So You Think You Can Dance (Malaysia, season 2)

Auditions

SYTYCD auditions were held in two locations, i.e. the Imperial International Hotel, Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, on 9 March 2008, followed by the Panggung Bandaraya DBKL, Kuala Lumpur (the sole audition ground in the first season) on 18 March. 423 signed up for the preliminary auditions – 106 in Sabah and the rest in Kuala Lumpur.

Out of this, seven from Sabah and 123 from Kuala Lumpur moved on to the "main auditions" on 19 and 21 April, but it was reported that only four out of the Sabah audition qualifiers made it to Kuala Lumpur. The format in this stage is different from that of last season, in which one would either be sent straight to Boot Camp or the Callbacks – this time there is no Callbacks; just two stages of auditions which all who made it in the first stage will undergo the second.

Boot Camp

From the main auditions, 70 made it to the Boot Camp – three days of intensive pre-competition training. Day 1 witnessed the judges training the dances; Judimar kicked off the Boot Camp by 'warming up' the contestants with contemporary dance. Little did they expect that Pat and Ramli broke out to them that they had been watching them too, reprimanded them for their lack of seriousness toward the competition, and shockingly sent off four of them. Thus, the pressure was on the remaining 66 to perform better as they were split into groups and performed in front of all three judges later in the day.

Halfway into the day, the dancers were split into two large groups: Pat called the hip-hoppers, freestylers and breakdancers while the rest who specialized on ballet, lyrical and contemporary went to Ramli, before the two judges switched groups to get the dancers "out of their comfort zone." After a session to adapt to unfamiliar dance genres, the dancers were split again into smaller groups to perform in front of the judges. The last elimination of the day saw the dancers divided into groups again to face the judges, 14 of which were sent away before the last group to appear were given another chance to prove their mettle. And from that group, three did not make the cut into Day 2.

On Day 2, choreographers were brought in to train four different routines:

Boojay & Ali – hip-hop

Azwa – Malaysian contemporary

Suhaili Micheline – contemporary

Fasilito – salsa

Early in Day 2 there had been one elimination – a contestant was late for training after oversleeping and had to be sent off. After each lesson from the choreographers, the dancers were divided into groups of six to show what they learned from their choreographers to the judges. For the first two genres, pleasant comments came from the panel, but after the third, the judges and dancers exchanged grouses. To settle them down, Judimar asked the dancers to hold each other's hands and scream to relieve stress, while Pat advised them to "have fun" in the next choreography.

The last choreography session required the dancers to pair up for the salsa routine. After they performed in front of the judges, it was crunch time on the end of Day 2, after which 35 dancers proceeded to Day 3.

On day 3, the dances performed solo dances in genres of their respective choices in their last chance to impress judges and enter the Top 20. At night, the judges took four hours debating on who should enter the real competition, leaving the dancers in extreme suspense. It was after midnight that the first dancer was called to face the panel – Joshua, who joined the first season and dedicated his journey in the competition to his late friend, was dejected in learning that he was turned away in spite of positive remarks by the judges.

Top 20

The following are the 20 contestants who made it into the competition rounds:

Notes

¹ Ages were accurate at beginning of competition. ² Occupations were accurate before competition.

Competition

The So You Think You Can Dance competition takes place in Ruums KL as was the previous season, aired "live" on 8TV every Thursday, 9.30pm.

Grand finale

The final night of the competition was held in Ruums KL as in the previous weeks, but was brought to 8.30pm on Friday, 1 August. Voting lines were open from the moment the Top 4 were revealed the week before till the end of the Grand Finale.

The 16 finalists who had been eliminated earlier throughout the competition returned to kick-start the party with a medley consisting of a hip-hop piece with a fusion of Feedback (Janet Jackson) and Gimme More (Britney Spears); followed by salsa-ing to Gotta Get Down (Celia Cruz); a lyrical piece to Requiem for a Dream from the Lord of the Rings soundtrack; and finally a Malaysian contemporary piece with the appearance of Zainal Abidin as the singer of Senang Senang and the Top 4 taking the stage. Zainal carried on his singing with Orak Arik as the dancers left the stage.

Ramli Ibrahim, Judimar Hernandez and Pat Ibrahim reprised their role as dance commentators, without any guest judge and no role in deciding the champion. The Top 4 embarked on their showdown in same-gender pairs. CC and Sim performed with chairs from the tutelage of Manuela Oliveira, to the song Ain't No Other Man (Christina Aguilera); followed by Hong and Black doing the cha-cha, styled as Secret Agents amidst the backdrop of the score Bond on Bond recorded by string quartet Bond.

Next, it was back to male-female pairs to re-enact the judges' picks from all the choreographies witnessed throughout the season. Hong and Sim did the hip-hp contemporary which Black and Farah performed in week 5 with the song Elevator (Flo Rida). Black and CC re-enacted the choreography performed by Hong and Sarah in week 1, with the song No Air (Jordin Sparks and Chris Brown).

The showdown was paused midway to make way for Nur Shahila Amir Hamzah, runner-up of One in a Million season 2, with Cat Farish, performing the song Bebaskan, in the midst of which, Alam, the champion of season one, to introduce his own TV show Alam's Story which appeared on 8TV on 3 August; the aforementioned song is the theme of the show.

The Top 4 proceeded to solo routines, this time without an obvious time limit:

1. Hong performed poetically to the rhythm of In My Bed (Rain), with a red rose as a prop
2. CC did the samba to Magalena by Sergio Mendez
3. Black donned an all-pink suit for his piece with the Pink Panther theme
4. Sim danced around the stage to In the Garden (Dolores O'Riordan) with a suspended ribbon and a pair of scissors as props

At about 10.20pm, Aishah asked the judges a question on whom among the Top 4 deserved to win. At first, Pat was hesitant to answer, but after Hernandez and Ramli expressed Hong and Sim as their respective favourites, thus Pat bowed to the pressure and mentioned CC as his selection. Finally, the voting lines were closed and, in a suspenseful fashion, CC was announced "Malaysia's Favourite Dancer" based on popular voting.