Agnes Monica is a Chinese Indonesian pop recording artist, dancer, actress, songwriter, and model. Her career started when she was only 6 years old.

Her album “..And the Story Goes” (2003) made her popular as a teenage singer. It was a big success in Indonesia with the singles “Bilang Saja”, “Jera” and “Cinta Mati”. The album sold 30.000 copies in only 3 days and eventually got double platinum. In 2005 she released her second album “Whaddup A.. ‘?!” with the hit single, “Tak Ada Logika”. It sold 50,000 copies in 10 days and went to triple platinum (with no album promotion in Malaysia). Her current album is “Sacredly Agnezious”; it features the hit single, Teruskanlah. Her biggest hit to date is “Matahariku”.

Her success brought her fame not only in her homeland, Indonesia, but also in neighboring Asian countries such as Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei, Philippines and even in the Netherlands in Europe. Her twice performance at the 2008 and 2009 Asia Song Festival in Seoul, Korea, led her to fame in Taiwan, Korea, China and the rest of the Asia-Pacific region. She is the only singer in Indonesia who has her own dance group called, Nezindahood, who always perform with Agnes on stage. In 2009, she began planning to launch her international career, and started taking Mandarin lessons. A result of this was her role in two Taiwanese drama series, “Romance in the White House” with Peter Ho, and “The Hospital” with Jerry Yan.

Other Information

• Birth name : Agnes Monica Muljoto
• Also known as : NEZ, Agnes Monica, Aggy
• Born : July 1, 1986 (1986-07-01) (age 24)
• Origin : Jakarta, Indonesia
• Genres : Pop, R&B, Dance, Urban pop, Hip Hop
• Occupations : Singer-songwriter, dancer, actress, model, record producer, video director, cultural ambassador
• Instruments : Vocals, piano
• Years active : 1995-present
• Labels : Aquarius Musikindo, Indonesia
• Associated acts : Ahmad Dhani, Eza Yayang, Keith Martin, Titi DJ
• Website :www.agnesmonicaofficial.com

Laura stands 5 ft 9 in (1.75m) and she’s 25. She’s a model and a professional dancer. She practiced rhythmic gymnastic competitively from 1994 to 1997 and was subsequently accepted into the ballet company at the prestigious and world-renown Teatro alla Scala in Milan, taking part in the productions of the Swan Lake, The Nutcracker, Giselle, Carmen, La Sylphide, Rigoletto and Cinderella among others. As a model, she’s taken part in campaigns for Swarovski and will be the face for an upcoming ad campaign for Coin, a famous Italian luxury goods department store.

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Links

• Beauty Queens : Laura Valenti

Skating career

Early in her career, she skated with Maxim Kachanov. They competed at the 1994 Goodwill Games and placed 5th. She teamed up with Vladimir Fedorov in 1995. They won the Finlandia Trophy twice and competed on the Grand Prix of Figure Skating. The highlight of their partnership was competing at the 1998 World Figure Skating Championships, where they placed 15th. Their partnership ended in 1999 and Semenovich teamed up with Roman Kostomarov for one season. With Kostomarov, she is the 2000 Russian bronze medalist and competed at both the 2000 European Figure Skating Championships and the 2000 World Figure Skating Championships.

Following the end of that partnership, she briefly paired with Denis Samokhin, placing 4th at the 2001 Russian Championships, but was eventually forced to retire due to injury.

Singing career

Anna is currently vying to represent Russia at the Eurovision Song Contest 2009, the contest is hosted in her native country and her city of birth Moscow. Semenovich has earlier released the single “Na Morya” featuring Arash Labaf who is representing Azerbaijan along with Aysel in this years Eurovision.

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Anna Semenovich

Hough grew up one of five children from an LDS (Mormon) family in Salt Lake City. Her brother Derek Hough is also a professional dancer. She has three sisters named Sharee, Marabeth, and Katherine. All four of her grandparents were dancers, and her parents met while on a ballroom dancing team in college in Idaho.

Her formal training began at the Center Stage Performing Arts Studio in Orem, Utah, where she danced with Josh Murillo, among others, in Latin Ballroom; she began dancing competitively at nine. Her parents sent her and her brother to London for a year later to live and study with their coaches, Corky and Shirley Ballas, and to spare them the strife of divorce. The Ballas’ helped tutor the two Hough children alongside their own son, Mark, while schooling them at the Italia Conti Academy. They received training in song, theatre, gymnastics and many forms of dance, including jazz, ballet, and tap. The three children formed their own pop music trio 2B1G (“2 Boys, 1 Girl”) when Julianne was twelve, performed at dance competitions in the U.K. and the U.S., and showcased in a UK television show. At fifteen, Julianne Hough became the youngest dancer, and only American, to win both Junior World Latin Champion and International Latin Youth Champion at the Blackpool Dance Festival.

After five years in London, Hough returned to the U.S., first living with her mother for a year and attending Las Vegas Academy then returning to Utah to live with her father and graduating from Alta High. She then moved on her own to Los Angeles to begin her career.

One of her earliest professional experiences was as an assistant choreographer on Gwen Stefani’s Wind It Up music video. She was also featured in two television commercials and was an extra in an episode of Cold Case. She was also one of the “Million Dollar Dancers” in the short-lived network television game show Show Me the Money.

In the fourth season of the U.S. version of Dancing with the Stars, a televised ballroom dance competition, she won with her partner, Olympic gold medal-winning speed skater Apolo Anton Ohno, making Hough the youngest professional dancer to win on the program. On November 27, 2007, Hough and her partner, two-time Indianapolis 500 champion Hélio Castroneves, became the winners of Season 5. Hough returned for season 6 with radio host/comedian Adam Carolla, but they were eliminated in the fourth week. In July 2008, Hough was nominated at the 60th Primetime Emmy Awards in the category of “Outstanding Choreography” for her Mambo “Para Los Rumberos” (performed with partner Hélio Castroneves) on Dancing with the Stars, but lost to choreographer Wade Robson.

On August 25, 2008, the cast of season 7 was announced, and Hough was partnered with Hannah Montana actor Cody Linley. She was feeling stomach pains during her jitterbug performance and was immediately rushed to a hospital following the encore performance of her jitterbug with Cody. She subsequently had surgery to have her appendix removed on October 28, and now Linley and Hough “turned the time over to” Edyta Śliwińska. Hough hoped for a quick recovery so she could begin dancing again. She began training Cody again, but they were ultimately eliminated in the Semifinals Competition. She also appeared on the November 12 results show dancing the jive to Great Balls of Fire with her brother, Derek Hough, for the “Design-A-Dance” contest. Julianne and Derek were selected the favorite pros on the show by an online vote at ABC.com and won the honor of doing this special audience designed dance.

On November 20, 2008, Julianne told Ryan Seacrest on his radio show she would not be returning for the foreseeable future to Dancing with the Stars in order to further her country music career.

Hough’s first country music single “Will You Dance With Me” was released to iTunes and Wal-Mart in May 2007 to raise money for the American Red Cross. The song peaked at #100 on the Billboard Pop 100 chart. She later signed with Universal Music Group Nashville.

Her self-titled debut album was recorded in Nashville and produced by David Malloy, who has worked with Reba McEntire, Eddie Rabbitt, among others. Hough’s album, which met with mixed reviews, debuted at #1 on the Top Country Albums chart on May 31, and also peaked at #3 on the Billboard 200. Hough’s second single, and the first to be released to country radio, “That Song in My Head” debuted on the Country charts in March.

Hough joined Brad Paisley’s 2008 Tour, along with Jewel and Chuck Wicks. Hough, Paisley and Willie Nelson appear in the video for the Snoop Dogg song “My Medicine”. During 2009, Hough is headlining some of her own shows. Her first concert as the headlining act was in Green Bay, Wisconsin at the Meyer Theatre on January 15, 2009. Also during 2009 she will be the opening act for 2 shows on Toby Keith’s Tour as well as the opening act for George Strait’s Summer 2009 Tour.

Later in 2008, Hough released an EP of Christmas music called Sounds of the Season: The Julianne Hough Holiday Collection, which is available exclusively at Target stores.

On November 18, she performed her second single “My Hallelujah Song” at Dancing With the Stars, with her brother, Derek Hough, Mark Ballas and Lacey Schwimmer dancing. She also was eliminated off the show, being in 4th place.

Hough was previously engaged to dancer Zachary Wilson; they ended their engagement in May 2007. Despite various rumors linking her romantically with various Dancing With the Stars partners, and public courting by Kevin Connolly of Entourage fame, Hough’s first public relationship after Wilson was with country singer Chuck Wicks. On December 2, 2008, TV Guide reported that Hough is hoping that Wicks will propose in the near future.

Hough was diagnosed with endometriosis, which is a common condition in which tissue from the uterus lining grows outside the uterus. It often causes painful cysts and possibly infertility. Hough, 20, had to undergo an appendectomy in the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center on October 28, 2008 to remove her appendix, a cyst on her ovary, and scar tissue that had formed on her bladder and fallopian tubes.

Scherzinger was born in Honolulu to a Filipino father and a Hawaiian/Russian mother. Her mother Rosemary was eighteen at the time of Scherzinger’s birth and lived in an inner city neighborhood and separated from her father when she was a baby. The family moved to Louisville, Kentucky when she was six years old, with her sister Ke’ala and stepfather Gary Scherzinger. She stated she had a “conservative Catholic” upbringing. Scherzinger began her life as a performer in Louisville, attending the Youth Performing Arts School at duPont Manual High School and performing with Actors Theatre of Louisville. Scherzinger majored in theater arts at Wright State University but put her studies on hold in 1999 to sing backing vocals for the rock band Days of the New.

Scherzinger appeared on the second album by Days of the New, released in 1999. She also recorded two songs with Barry Drake’s F.O.B, which were released in 2001. In 2001, Scherzinger competed in the premiere season of The WB’s television show Popstars, on which she earned a spot in the all-girl pop group Eden’s Crush. She became one of the main vocalists for the group. The group’s 2001 single “Get Over Yourself (Goodbye)” peaked at number one in sales and hit the top ten on Billboard Hot 100. “Love This Way” was the second single chosen from the Popstars album; however, their record company, London-Sire Records, folded and the group eventually disbanded. Songwriter Kara DioGuardi contributed one track to the album, and later went on to co-write with Scherzinger for PCD, Doll Domination and Her Name Is Nicole.

After the disbanding of Eden’s Crush, Scherzinger made a few promotional solo appearances under the stage name of Nicole Kea, including covering “Breakfast in Bed” for the soundtrack to 50 First Dates in 2003. This track was produced by Nick Hexum who was her boyfriend for three years.

Scherzinger worked with Yoshiki of Japanese rock band X Japan on in his Violet UK project. She sang the English version of “I’ll Be Your Love” live with the Tokyo Symphonic Orchestra. The track also appeared on the 2003 Various Artists album Exposition of Global Harmony.

In May 2003, Scherzinger joined the Pussycat Dolls burlesque troupe, who were being re-cast as recording artists. She had first seen them performing on The Late Show with David Letterman in November 2002, where Carmen Electra sang “Big Spender” from the Bob Fosse musical Sweet Charity. In 2006, Scherzinger said “It caught my eye because I’d played Velma Kelly in [Fosse's] Chicago in college.” The Pussycat Dolls now have world-wide status as a popular singing group, with “Don’t Cha”, “Buttons”, “Stickwitu” and “When I Grow Up” as Top 10 hits in the U.S.. The album PCD went double-platinum in 2006. Scherzinger sang nearly all lead vocals on the album, with Carmit Bachar and Melody Thornton also contributing.

Scherzinger is the only group member with songwriting credits on PCD; she co-wrote “I Don’t Need a Man” with Kara DioGuardi and producer Rich Harrison, and co-wrote “Buttons” with producer Sean Garrett. Another collaboration with DioGuardi, “Flirt”, became a B-side to “Stickwitu” and a bonus track on PCD.

In 2006, Scherzinger toured with the Pussycat Dolls for their album promotion. It was revealed in 2006 that the Dolls are salaried employees of Interscope Records, giving the label a high level of control over the group’s finances and business decisions.

She was ranked at number 22 on Maxim’s Hot 100 in 2006 and 21 in 2007.

Scherzinger appeared on the March 2008 cover of Men’s Fitness magazine. She was called the lead or “Queen Doll”. As with PCD, Scherzinger is the only group member to have songwriting credits on the second Dolls’ album Doll Domination.

Solo career

Following the popularity of “Don’t Cha” and the continuing rise of the Pussycat Dolls, Scherzinger recorded a series of duets or “guest appearances”, predominantly with male vocalists. In 2005, she appeared on recordings by Shaggy, Vittorio Grigolo, and Will Smith.