3 Albertans named Canada’s Got Talent semi-finalists

From coast-to-coast, only 18 Canadians remain in this year’s Canada’s Got Talent.

On Tuesday, judges Howie Mandel, Lilly Singh, Trish Stratus, and Kardinal Offishall, along with host Lindsay Ell, unveiled the 18 semi-finalists for the competition.

“This season has been so fun, so fantastic, I’m honored. I leave the show being so proud, I watch it back and I’m so proud being a part of it. But as a Canadian, watching our Canadians having their dreams realized, it’s so special,” Stratus told CityNews. “The Talent we saw across our stage this season was just next level.”

Two semi-finals will take place on May 2 and 9. From the two episodes, the judges will select two contestants to move on to the finals, while Canada votes in the other two.

Contests will need to make an impression on the judges in the semi-finals. Stratus says, “In the show, I definitely said ‘I need to feel it.’ I want my heart to jump out of my chest, I want to jump out of my seat, I want to get goosebumps, I want to feel it. Anything that moves me emotionally, makes me laugh.”

CityNews sat down with Beatrice Love, one of the semi-finalists.

“As a performer, as an artist, we want to hear those words ‘yes! We loved it! We want to hear more of it!’” Love explained. “It’s up to you guys at home. If you like what you see in the semi-finals, vote for your favourite people, because you get to choose who gets to be the champion.”

Love overcame homelessness and drug addiction before taking the AGT stage.

“Being homeless, being a drug addict, all of those really un-great things really prepared me for this moment because my heart positioning is in the right place, and I can actually honour the journey of my gifts and natural talents,” explained Love.

“The song I sang at the semi-finals means so much to me personally, and finding the right alignment with that has just been the goal. And to really convey my heart through the stage, to the audience, and to the people at home was the goal of this performance, and to show them who Beatrice Love is deep down and under.”

CityNews also sat down with Randall Mella, the founder of Cool Giraffes, another one of the AGT semi-finalists.

“When we were going onto the show, one of our biggest goals was to leave a great first impression, and no matter what happened from the audition, we would be proud of what we did. We came to put Edmonton on the map, which had been sort of our model the entire season. And even after the audition, after leaving the stage we were like ‘we did good. And whatever we did today we should be proud, and whatever comes after is a bonus,’” explained Mella.

“So to hear that we are going to the semis is crazy. It’s a lot of pressure obviously because to know we left that sort of impression on the judges is a lot, but we’re ready and we’re excited and we’re excited to be back.”

Mella says Cool Giraffes started in 2016 as a one-off project, where he was looking for something to pass the time after university.

Mella knew of an upcoming dance competition and started the dance group with a group of friends.

“And after our first performance we were like ‘this is fun, let’s do it again.’ And we kept doing practices, kept finding places to perform at, and they slowly grew into more prestigious competitions where we found ourselves flying across the country and into the states to compete at higher and higher levels,” he said.

“For our journey on Canada’s Got Talent, we are taking it one step at a time. We’re not going to think about the finals until we are satisfied with what we had done with the semi-finals. To think that far ahead about winning, I feel going to the finals alone would be our next step, and to win would be unreal. To know that we have the support of not just the judges, but of Canada at that point, and to think it started off as something that was not meant to be this super crazy thing. It was all based off of the fact that we wanted to have fun together, and it just kind of explodes into this. I never imagined it to go this far already.”

The eight that remain will take the stage on May 16 for the Finale.

The 18 semi-finalists are:

• Alberta:
  • Atsushi Ono, a magic act from Calgary;
  • Beatrice Love, a singer/musician from Edmonton;
  • Cool Giraffes, a dance act from Edmonton;
• B.C.:
  • Curran Dobbs, a comedy act from Victoria;
  • Mr. Cuddles The Evil Octopus, a novelty act from Gibsons;
  • Raymond Salgado, a singer/musician from Vancouver Island;
• New Brunswick:
  • Anica, a singer/musician from Grand-Barachois;
• Nova Scotia:
  • The Turnbull Brothers, singer/musician from Glace Bay;
• Ontario:
  • Katherine Lynn-Rose, a singer/musician from Burlington;
  • Maya Gamzu, a singer/musician from Toronto;
  • Meave, a singer/musician from Niagara Falls;
• Quebec:
  • Alexandra Côté, an animal act from Thetford Mines;
  • Conversion, a dance act from Trois-Rivières;
  • GBA, a circus act from Montreal;
  • Geneviève Côté, a novelty act from Laval;
  • Paola Troilo, a singer/musician from Laval;
  • The Cast, a dance act from Lévis;
• Yukon
  • Magic Ben, a magic act from Whitehorse.

Canada’s Got Talent airs Tuesdays at 8 p.m. ET/PT on Citytv.

-With files from Laura Krause, CityNews