Gigi Art of Dance Buka Bersama 2022
Written by Howard Affandi
Party games, a landmark premiere, a teary farewell, and a whole lot of food: what began as an exciting gathering swelled into a night full of conflicting emotions. We were saying goodbye to a familiar face, a familiar voice, a familiar aura. At the same time, we were welcoming a new familiar, and we were celebrating our perseverance and togetherness throughout a most difficult season.
Upon arriving in Studio Ghaniy, each guest was greeted with bear hugs and excited hello’s from Ms. Gigi and little Gaia. Some of the guests had not seen each other in ages, and it was the perfect day to reunite. We kicked off with party games, laughing at each other’s attempts to guess the words in Word Guess. After several rounds, the undisputed winner was Ms. Karina, who guessed her sets with telepathic accuracy.
When the time came to break the fast, we enjoyed a large variety of dishes that the guests brought from all corners of the city (It was a Potluck party, and everyone brought food to share). We sat, ate, and talked in anticipation for the premiere of GAOD On-Show Volume 50, a celebration of our journey and the culmination of many hours of choreography, practice, and video editing.
GAOD ON-SHOW Volume 50 is a GAOD milestone, our 50th episode since the premiere of On-Show Volume 1 on June 6, 2020. We had 14 pre-recorded performances and 14 guest hosts to introduce each group of performers. Since our first episode of GAOD On-Show, we have had 423 performance items and 287 different performers (our most frequent performer being G-Star). The premiere of Volume 50 was unique because the entire show had been pre-recorded, allowing us to relax and enjoy the performances together. And enjoy them, we did. But relax, we did not! We were cheering throughout the show, screaming and applauding for each other.
After the electrifying premiere, we kept the energy train chug-chug-chugging in GAOD fashion with a lip sync battle between G-Star members Namira and Zack, concluded with an explosive encore performance of “WooAh HIP” from MAMADOL members Prita, Aldhy, Eva, Cedy, and Margiana. Following the lively clapping and cheering, we dimmed the lights to watch a tribute video made for our dearest Cedy. Parents, students, and the rest of the GAOD family said their thank you’s and wished good luck to an irreplaceable member of our team.
As the tidying began and the cars exited the parking space, bear hugs were once again on display, only this time they were accompanied by long sighs and tearful whispers. The night was coming to a close, and it would be a while before this same group of people could meet all together like this. The guests thanked our hosts Ms. Gigi and Tante Reita, little Gaia went to bed, and every person left the studio stuffed not only with good food, but also with love and affection from their dancetastic family at Gigi Art of Dance.