Booth babes.
Skaters.
Graffiti artists.
What do they have in common?
I was at e@Curve to catch the F&N Freestylez Show Ur Moves finals on Sunday. I was supposed to meet a friend for lunch first and was surprised to see the event in full swing way before the finals were slated to kick off.
There were young ladies (the proper and politically correct term for this is actually “booth babes”, but who cares about being PC on sixthseal.com) handing out free F&N drinks to everyone at the Curve and I met someone I recognized!
Okay la, I don’t even know her, I just wanted to take a photo with her. 😉
Anyway, the place was packed with people trying their hand at the various booths around, which includes a Guitar Hero section and a DJ hut. I see no expense was spared in the event management aspects. It was a rocking (pardon the pun) ambience!
There was a media session at Tony Roma’s right before the final B-boy faceoff where we got to:
1. Meet the judges
2. Get a first hand demonstration of what the B-Boy scene is all about
3. Load up on food
4. Camwhore with Jestina
I was surprised to see the moves being pulled off by the F&N B-boys…coz I’ve seen it before! Street dancing is big in KK, Sabah and while I was doing my time there, some of the boys inside did the exact same maneuvers when someone managed to sneak a cassette in!
It was in fact, almost the sole source of entertainment during my time there so I was naturally quite excited when the beats started pumping out, with the bass reverberations guiding me towards the stage like a moth towards a flame.
I parked my ass (technically I was standing) right in front of the stage to catch the 10 teams in action. I’m not going to feature all of them here, just the ones that really caught my attention. I’ll be honest here – there are some teams which were rather mediocre and some crews who blew my mind away!
I felt a bit self-conscious standing in front of the judges (L-R: Boojae, Fiona Jane Gomez, Danny One) though. It just didn’t feel Proper (TM) so I moved to the side a little to allow them an unobstructed view of the stage.
Okay, let me give you the lowdown of the F&N Freestylez Show Ur Moves finals:
Feasible Crew (from Sarawak yo, my hometown) came on the scene with buckets and rags for an awesome scene which was part dance and part cleanup crew. I wonder if they were paid for cleaning up the stage. 😉
I like Wakaka Crew’s performance – they have a lot of slick moves in their repertoire.
Fresh Beat Rockers from Penang on the other hand tried WAY TOO HARD. Not in the good way if you catch my drift.
N Crew is one of the two crews that have female dancers. There is one lone XX Chromosome in the group, but IMHO, they didn’t really impress. It looks like a lot of rehashed moves and a whole bag of clichés and they lack that elusive Stage Presence Factor (TM). I tried to hunt down look for the female dancer but couldn’t find her after the event.
Move is the other crew that has female dancers.
Move has two in fact.
They got a lot of applause from the crowd and I think their Moves (pardon the pun) were pretty good too.
No, I’m not biased. 😉
Project Elementz impressed me the most with their costumes and their choreography. The crew managed to squeeze in a story with the short amount of time, with impeccably timed moves.
It’s a story about a vagabond…
…who met a rich (but stingy) man, and ended up opening up a can of F&N (and also a can of whoopass).
The choreographed scene has a lot of elaborate and magnificent moves, like this airborne version of Karate Kid meets The Matrix bullet time.
Mad skillz. I was seriously impressed.
The Project Elementz crew was highly entertaining but made a whole mess of the entire stage with their elaborate props. Heh!
This is Elecoldxhot. I like their pure energy and I love the profanity ridden gangsta rap music playing throughout their routine. This crew embodies PURE ENERGY! I was amazed by the calorie burning performance they put on.
The 10 crews in the F&N Freestylez Show Ur Moves finals strutted their stuff and the judges did their thing, and so, I present to you, the winners:
Best Dressed Crew – N Crew
Best Choreographed Crew – Feasible Crew (from Sarawak – represent!)
Most Entertaining Crew – Project Elementz
Most Outstanding B-Boy – Muhamad Haslam from Wakaka Crew
2nd Runner Up – Wakaka Crew
1st Runner Up – Move
Grand Prize Winner – Elecoldxhot
They snagged the grand prize with their hyper energetic performance!
It was a pretty entertaining night and it provides a real insight into the B-Boy and street dancing culture in Malaysia. Cheers to F&N for a great event!
There is one thing I noticed about the B-boy crews though – they have an obsession with huge, flashy basketball shoes. I think it’s standard issue for all the crews. 😉
