Berjaya TeenStar Challenge 2017 launched

KUALA LUMPUR: Berjaya Youth ("B.Youth"), a youth empowerment initiative by Berjaya Corporation Berhad, launched the 2nd Berjaya TeenStar Challenge 2017.
This talent quest initiative, open to all Form 1 to Form 6 (Year 7 to Year 12) students nationwide, aims to provide a platform for budding performing arts enthusiasts among our teenagers to hone their skills, while gaining some great learning experiences through competing and interacting with others.
It is with the hope that some of these avid performers may later venture into the performing arts scene as professional or hobbyist singers, dancers or instrumentalists, hence further jazzing up the country's arts scene.

This year cultural dancing is introduced as a competition category in replacement of Duet/Group Singing, as the former is considered more popular among students and more meaningful in the sense of bringing to the fore the rich spectrum of Malaysia's diverse cultures.

During the first Berjaya TeenStar Challenge 2016, more than 2,500 teen star hopefuls turned up for auditions and out of these, 1,115 qualified for the preliminaries. Subsequent to that, the grand finals saw an excitingly fierce competition among the 142 finalists from 4 competition categories.

The competition categories of Berjaya TeenStar Challenge 2017 are:
>> Solo singing (individual participants)
>> Cultural dancing (2 to 5 participants)
>> Modern Dancing (2 to 5 participants)
>> Band (4 to 5 participants)

The prizes this year increased to more than RM50,000 from RM30,000 last year besides the trophies, cash and cash vouchers which will go to the top three winners of the four competition categories as well as special prize winners.
Contributing towards the prizes are key partners – Berjaya Starbucks Coffee Company ("Starbucks"), Kenny Rogers ROASTERS ("KRR"), B Infinite (formerly BCARD) and Berjaya University College of Hospitality ("Berjaya UCH"); and supporting partners are Wendy's, Borders and RadioShack.

The competition consists of three stages with the initial stage being the roadshows and auditions in schools before the preliminaries.

Berjaya youth will target 100 schools not only in the Klang Valley and Selangor but also Putrajaya, Negri Sembilan and Malacca for roadshows and auditions this year. Outstation students are encouraged to participate by submitting their audition videos to the organiser for evaluation. Details on participation are available on www.berjayayouth.com.

The preliminaries in July 2017 will see shortlisted participants be equally divided into four competing teams led by 4 key brands – Team Starbucks, Team KRR, Team B Infinite and Team Berjaya UCH. At this stage, the most outstanding performers will be chosen to vie for the top spots at the grand finals.

To prepare them for the preliminaries, Berjaya Youth will organise technical workshops with pointers and instructions from artiste coaches to polish their performing skills. Local performing arts artistes Tria Aziz, Amy Wang, Mohd Yunus and Becky Lee will be engaged as coaches at the workshops, as well as judges at the preliminaries and grand finals.

The grand finals is scheduled for August 2017.

"We were indeed heartened with the tremendous response for the inaugural Berjaya TeenStar Challenge 2016. The enthusiasm and dedication of last year's preliminary participants and finalists was so infectious and palpable that the audience including myself were totally engrossed and amazed. This is a clear testimony of the deep yearning and desire in our youth to showcase their talents and express themselves in creative ways. We expect to see more fresh new hidden talents this year," said Judy Tan, Senior General Manager of Berjaya Group Corporate Communications.

For more information and terms & conditions of Berjaya TeenStar Challenge 2017, please visit www.berjayayouth.com or www.facebook.com/berjayayouth.