Dubai: For three minutes and 11 seconds you simply couldn’t take your eyes off her even if you wanted to.
Apurva Prashant Kaimal, 11, floated like a butterfly and buzzed like a bee and in between, flirted with her audience, sometimes winking, sometimes plain gesticulating at them. You could have possibly heard a pin drop as well if the music wasn’t playing, but it was — loud and booming — and the pocket-sized dynamo who is a fifth grader at the Indian High School seemed to match every beat like a born charmer.
When it was over, the judges — all three of them — stood up in unison, clapping wildly.
Kaimal was among scores of kids from the UAE taking auditions for Kidz Stars, Dubai’s first mall talent show where they spot a star in the making. And it was here the Mumbai girl delivered a breathtaking dance rendition of the hit Bollywood chartbuster 1,2,3,4…Get on the Dance Floor from record-breaking Bollywood blockbuster Chennai Express.
“Greatness comes in small packages and you exemplify that,” said one of the judges Lena ter Laare, the American editor of a magazine. Another 500-odd who had been watching her spellbound, from around the purpose-built Festival Square stage at Dubai Festival City, some as high as two levels up, swayed in wild amazement.
“Entertainment is entertainment and if you have the eyes and the ears and the heart to see what somebody is doing on stage, it doesn’t matter what language he/she speaks. If a performer is having a good time, then that transcends all race, nationality and religion. A lot of that was unfamiliar to me, but I enjoyed it,” Lena added.
It wasn’t just about dancing Bollywood numbers last Friday, the second day of the auditions at the second edition of the annual talent competition. There were performers, 150-odd, shortlisted from over 400 children, aged 6-15, being judged in two more categories — music with instruments and singing which saw several other stellar performances.
Callum Thomas Bell, 14 and Giverny Howorth, sang I won’t give up by Jason Mraz and The Climb by Miley Cyrus respectively, both British and both to loudest cheers of the day. Meanwhile 15-year old Aroma Joshi from India strummed the guitar to her own composition which she says she finished in ‘two hours flat’ after she was hurt by one of her friends.
“Being in Dubai means if you set your mind to something then you can accomplish it and these kids are the embodiment of that dream. No matter where they come from, they put their hearts and minds to it and these kids are going to make it [big],” said Ter Laare.
The show that has a prize pool above Dh150,000 through various gift vouchers even had contestants from as far as Brazil. Isabelly Camparim B Ferraz, 14, came from the little-known Rondonópolis, a town of just over 200,000 some 573 miles south west of the capital Brasilia.
The daughter of a dance instructor mother and a chemical engineer father, the long time Dubai resident and year nine student at the Universal American School played the guitar and sang Who Knew by Pink in the instruments category.
“That’s the thing about this show. It reflects what Dubai stands for. There was such a variety of cultures and even in those cultures there was such a variety of tastes and preferences from singing to dancing to playing the instrument. Just goes to show what a melting pot Dubai is,” said Kerrie Simon-Lawrence, another judge who is also the editor of a magazine.
“I won’t be surprised to see them compete in a real X-Factor or a show like America’s Got Talent. Some of them are that good,” says the Aussie.
The semi-final takes place on November 8 and the grand finale the Friday after, from 4pm and 10pm both days. So Dubai’s got talent? You must be there to see for yourself.
“The top contenders will be rewarded with many valuable gifts that are donated by the mall’s retailers including the Sing & swing Training Centre who will provide a unique in-studio professional recording session,” said David Robinson, the Regional General Manager of Shopping Malls, AFGRE.
