S+S

It is finally over. Tonight was the last night of the Week 1 dance performances at the Short + Sweet Dance Malaysia 2009. The Festival is a hub for creative Malaysians to showcase their talents in a highly creative, collaborative and professional environment and each showcase has to be well under ten minutes to fit the description of Short + Sweet. I have been very fortunate to have been included in the line up for choreographers for the festival this year and I premiered my debut choreography project titled 'Follow/Lead'.

I will write more about my piece in my next post as I would just like to thank everyone that's been involved in the festival to make it such a success. Big thanks and all my love to my wonderful and amazingly talented dancers, Pippy, Amanda and Hua Hooi. You guys inspire me to be a better dancer, choreographer and person and I couldn't have done it without you all. Each and every one of you are so unique and talented in so many ways and your stars are shining bright. It has been my utmost pleasure working with all of you and I hope there will be more opportunities for us to work together in the future.

Big big heartfelt thanks to the stage manager, Michelle and her assistant, Avril for being ever so tolerant about us showing up late and for making sure not one hair is out of place in the running of the whole show.You guys are the life and blood of S+S, what would we do without you? Also, huge kudos to all backstage crew and the production team as well. The lighting was superb and brought new dimensions to my piece. It was better than I could have ever imagined.

Admittedly, I got cold feet when I saw the line up of choreographers. I recognized more than half the names as they are big names in the industry, people whose work I have seen and admired. And, there I was, a newbie, a rookie and a relatively unheard of name in the industry. I am not armed with any decorative dance degrees nor have extensive experience in choreography. In fact, this was my debut choreography on a professional production level.

I chose to choreograph a contemporary dance piece for the festival, but truth is, I am not trained in contemporary dance and neither are my dancers. But, this piece had enabled us to further explore and understand how our bodies move and along the way, surprised ourselves with the new heights that we reached. Some people felt my piece was a little short, being only 4 minutes and 40 seconds long. But, we only had four hours of rehearsals ( 4 x 1 hour sessions) before the observation rehearsal on Thursday and I don't know about you, but the professionalism and standard of dance my dancers showed in the piece just after four hours of rehearsals was nothing short of impressive to me.

Truthfully, I couldn't have asked for more. I am pleased that I am off to a good start in trying a hand at choreographing and I am even more pleased with my dancers and also with how the music, lighting, costumes, make up all gelled together to bring my artistic visions alive on stage which is a thousand times better than I had envisioned.

And a BIG BIG BIG BIG BIG thank you to those who came. To my sister, Audra, Joyce and 2 daughters, Ling Feng, Jing Feng, Bee, Aunt Hong, Brandon, Max, Enid, Haw Linn, Lara, Zukhairi, Patrick, Pat Ibrahim, Chee Wei, Cheng Choo, Jessica, Ching Lin, Alfred, Suhaili, Regina, Janice etc etc (sorry if I missed out your name)...but thank you a million years for coming! It meant a great deal to me. Love you all! So, thank you, thank you and thank you. And you will be seeing my face and hearing my name more from now.