf coming undone didn't help at all). My third item felt like a complete disaster because halfway through the song I completely bombed almost an entire eight because my muscle memory didn't kick in. The last item offered a little bit of redemption as it went off without any major hitches despite being the item that I was most concerned with. It just hurts me quite a bit to know that I tried my best for this concert given my other priorities yet I still fell short and there was nothing I could do about it.

At the end of it all, I'm just glad that SUAD is over. Don't get me wrong. I honestly believe the biggest purpose of joining Blast! is to participate in concerts and concerts are the platforms where all Blast!ards learn the most and bond the most but between this and my all other commitments, I'm more glad that I finally have time to do all the work that I've been needing to get done. I've loved every moment I've had in SUAD and now it's over and it's time to move on.

Though the following people will probably never read this blogpost, I still would like to express my thanks to my choreographers:-

Thank you Jasper for choreographing such a dope item. I'm glad that you decided to push us to our limits and allowed us to grow as dancers. I feel a bit sad that SUAD made you feel a little jaded nearing the end and if it is worth anything, I would like to say that I'll always be proud of being part of Team Testosterone =D

Thank you Chii Tarng and Weina for choreographing such a suave item. Chii Tarng, your stage presence is really an inspiration to us all and it gives us something to look up to not just as dancers but as performers as well. Weina, thanks for your frankness and attention to picking out our mistakes. It really helps a lot when I'm trying to identify the areas which I need to work on as far as the choreography is concerned.

Thank you Ahmad for choreographing such a cool item. Ever since you've taught me in JC, I have always looked up to your insane musicality. It's a little sad that I couldn't do more of your item but to be fair to you, I wasn't fully committed to your item so I understand your choice to block me out. Thank you for believing in me for the stunt (even though it turned out half-fuck in the end) and I apologise for all the shit that I gave you through over these few months.

Last but not least, thank you Pat for choreographing such an awesome finale item. I truly sympathise with the problem of terrible attendance you faced over the holidays but in the end it truly impresses me how you managed to create such a great performance which so little preparation. It was truly a fun item to be a part of. Thank you for also believing in me even though I always forget your steps every now and then.

I do not know when the next time I get to perform for Blast! will be because I will be missing the next concert thanks to SEP. This SUAD may have left me a little jaded and tired but nevertheless I will always look forward to doing better in the next concert. My next concert will most probably be my last so I have one last shot to become a dope legend in Blast! >.<

Killing Dreams

It's been quite a while since I've been here. Between projects last sem (CS3217) to a summer of FOC, Rag and Blast! pracs for SUAD to projects this sem (CS3216 and CS4213) and more Blast! pracs, I haven't had the time to sit down and write a blog post. However, there is something I need to get off my chest, despite breaking my ironclad rule of not posting emo blogposts on this blog.

Since the middle of summer, I had to juggle being in charge of Rag dance and my commitments to Blast!. Since I have a bigger stake in Rag, my commitments to Blast! were sadly neglected. I missed practices. I didn't catch steps. I forgot choreo. I've been a choreographer a couple of times and I know how frustrating it is when dancers don't remember their steps and now I have the dishonour of doing it to other choreographers which it kills me inside knowing that I can't do better. Once Rag was over I thought that I would be able to catch up with Blast! but from week 1 the projects have been flooding in and once again I find myself spread thinner than I can handle.

Today we just had our second concert vetting which was the first time I got to see all the other performances (I missed the first vetting due to a mishap involving me slamming my head into the concrete floor and getting sent to the hospital). There I came to the realisation of a few things. The first is how hopelessly far behind I am in the choreography with me dropping steps everywhere (which is unforgivable since there is only three weeks to concert day). The second is how good all the other dancers are in all the other items. These dancers put their all into practices and take great pains to practice in their own time. It's not talent that got them where they are now, it's hard work and time, both of which I cannot afford to commit. And this is where I arrived at my third realisation that I'm not going to make it any higher in Blast! and that I'll always be stuck being worse than ordinary.

I've always had the end goal of choreographing for Blast! before I graduate. I thought handling Rag dance for two years would be enough experience to get me there until I saw the other items at the vetting. All the choreographers are dancers whom all the other dancers look up to. Superstars in all their own rights. The best of the very best that Blast! has to offer and here I am struggling to keep up with the ordinary bunch of Blast!. Perhaps if I took more classes or if I prioritised dance higher, I could be as good as they are but these options are simply beyond my means.

It crushes my soul a little bit to know despite how much I love dancing I will never be able to excel at it but it is a humbling realisation that I have to come to terms to. The audience only deserves the best show that we can give them and I'm never going to be able to give them what others in Blast! can. Even if I grew a thicker skin and asked for the opportunity, I know they will never give it to me because I'm simply not that good. The only thing I can do is let go of impossible dreams, leave a small piece of my soul behind and walk on, putting my best foot forward to do my best at what I can do.

Halloween Horror Nights 2011

(subtitled "Exit From Hiatus")

Just a little foreword before I begin the blogpost proper. The events detailed in this blogpost date back as far as last September so yes, this blogpost is WAY overdue. However, I really didn't want to skip it because I think that Halloween Horror Nights was one of the events last year that defined 2011 for me. To be honest, maintaining my blog wasn't very high on my priority list last year but now I have an iPad on loan to me for a semester, I will hopefully be able to churn out more of my blogpost ideas that are currently sitting idle. Ok, now on to the blogpost proper...

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It all began way back on 31 August when I came back to work my part-time job as a waiter in Universal Studios Singapore during the Hari Raya break. While I was in the back-of -house, I noticed a poster advertising the auditions for internal staff for the upcoming Halloween Horror Nights (HHN).

A little backstory on what HHN is all about. HHN is a Halloween event that originated from the Universal Studios in USA. This meant that HHN in Singapore would be a MASSIVE scale production, similar to its American counterparts. In a nutshell, HHN was about taking the Hollywood experience, converting to a Halloween theme and setting it in a theme park for the public.

None of that really mattered to me though. The moment I saw the poster, I was hooked. For the longest time I wanted to have a glimpse of what it was like to be a part of the entertainment industry and this was my chance. The moment I got back to my room, I cleared my schedule to make way for the audition and crossed my fingers.

Fast forward a few days ahead to the audition day. When I walked into the audition room, I was greeted by the project director, the head of costumes and the stage manager for HHN. The audition actually went a lot quicker than I expected. The first part was essentially just them asking basic questions about my background like "Would you mind wearing coloured contacts?" and "Have you ever worn stilts before?". The second part was even easier. The project director simply said two words, "Scare me". The moment those two words left his mouth, I instinctively did the scariest thing I could think off. I bolted to their table and screamed as loud as I could into their faces. The tactic must have worked because a few days later, I received a call from Universal Studios Singapore saying that I got in.

Fast forward once again to the first day of practice. During the contract signing, I learnt that I was casted as an Evil Clown. Whatever that entailed, I didn't know but I digress. So as they gathered all the scare actors in the Pantages Theatre to brief all of us, we were grouped according to our areas and roles. As I sat down in my designated seat, the random stranger suddenly said to me, "I'm sorry but I seemed to have forgotten your name". A little surprised, I simply replied, "I don't recall ever telling you my name". As it turns out, by some random stroke of fate, the person sitting next to me was the ex-vice president of the NUS Comics and Animation Society of which I was currently the president of (in my defence, I only met her once before and moreover she was cosplaying that time so it was hard to recognize her out of costume). Either way, I was thankful enough to have met a familiar face in a sea of strangers.

The practice sessions before the event were odd enough for me. We were all dumped on an empty set with no idea whatsoever what our characters were supposed to look or act like other than the one-liner that told us what character was. So basically for the first few practices, we were left to our own devices and imagination as we explored how we interpret our roles and how we could interact with out surroundings. Nevertheless, over time as the props stopped shifting around and the costumes were finished, we had a more solid feel for what our characters were supposed to be. After that, the rest was history. After the practices, we went straight to the event itself which was spread over two weekends. Night in night out, we scared patrons as they walked in. Over the two weeks, I saw all kinds of people. Some were scared of out their wits for simply being there, some were stoned faced, some ridiculed us back as we tried to scare them, some even manhandled us while we were on duty. I was even fortunate enough to catch some of my friends while I was on set.

All in all, how did I find the experience? For starters, it was tiring like f**k. I was on set for as long as 45 minutes at a time and I was forced to wear a full-faced sponge mask so after just 15 minutes, my face started to melt under the sponge mask. On top of all that, we had to report in at 5pm and we were only released after 1am. Add transportation time on top of that and I got at least 10 hours of being outside to add to regular university curriculum and the fact that I only got to sleep after 2am for two weeks.

But boy was it fun. It would go without saying how fun it would be to be a part of an event centered on entertainment. On top of that, I got to mingle with a lot of interesting people behind the scenes. I met full-time performers, students studying drama and theatre, people who were there simply because they didn't have a job and even a person who has been in the freelance theatre business after quitting school after O-levels (there was an interestingly sizable number of openly gay people there as well). All of them were amazingly fun people. It was like a breath of fresh air to meet people I have never mixed with before and it was eye-opening to learn what it was like to be a part of the entertainment industry, both from talking to all these individuals who are a part of the industry and by simply being a part of this event myself.

Of course, this job had some extra perks. Before the event was opened to the public, some of us had the chance to experience the entire event for free. Some of you would have felt the $60+ entry ticket was too expensive but I would say that the ticket was worth every cent. The entire set-up was incredibly elaborate and the high production value was immediately obvious the moment you see the New York area which was converted to a post-apocalyptic setting complete with crashed cars and a dozen wandering zombies. It's certainly something that one is unlikely to experience within Singapore or even possibly South East Asia. As a customer and as a performer on and off set, I feel fortunate to have been a part of this incredible event and if all else works out, I would totally be a part of this in the future.

Some pictures of my costume for those who are curious:-

Another Semester, Another Concert

I'm finally back from the little dark hole that I buried myself in. For those who are wondering, for the last 3 months I was stuck in this little time black hole called EMCC (just take it as another Dance BLAST! concert). This concert is a little different from the previous one (SUAD earlier this year) in a couple of ways.

Firstly, it's my first concert as a non-freshie (meaning I get to do items other than the freshie item O=). Secondly, got the chance to perform in two items under 2+1 different choreographers (interestingly, all of which never choreographed stage performances before). So yeah, during the slow periods I was already putting 4x2 hours/week into practices. By the time we hit the crunch period, I was dedicating twice that amount of time. Throw all that on top of 2 other normal CCAs and the additional responsibility of being an inexperienced club president ON TOP OF my regular studies as a (by right lifeless) computing student and you'll understand my disappearance from the face from the Internet.

Looking back now, the feelings I had after this concert are interestingly quite different from those I had post-SUAD. After SUAD, I was simply left in awe after stepping into the world of dancing at a university level. However, now I've actually naturalised into what it's like to be a BLAST!ard so the shock value is much milder. Don't get me wrong, I still find it amazing how good the items look and I certainly enjoyed watching the bits and pieces of the concert which I managed to see.

However, did I have any life-changing moments of inspiration from this concert? Honestly, no. To be fair, EMCC is a much smaller scale production compared to SUAD (esp since the last SUAD was the 10th anniversary of BLAST!) so I felt that this concert was more like a platform budding choreographers and dancers rather than a performance to exhibit pure awesomeness.

Did I learn more from this concert? Definitely yes. I suppose this also has something to do with the fact that I just choreographed SoC Rag just before participating in EMCC. Rather than focusing solely on levelling up my skills as a dancer, I was more interested with how the choreographers conceived the big picture of the item. Story, music editing, blocking, levels, layering, musicality. I found myself inadvertently deconstructing the choreos to see what makes an item awesome beyond just steps.

It also helped me a lot being under three different choreographers. It was interesting how different people interpret music differently, be it beats, counts, lyrics, backing instruments or just random sound bites. So as a dancer trying to be a choreographer, I think it's definitely a plus to learn new ways to interpret music. Aside from that, I also learnt how each choreographer managed their dancers and their training sessions which again will be very helpful when I try to choreograph next year's SoC Rag.

At the end of it all, I think that this concert was quite a humbling experience. Every so often I get my ego let the best of me and I end up thinking that I'm the best dancer around, that I should be given more solos, given chances to choreograph items. Then I sit through the concert and see how awesome the choreos are, how awesome the real soloists are and I suddenly think to myself, "Shit, I could never do that." So yeah, I've learnt to shut my ego up and let my dancing do the talking for me.

Do I think I'm good enough to perform solos? Do I think I'm good enough to choreograph items for a BLAST! concert? I can honestly tell myself, "No way in hell. Not now." There are dancers and choreographers in BLAST! who are FAR better than I am and any concert-goer deserves at very least a level of quality that only they can offer. Nevertheless, this also gives me a goal to reach. To be able to one day reach the level of awesomeness that the only BLAST zhai-squad can offer. To improve till one day I actually become that awesome.

These past few months really helped me grow as a dancer and from this experience, I've gained some headway on my goals as a dancer. So from here on, the only way to go is forward. To one day become so awesome that I finally impress myself.

Life after Rag

(Yes, this post is way overdue given that Rag ended more than a week ago but getting my life back in order took some time. Better late than never =D)

So yes, Rag is finally over. Brief history for those who do not know what Rag is. Rag, which stands for 'Receive and Give', is Chingay-like parade which is held by NUS every year in conjunction with Flag Day. So basically every faculty and hall will build a float and put up a dance performance. For the School of Computing, I was given the task of being the dance choreographer, tasked with choreographing the performance and overseeing the teaching and execution of the item. I should have you know that prior to this, I have never choreographed a full performance (my only choreographing experience being a 2 minute item which eventually got scrapped) and now I was tasked with putting together a 6 minute performance, which is considered uber long by dance performance standards.

The whole choreographing journey started at the beginning of the year when the first design of the float came out. The main reason why I had to wait till the initial float design to come out was because we wanted to ensure that the float and the dance to complement each other (which was not quite the case for last year's rag when the float was an armoured whale and the dance was about war and peace...). So with float design in mind, I went about roughly sketching out the rough storyline and specific effects and moments I wanted in the dance. After that was done, the dance was left to sit at the back of my head till May >.<

May arrives. I start fleshing out all the filler bits and I finally have an idea of how many dancers I have to work with after our recruitment drive during the Freshman Orientation Camp (our main source of manpower). After that, the rest was history. The next three months was essentially just teaching, training and cleaning up till show day alongside National Day.

Of course, to leave those three months at just that would not do justice to the hell of a journey those three months were. I had one dancer tell me he got chicken pox a month before show. My lead dancer gave me the scare of my life when she was suspected to have appendicitis just 2 days before showtime (luckily of course, it turned out to be a false alarm and she performed). Tempers flared as my freshies were torn between Rag commitments and orientation, made only worse by the fact that I had some dancers go missing for weeks on end and come back like nothing happened. If my stress levels were plotted against time till performance, it'll be an exponential curve hitting infinity as time left tends to 0.

Despite all the sleep-deprived nights and all the loss of what little hair I have left, I do not regret being a part of this epic journey. In spite of the numerous failed stunts and dropped steps during showtime, I still believe that we managed to put up a show that we can be proud of and at the end of it all, I believe that's what matters most. For me at very least, I have learnt A LOT from being this year's Rag choreographer, things that I would never have been exposed to otherwise, like cheerleading =P

Videos of SoC Rag 2011:-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=osvRSVY873I ('official' video)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kjHLwzW2y-M&feature=share (audience video 1)
http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=10150254339070814&comments (audience video 2)

A Keen Sense of Insanity

Greetings poor Mr. Blog. I'm sorry I haven't been visiting you very often. I have been, still is and will be very busy with Rag Dance but I'll try to come around as and when I can okay?

Never mind that. I digress...

Back to the subject title. Recently I just came back from a 4D4N stayover camp better known as the School of Computing Freshman Orientation Camp (SoC FOC). I think the name of the camp best speaks for itself what the camp was about. My role in the camp was supposed to be that of a fake freshie but my cover was very quickly (albeit unintentionally) blown by one of my orientation group's (OG) group leaders (GL) so I ended up being my OG's fake GL/mascot for the rest of the camp.

Now anyone who knows me well enough will know that I'm a hyperactive bunny when I'm in camp mode. I figured myself to be a rather animated person under normal circumstances so being in camp mode just exaggerates the crazy person that I already am. This behaviour stems from one of my many life philosophies. I believe in creating moments regardless of the personal social costs. To rephrase that, I'm the type of person who doesn't really care if people are laughing with me or laughing at me, just so long as they are genuinely laughing, like being a jester of sorts. It's a whole lot easier to keep people hyped and keep their morale up when you have a hyperactive crazy dude prodding them from behind. That and generally people are more inclined to have fun at the same time.

Which now brings me to the final point of this blogpost. I think being slightly hyper is an important trait to have yet I don't think I'm wrong to say that most people shun it. Granted, there are a great many situations which call for utmost seriousness but that doesn't mean that ludicrousness has no place in our society. Maybe it's in our Asian blood to be conservative and all but I swear, sometimes we are just too quick to reject anything that either stands out or is simply out of the ordinary.

Nevertheless, I suppose I would be asking for too much if I wished that everyone be a little more hyper and I will also concede that not all people are cut out to be hyper. So that being said, I think I'll just have to contend with being one of the few crazy people around to light up people's days for now, for better or for worse =D

Post-SUAD Thoughts

Well, it's finally over. Shut Up And Dance 2011 comes to a close. Okay, fine. It actually came to a close last Sunday but I've been spending the last week picking up the pieces of my life. Just a little bit of context for everyone. Shut Up And Dance is a concert put up by the NUS Dance BLAST! club. This year in particular is really special since it marks the club's 10th anniversary so the scale of this concert was A LOT bigger than anything I've been a part of before.

It's really on hell of a crazy ride for me. I'm only a junior this year so I was only a part of the finale item in which they shoved all 40~ of us juniors plus another 20~ seniors into. That plus the fact that I'm practically a bottom feeder within the club, so I had a nice cozy time in the back corner of the stage. So to make use of this situation, they committee decided to make use of the extra muscle and drafted all the junior guys into the backstage props team while we were not dancing.

But that didn't make the experience any less awesome. I've been in concerts in secondary school before and recently I was also a part of the CAC concert as a b-boy but the scale of those concert do not even come close to SUAD. It's an inspiring experience watching the seniors and alumni dancing on stage. Almost breathtaking when you watch the sheer level of quality in the choreography and execution.

It's one thing to be blown away by professional dancers from the comfort of a nice cushioned chair but witnessing a performance of that level from the wings just takes it to a whole new experience. Sure I don't get to see the big picture of all the blocking and there will be a lot of instances where I can't see what's happening on stage because I'm blocked by the wings but there are nuances of a performance that can only be witnessed up close.

I'll just try to retell one example that sent chills down my spine. One of the dances used the song "Love The Way You Lie" by Eminem and Rihanna and featured one of the most amazing solo dancers I've had the honour of meeting, Chun. Her solos by themselves are already insane enough with the amount of energy she puts into her performances. Still, the thing that totally knocked me off my feet was how into the character she was. In the silence after the song, just before the stage completely blacked out for the next segment of the dance, I heard the faintest of whimpers coming from Chun and I was like taken aback by how immersed she was into the role to the point it almost became real.

Still, as inspiring as watching another dancer is, nothing can replace the feeling of being the one on stage. 60 people on stage forming the biggest 'dance armies' to grace the concert. Standing in front of a sellout crowd, there's a feeling that drives you to throw out everything you have and leave it on the stage floor. After an emotionally charged choreo to an equally emotionally charged song (Eminem's solo in B.O.B.'s Airplaines Part II), I ran into the wings and for a few seconds I almost thought I would puke after just throwing out so much energy during the performance. A really super crazy 4 minutes.

But I think my greatest takeaway from this concert is not the inspiration or the time on stage but the new friends I made. When I first auditioned for BLAST!, I went in alone and got in not knowing anyone at all. For the longest time, I went to weekly practices without actually getting to know 90% of the other people in the studio but thanks to this concert, I finally managed to sit down and attach names to the faces I've seen for so long. Like Pat (our resident choreographer) said, the concert is sort of a 'baptism of fire' and that we are now inducted into what is the BLAST! family, soon to become the seniors I so greatly admired.

To wrap up my thoughts, this concert for me is really a rite of passage as a dancer stepping onto the next level of my dancing life. So onwards I go, to become the senior who inspires juniors like I have been inspired.

1600 people in the audience, 10 years of BLAST! history, 1 unforgettable experience.