I wrote about America’s Got Talent (AGT) in 2021 (https://jimsoper.medium.com/cheers-tears-d6a58385a13c). This year, one group danced apart - the Mayyas, from Lebanon. In their opening audition, Simon Cowell said that it was probably the best dance performance they were likely to ever see. He was wrong.
(There are hours of videos on this page, most recent first. Look at the first one. Then decide if you are hooked. Clearly the Chinese (below) and Lebanese were using the same style.)
- 2022, Sept: Mayyas won AGT for the entire season (2022): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=soHEk55ywzk (3 1/2 mins) and here: Mayyas “Finals Full Performance & Judges Comments” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OUfZW8djnmU
- 2022, Sept: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G5MyQdGsQOo ( 2 3/4 mins)
- 2022, July, Mayyas audition performance on AGT: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZD0doCSkBY8&t (9 1/3 mins)
- 2019, Sept, Britain’s Got Talent (BGT), 3rd Round Audition: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4vJaBKEqM2o (7 mins)
- 2019, April, Britain’s Got Talent, semi-finals: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g-2yjFOxWAw (9 mins)
MAYYA COMPILATIONS:
- All the Mayya’s performances starting with Arabs Got Talent: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RtJ2hgQElwc (27 1/2 mins) This video skips the introductions, judges comments, performers reactions, but shows the dancing.
- “Mayyas’ performances in America’s , britain’s, Italia’s and arab’s got talent”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iEBeYToJQWE (8 1/2 mins)
CHINESE GROUPS
These are performances by Chinese groups dating back to 2012. The dancers in the first group are said to be deaf. You can see women standing off to the side giving cues to the dancers. A search on YouTube will get you several videos of this group: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=chinese+deaf+dancers I will not try to list all of them, especially as there is a compilation.
- 2019, Oct: A compilation of performances by the Chinese dancers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J34s4BdyHm0
- 2012, March: “Chinese Hearing Impaired Dancers — Thousand Hand” Bodhisattva, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uUl0JRoQeG4 The earliest performance 0f this style I have seen.
- 2021, August: Tokyo Olympics, in the first half minute, the Chinese Artistic Swimming team enters & opens with a now familiar move, before they dive into the water: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o6jEtbwPzVg The actual swimming performance is superb (5 1/4 mins)
- 2013, August: Mitsi Dancing School: Founded by a Chinese woman in America. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JCUcCDYs-iM (3 1/4 mins) Note: Mitsi performed for AGT in 2013. One might forgive Simon for not remembering this in light of what he said of the Mayyas being the best ever on AGT. But you can see that he was not among the judges for that performance.
BONUS VIDEO
2022, Summer: “Simon’s (15) Favorite Golden Buzzers” :
https://tv.youtube.com/watch/huCY30OBZJA (1 1/2 hours)
Worth watching if you have the YouTube subscription service. The #2 and #1 picks were the best. Those start at 1 hr, 12 1/2 mins.
