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22 Jul 2009 14:59:45
The driving force behind Britain’s Got Talent finalist Flawless has words of encouragement for students leaving university this summer.
Amelia Benoit, the group’s manager and creative partner, left the Bedford campus (which was then part of De Montfort University) seven years ago unsure of what the future might hold.
Now with street dancing sensation Flawless having finished the Britain’s Got Talent national tour, a movie appearance beckoning and trip to Hong Kong on the horizon in October - never mind meeting Simon Cowell and the possibility of a Xmas DVD! - the only way is up for the group.
Amelia said: “It’s a particularly hard time for students leaving school, college or university at the moment.
“But Flawless are examples of what you can achieve when you put your mind to it. Our motto is ‘chase the dream, not the competition’.
“When you finish your studies, you can easily get disheartened. But there is light at the end of the tunnel.
“My time at university inspired me and helped me get where I am today. I wasn’t the best dancer but I could see I was good at organisation which was great when mixed with my love of dance and fashion.”
London-based Amelia was a contemporary dance and ballet student who studied at Bedford until 2002.
She said: “I knew I wanted to go to university and chose Bedford as it had a good reputation for dance. But as well as dance, I was always so interested in fashion at the same time.
“After I left in 2002, I felt a bit lost. I worked in retail first and then moved into fashion where I started my own business.”
Flawless was formed in 2005 by the group’s choreographer, Marlon ‘Swoosh’ Wallen. It was already one of the biggest dance troupes in the country before rising to national attention this year.
Amelia said: “All but two of the ten boys in Flawless have also had the basis of doing contemporary dance and ballet at university.
“We were all friends together and we decided to make a real go of it. The group trained for a whole year without performing and then we entered them into competitions. People got to know about us and we started to market the group properly.”
Flawless was already the UK street dance champions before being crowned world hip hop dance champions in 2006 in Germany, the first group to get full marks from all the judges in world hip hop dance history.
The group has appeared and worked in music videos for MTV and on the big screen with stars such as Madonna, Beyonce, Amerie and ‘Posh Spice’ Victoria Beckham.
Then after initially wowing the crowds when appearing on BBC children’s show ‘The Slammer’, Flawless decided to try its luck on Britain’s Got Talent.
Amelia said: “We were confident with how we were and decided to go for it. The judges were blown away by us during the auditions, especially Simon Cowell, and it was great to actually get on the show itself.
“It wasn’t so good to go on first in the final. Some people said they missed us as we were first up!”
Their audition routine for the show has already had nearly 14 million hits on YouTube and each performance on there can top the two million mark.
A national Britain’s Got Talent tour followed which saw the group perform 28 shows at 23 different venues up and down the country.
Amelia said: “It was a good experience as we flew to some of the places on tour and experienced flying as VIPs which is hopefully a taste of things to come!”
The group has just started rehearsals for the first ever 3D street dance movie and then is jetting off to perform in Hong Kong in October with interest also coming from the financial powerhouse of Dubai.
Amelia said: “I’m having a fun time and so are the guys. They’re very skilful, talented dancers and I’m really happy to be a part of it all. We have worked extremely hard to get to where we are now. I can’t even begin to explain the amount of hours Flawless has put into training and rehearsing for shows. The guys want to be known worldwide - here’s to global domination!”
Latest news» 2009» July» Flawless Amelia offers hope to uncertain youngsters
