UBC's Got Talent!

Real entry number 1!

One of the events I have been waiting for for a loooong time, UBC's Got Talent, finally happened last night. It will apparently be a yearly thing now, seeing the great success the event had. The Chan's 1,200 seats were claimed, which meant we got to enjoy some Toope and Bijan talent (Stephen Toope is the President of UBC, and Bijan is the President of the Alma Matter Society, which is 'like a high school council except with an operating budget of over $12 million dollars' as we like to say on tours...) So it was a pretty popular event and tickets sold out (not sure if this term applies when the tickets are free...) days before the event, causing a huuuuge line-up outside the Chan before the show of people hoping to get in.

Being an enthousiast of America's Got Talent and Britain's Got Talent, the whole idea of UBC's Got Talent greatly appealed to me. The 15 acts, selected from 124 submissions, were good. UBC certainly has got some great talent, and you can look at a lot of the audition videos on YouTube. The thing is it not only included students, but also faculty, staff and University Neighbourhood Association people, which made UGT (abbreviation will be used from now on) showcase a variety of talents but also a variety of ages (no kids with angelic voices, though.)

So I'll refrain from talking about the ones I didn't find particularly interesting, but I will say which ones I enjoyed. And I'll upload some videos later too.

-I liked Pentactonics, a chinese band that performed with chinese traditional instruments (craazy! I had never seen those instruments before) some cool songs, one from Bond.
- I liked the guy that could solve a Rubik's cube. Without breaking it and putting it back together (aka cheating). Without sweating. With ONE hand. While eating a banana. In less than 24 seconds. Phew. Pretty amazing! The shortest act of the evening, he actually got a standing ovation from the public. {Which is ironic considering this guy spent like two years practicing, whereas the people in other acts, like the ones playing the piano and violin, have spent all of their lives mastering those skills. AND also, if you youtube 'rubiks one hand' you'll see how people do it a) without looking at the cube for more than a couple seconds before the timer starts (this guy had like all the time in the world planning the strategy in his head), and b) in way less time. I'm not saying I'm not super impressed, I mean I have zero talents, but lets put things in context}
- I liked the beat boxing guys. They made some incredible sound effects and I just enjoyed every second of the presentation. pr pr rp rp r p JJJJ isisije
- I liked the piano and violin duo. Unfortunately, I didn't fully enjoy this act because a couple in front of me thought it would be okay to whisper and have a long conversation during the one act when the Chan was dead quiet.
- The dance group. They were pretty good and performed a story of how men should not trust women (ehm...) using three songs, different choreographies, and ending with Don't Trust a Ho by Oh!3... The theme was not the greatest but anyway.

Wish list of what I'd like to see in the future: acrobatics, MAGIC, more/better a Capella singers (the ones we got sucked), stand up comedy!

I thought it interesting that the Got Talent franchise (yes, it is a franchise! Just like the Idol and the Dancing With the Stars franchise) is one of the fastest growing international franchises. People just love seeing talent, and personally I think what I like the most about the whole Talent Show idea is the feeling of awe and amazement looking at what other people can do with their bodies.

And by the way, the whole idea of applying the term franchise to a concept, when I'm usually accustomed to associating it with tangible things such as fast food or retail chains , is pretty crazy. Franchises exist for a bunch of media, including characters and plots from movies, books, tv shows. And soap operas! Mexico's Televisa, known from all around the world for it's soap operas (dubbed in more than 50 languages apparently) exports them all over the world (check out this link, it's pretty interesting 'The Global Pandemic of the Telenovela - Mexico's Biggest Export to the World is and Endless, Gushing Fount of Insane Television')

And, finally, one of the best things of the night for me was finding out about UBC LIP DUB! I'm so excited for it already. It's a growing YouTube phenomena and Universities around the world are doing it. It's basically one single shot of thousands of people lip singing (lip dubbing I guess...) to a song, doing crazy things and dancing. Check it out and do the dub!