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Surrey talent shines at PNE Star Showdown

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Surrey dance troupe SiniGang won third place.

Surrey performers were among the top three prize winners at the PNE’s Star Showdown talent contest winners in the finals competition Aug. 23.

Adult dance team SiniGang – featuring Angelo Galedo, Adrian Cabanos, Ervinn Tangco, Kevin Locsin and Ronn Micah Reyes – took the third-place spot in final judging, winning $1,000.

First place was claimed by youth performer Emma Pedersen, 19, of Squamish, whose singing of Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah scored her the top prize of $5,000 and the opportunity to represent B.C. at the Canadian Youth Talent Competition at the Canadian Association of Fairs and Exhibitions’ annual conference in London, Ontario this November.

Adult singer-guitarist Des Larson, of Courtenay, took the $2,000 prize for second place in the contest.

Surrey was also well-represented among contestants who made it to the finals, including the youth band Mortal Soil (Stefan Grabowski, Michael James and Tek Leang), and, in the Kids Division, singer-keyboardist Benjamin Dunnill, hip hop crew CNC (Katie Adina, Angelica Emnacen-Boyd, Gabriel Galedo, Dominique Mailloux, Vanessa Pankhurst and Joshua Zaporteza) and singer Nhemy-Jjr Cepeda.

Local semi-finalists in the Youth Division included White Rock dancer Angella Slaunwhite and Cloverdale singer Sydney Balston.

Adult singer Dani Fuentes of Surrey was also a semi-finalist in the annual contest.