The smoke from the fireworks display clears to reveal Rainbow, an 18 year-old student wearing not much more than a bikini, standing alone, center stage at the Beach Honey Contest Grand Finale at Dino Beach last Saturday -- She's 100,000 rmb richer.
Over 10,000 people turned up Saturday to watch the contest and to cool off from one of the hottest summers on record. The crowd began to buildup around 3:30PM with a large queue and police directing traffic outside the main gate to the waterpark. By 5:00PM a buzz of nervous excitement filled the air as the 21 contestants, most in their late teens, made their way from the dressing rooms to backstage.
Beach Honey ContestThe contest took a head-to-head knockout format, with 2 girls competing against one another for the attention of the judges. In the event of a tie, the audience were polled to wave either a red or green colored program in the air to show approval. One-by-one the field of 21 contestants were eliminated to 16, then down to 8 then 4 and finally 3rd place, runner up and Miss Beach Honey 2007.
For Rainbow, the journey began in March upon winning a seemingly harmless dance contest at Bonbon. Each month a number of contestants advanced to a semi final round held in July. The Grand Final event was the culmination of 6 months of dance contests in which over 250 moslty Shanghainese, but also international girls competed. Two of the 22 finalists were European though 1 returned to her home country just prior the final event.
This was the 2nd Beach Honey contest in as many years. Starting out in 2006 with a first place prize of 20,000 rmb it appears that the Beach Honey contest is a hit with teens and twenty-somethings. The contest’s tight coupling to hip hop adds to the appeal towards the young crowd and performances by local breakdance crew DragonMaster and US recording artist/actor Coolio rounded out the contest Saturday night.
The event has turned out to be a windfall of success for the organizers as well who, after a relentless media blitz (over 1M rmb) that included all of the electronic billboards on Huaihai Rd, subways, taxis, elevators, have lined up a waft of corporate sponsors for next summer’s event. The Beach Honey contest’s popularity translates to bigger prizes as well. Next year’s grand prize is 200,000 rmb cash -- double this year’s grand prize, with a total value of cash and prizes well above 300,000 rmb for next year’s winner.
In an interview prior to her winning the grand prize, Rainbow was asked what she would do if she were to win and she replied simply “ To go have a nice dessert”. Congratulations Rainbow, Miss Beach Honey 2007, and enjoy that dessert!
Thursday night the 21 finalists in this year's Beach Honey contest will be partying with Da Long PQ and Shout Dogg at Bonbon... Look back for some on-the-spot video of all the events leading up to Saturdays Grand Finale...
Also noteworthy: Bonbon won That's Shanghai magazine's Readers Choice Award for "Best Club" 2007. COngrats and here's to more great times in the future!!!
Respect to all the dancers out there... B-Boys/Girls, battle dancers, stage dancers, cdm's, or anyone that just likes to bust a move... If dance is your thang u might want to checkout the battles tomorrow at Dino Beach
Back in the day (and I mean waaaay back) there was a few different TV shows that brought a bit of the style and sound of disco, funk, r&b whatevah... out of the clubs and into the living rooms for all to watch.
Shows like Soul Train with host Don Cornelius brought the music to the masses by featuring current stars and (usually lip-synched) performances. A key element of Soul Train, however, was The Line -- a gauntlet of sorts that was formed by 2 rows of people on the dancefloor allowing anyone to walk the line: dance down the middle, It was part fashion show and part dance routine... This vidcap is great because Don Cornelius himself describes The Line, take a look...
The Line
More Line
Even More Line
Not at all competitive, but a show nonetheless.
OK, more Solid Gold from the vaults. Solid Gold was another Dance Music TV show of the disco era and it featured again performances by the stars and some especially nice Solid Gold Dancers who would do routines while the announcer would count down the Top 10 hits of the week. This all predated MTV keep things in a bit of perspective! Funny thing about Solid Gold was it took its countdown from I dunno, radio airplay charts or Billboard maybe? But some of the songs of that time were not exactly dance songs, like REO Speedwagon? hahhah Anyways, it's all just a bit of flavor.
Solid Gold
Fame - People remember my name
There were other very big TV shows as well, like American Bandstand with Dick Clark, AT10, Americas Top 10 with Casey Casem, James Brown even had a show Future Shock... But to me, none were so successful in capturing the feeling or vibe of a club and re-producing it on TV than Soul Train, especially during The Line segment.
We bringing it all back YO its 2007. OK, here is footage from last years Soul Train Battle of the Year in Zurich. Again, respect to all the dancers in the Battles at Dino Beach on Friday... Looking forward to see where you're all gonna take it!
Battle Dance
The New Line
Here's a recent interpretation of the line by Wharton University Dancers...
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