Sagkeeng trio dancing on air over talent finals

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This article was published 05/05/2012 (5250 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

This has, it goes without saying, turned out to be a much bigger deal than the three teens from Sagkeeng First Nation ever imagined.

When traditional dancers Vince O’Laney and Brandon and Dallas Courchene decided last fall to audition for Citytv’s Canada’s Got Talent, the idea didn’t amount to much more than a whim and a half-decent excuse to spend a day in the city.

As it turns out, the trio of Manitoba teens — performing as Sagkeeng’s Finest — have exactly the kind of talent the show’s judges and viewers are looking for. Flash forward a few hard-jigging months, and Sagkeeng’s Finest have danced their way into the final performance showdown (Sunday, May 13 on Citytv) of Canada’s Got Talent’s inaugural season.

“We had no idea,” O’Laney said when asked what he thought Sagkeeng’s Finest’s chances were when they auditioned last December. “We were like, ‘Hey, let’s try out. What the heck.’ We didn’t think we were really good; we were just trying it out. It’s really surprising to us that we’ve made it this far.”

Up until a few weeks before CGT’s Winnipeg audition, O’Laney, 17, and the Courchene brothers, Brandon, 18 and Dallas, 16 — members of an eight-person Sagkeeng-based square-dancing group for the past five years — had never performed as a trio. They put in a few hours of practice in order to polish their tryout routine, and judges Martin Short, Measha Brueggergosman and Stephan Moccio were suitably impressed.

“They were pretty good to us,” O’Laney recalled. “They said we had attitude, they said we were charming; I think they liked us. I think Martin Short said we were the most adorable people in the world. That was nice.

“In the Winnipeg audition, they gave us some constructive criticism; we took it as a positive thing and we used that, and now we’re in the finals.”

Sagkeeng’s Finest advanced to the show’s Toronto rounds, and after last weekend’s semi-final performance, the local trio received the highest number of votes from viewers, earning a guaranteed spot in the finals. A second act from last Sunday’s field, Toronto beatboxer KRNFX, was the judges’ choice to move on to next weekend’s extravaganza.

In all, a dozen acts — ranging from hip-hip dancers and beatboxers to opera singers and country crooners — will compete for the Canada’s Got Talent crown, which also includes a $100,000 cash prize, a new car, a spot on Citytv’s New Year’s Eve bash and the possibility of a Las Vegas booking.

O’Laney said the reaction to their CGT success has been a bit startling.

“It’s been very hectic, and kind of overwhelming,” he said. “All the media wants to talk to us, and all the community members are really rooting for us and congratulating us and telling us how proud they are. It’s awesome.

“We’ve had tons of friend requests on Facebook, because people feel like they know us now, and our phones are blowing up. It’s pretty crazy.”

During the open-audition stage of CGT, the series’ producers and judges were amazed and impressed by the unique regional talent that turned up at the Winnipeg tryout.

“There were acts we saw in Winnipeg that we have not seen anywhere else,” executive producer John Brunton said in a recent interview. “There’s a form of dance, clogging, that came through the First Nations culture and, I think, was invented about a mile from the theatre we shot our show in. None of us had seen that art form before, and to my knowledge, it doesn’t really exist in that form anywhere else in Canada.

“That was an experience that none of us had seen before; we must have had at least 10 groups in Winnipeg that performed that specific style of dance. It was fascinating.”

Clearly, Sagkeeng’s Finest was the best of that eye-opening bunch.

“I don’t know why — maybe we’re just a little bit faster,” O’Laney suggested. “I guess we just have an instinct to entertain, and the ability to get the crowd to like us. Stuff like that, I think.”

In last week’s semi-final, the trio put a decidedly urban spin on their traditional dance style by performing to the hip-hop beat of the Black Eyed Peas’ The Time (Dirty Bit).

“The guy (from the show) helped us to pick the songs,” said O’Laney. “We were just going to use our traditional music, but he said we’d probably do a lot better if we tried it with hip-hop. It was kind of hard switching into that kind of music, but we adapted to it, and it felt really cool to be dancing to that kind of music.”

Sagkeeng’s Finest will depart Wednesday for Toronto, where they’ll spend the last part of the week preparing for Sunday’s CGT final. As for what they’ve got planned for the big show, well, that’s strictly a wait-and-see proposition.

“Obviously, we’ve got to step it up,” said O’Laney. “We’ve been talking about it, but we can’t really mention anything right now. It’s going to be a surprise.”

brad.oswald@freepress.mb.ca