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5th DanceSport Festival
With the 5th Hong Kong DanceSport Festival coming up this fortnight, Sam Ng and Michelle Lam appear eerily calm, considering they’re preparing for a major event. But after their success at the East Asian Games a couple of years ago, they can be forgiven for being at ease. The bronze medalists of the Games in 2009 enlighten us on how competitive ballroom and Latin dancing encompass sport, art and entertainment:
“It has a sporting foundation – the strength, the core, the muscles, but above this there has to be an artistic element,” explains Ng, while his partner Lam adds: “There are many emotions you need to express through the music and through our body movements. It’s an expression of beauty.”
The aforementioned sporting expression will be next on show on June 11 and 12, when couples from Hong Kong, China and beyond will gather here to showcase their own stories through the form of dance. The competition will consist of two sections – Latin dance and standard dance (also known as traditional ballroom dance). Each couple will be marked on their timing, footwork, rise and fall, alignment, direction and floor craft.
While Ng and Lam are currently involved in the competitive Latin dancing stream, they’d both like to explore other styles, particularly standard ballroom dancing. But between working a full-time job and training for competitive Latin dance, both are concerned that the demands of trying to learn another form of dance would place too many constraints on their time and physiques. And Ng mentions, with a hint of regret, that it’s a sport best learned when you’re still young.
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Ng himself remembers the initial awkwardness of learning dancesport when he was still a youngster. “I got into it in secondary school,” he says. “There were no boys, only girls.” But despite stereotypical views, he’s proud of his profession. “It’s not all feminine movements. The best dancers show the contrast between men and women.”
As the longest running dancesport partnership in Hong Kong, Ng and Lam are strong favourites to take home the prize this year. But they’ll be up against competitors from nations who have a longer history in dancesport, like Russia, Italy and Germany. It will be worth catching this festival anyway, equally beautiful as it is athletic, to see who will dance their way to the top prize.
Chinmoy Lad
Queen Elizabeth Stadium Arena, June 11-12. http://www.urbtix.com.hk
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