"Baseco's Got Talent" is a local talent show which is held when overseas visitors come. It is a chance for people to show their talent to the community and also a chance for them to win prize money at the same time.
On this trip, we used a portion of donations raised to fund the prize money. First prize winner got 5,000 pesos which is aproximately AU$133. This might not seem much to us but here in the slum, people could get food for weeks without having to go one night hungry! Second place winner got 3,000 pesos which is aproximately AU$80. Third place winner got 2,000 pesos which is aproximately AU$53 and Fourth place got 1,000 pesos which is aproximately AU$27.
Beverly who is one of the youth leaders at the church is so clever. She made up the "winning" cheque with just some spare cardboard and paper and neat writing.
My mum and I had dinner with her Filipino friends from University days on Tuesday night. When we told them about the Talent Show, one of her friends offered to donate 5,000 pesos to the prize pool as she didn't want any of the contestants to go home empty handed. Because of her, we were able to give consolation prize money to all the remaining contestants who didn't make it into the Top 4.
The show started at 6:30 PM and it was held in the local basketball hall. The judges included my uncle Dave, me, my mum, Sarah (a missonary from Germany), a Government official from Baseco, Pastor Manny, Roderick (from the church), Kat Kat (from the church), and Fabian (one of my mum's friend). It was pouring rain when the show started but there were still about 250 people there. Before the Talent Show started, we could see all the teams and solo performers practicing at the back of the hall so it was kind of a sneak peak.
It was hard to judge as so many of the performances were so good!
It felt inspiring to be amongst all of these amazing performers, and to be judging them was a massive honour. This is what the judging sheet looked like:
The way the scoring works is you have three sections: one for performance quality which is the most important. It makes up 50% of the total score. Then there was originality which made up 30% of the score and finally the last section was creativitely which made up 20% of the score. There were a dozen performers either in a group or they were solo. The performers were a mixture of dancing, singing, beat-boxing, and even spray painting! These are the performers who made it through an earlier audition round.
The top three performers were Highest Degree, No Limit, and Makoto Queen. They were all really happy when their names got announced. Even the people who weren't in the top three still cheered on the top three and were really happy for them and wanting their favourite performer to win. The winner was Makoto Queen who did a robot imatation, It was so good because she could spin her hands so fast so it looked like it was a robot and also she could "take off" her neck in a really realistic way. That is why I thought that she was the best. You can watch a video of her entire performance below:
I think that "Baseco's Got Talent" is an important event because it shows that even when you live in a poor area you can still have natural talent. It also shows that you don't need money to be good or professional at something. The Talent Show is important because it creates liveliness and excitement in the Baseco's atmosphere when there might not be much otherwise. It really lifts the community spirit and also inspires the younger generations that they can do anything they put their mind to. These are some of the reasons why I think that "Baseco's Got Talent" is so important.
Presenting the Winner's cheque to Makoto Queen. Her two little boys came up on stage as well!
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