Post-Competition

These are the results for the Para Para M.A.D. Dance Competition 2001!

Congratualations to Paradise in Fantasy for winning the GRAND CHAMPION title! Shall we have a brief runthrough for the competition?

Preparations for this competition was never easy especially the Finals and I was extremely busy right from the beginning to the end as I have to coordinate the different teams and audio tracks. Coming to the main competition, SkyTokyo was the first to perform their medley of songs starting with <Night Clubbin'>, one of the high-profile songs in PPP5. Right after that is yet another PPP5 song <Solid Gold> followed by Lolita's <Think of You> and <White is for You Black is for Me> when finally their final song for the medley is yet another prolific song, <777>. This time round SkyTokyo has done better than their own standards in the Prelims and the Semi-Finals and I feel they will certainly be a better team with more practice and effort.

Following up is our next team Paradise in Fantasy which is a balanced group of three males and females and their medley of songs belong to the theme of 'cuteness' where you can find much of the cute and fun songs. Getting started, they had Domino's <Stop> which is a fun song comprising of differents moves at certain parts of the song where the word "Stop!" is sang. Next is a familiar song in PPP4, <Para Para Paradise> which of course describes what we and they are doing, the Para Para Dance. After this is the much-talked about "most easy" song of Para Para, <Easy Busy>! I guess no one would have expected any team in a competition to utilise that song but with their theme in hand it is no wonder they would use it. Next is one of the slightly tougher songs in PPP5, <Around The Universe> as it uses plenty of movements in a short while as its intro. Finally the song to look out for in any Para Para team, <Snakedance>! This song has its difficulty in coordination and as what I said, if you can coordinate in this song, you win...they certainly did as told and boy I was surprised at the amount of coordination I saw at the tougher parts of the dance! I was certainly marvelled by their efforts and moves.

Next comes along Nostalgic Productions, a team that many would look out for as they certainly had a reputation to live up for. Their past experiences in competitions would have gave any team a warning sign but I would say this time round they did not do as well as expected. Their first song was <Fever The Night>, a great dance from PPP2 and a dance that many would still be willing to dance despite the newer dances being evolved due to its great and nice moves. The next song was <Night Clubbin'> and soon was <Space Boy>, a song that is not really danced much by the Paralists in Singapore. Though they did well up to this stage, sharp eyes would have realised some inconsistancies and soon they surfaced with their final song, <The Final Countdown> as it requires a lot of coordination but this time they did not do as well as expected...what a pity to my feel.

The team before the last was Initial Para Dance which is made up of 2 females and 3 males, As the song starts with a cute ringing sound, the 2 girls also started rising from their settled positions and faced each other and doing some cute moves and the song that soon came to our ears was <777> which lasted for quite a while before it linked itself to the next song <Black Magic>. This is a dance that not the majority of Paralists in Singapore knew and the selling point would be the end of the chorus where the singer would go 'aiyayayai' and you can see the team shaking their hips in unison...simply great! The final song for them was <Excitable> which is even less seen in the Singapore Para scene. The song is rather catchy in its chorus espcieally at the end where it sings 'really really really excite!" :)

The last team is Fever and boy if I have to give the "Best Starting Moves" Award, I would no doubt give to them! The 4 males in the team were dressed like waiters and 3 of them are behind while the only female of the group and another guy is front. As the music starts both of them did a little dance which certainly would make people raise their brows! Soon the music for <Let's Go To The Show> comes in and all of them began to do their dance moves. The following song was <Para Para Paradise> and the interesting part of this team comes in with the members 'stripping' in front of the crowd! Don't worry - they have another clothing inside and they proceeded to their next song, <Captain Fantastic>. This song seems to be one of its kind as it has some 'martial arts' move in it! Soon after their arm-wielding and leg sweeping (well not really the case :P) moves they proceeded with the popular <Night Clubbin'> and using part of the dance moves they moved on to <Big Brother>, another 'martial arts' song in comparison to the earlier dance. After all this 'fighting and wielding' came along a last and slightly more gentle dance, <Baby I'm Your Lady> which has roots into J-Euro. On the whole Fever has done it well and I'm really impressed by them.

Every competition has a winner but everyone should be happy as they have performed well and best of all it's at New Year's Eve! As the New Year sets in with the Countdown, the stage announced the much-awaited results and the cute-themed team Paradise in Fantasy won the title of Grand Champion for the Para Para M.A.D. Dance Competition 2001! They have done well and truly deserved the prize, and all the other teams have done very well for this competition and I truly have to thank all of you who have participated - without YOU, this competition would not have been SO SUCCESSFUL! Thank you very much!

The year drew to an end, and a new year awaits. May we still find unity and laughter in Para Para, and till next time, next competition, next performance? Good bye!!!

Yours,
Luke Chan, 01/01/02.

Introduction

In conjunction with the "Making A Difference" (M.A.D.) movement to encourage proactive involvement of youths into community service, the movement has strived to raise funds for the Straits Times School Pocket Money Fund. One of the core events is the Para Para M.A.D. Dance Competition which will also be part of the fund-raising event.

I am proud to say that I am the main organiser for this Para Para competition and I've worked hard to make everything as smooth-sailing as possible. I hope all of you will participate this event so as to raise funds for some 5,000 young people out there who even have trouble getting three meals into their stomachs, and yet at the same time enjoy yourselves by dancing the Para Para and winning some prizes for yourself!

For $10 per participant to contribute into the Straits Times School Pocket Money Fund, you have done the society a good deed and in recognition to that, for the first 200 participates there will be free goodie bags! What's more to do you can attempt to prove your group's dancing skills and win yourselves some prizes should you get far enough!

Apart from getting some prizes, have you ever thought what it'll be like to have Orchard Road looking at you while you're dancing? The location is at Orchard Park where a great Christmas tree lie, and the winner of the competition will get to perform in the New Year 2002 Eve Countdown! Can you believe it!

I would hope all of you would support this important event of the year and do strive to Making A Difference to the society, to the people around us. Please contribute to this event! If you want to know more about what is the M.A.D., please click the above link or here.

Last but not least, may all of you have a Merry Christmas and I hope to see you in my registration forms!

Yours sincerely,
Luke Chan, Webmaster