Latin and Modern

The recent DanceSport Federation held at Ngee Ann Polytechnic a few weeks back had my jaws dropping quite a few times when I witnessed National Standards for Latin and Ballroom.



The first impression that I always had was Latin was simply a dance meant to seduce and Ballroom was meant for aging couples who simply couldnt shake their hips anymore and was thus reduced to these last choices of dance.

I had to hung my head quite a few times in shame.



These two couples are barely 16 years old but the amount of finesse and energy that they channelled into their dance routines are definitely performances that puts most full-grown adults to shame. For I have witnessed Polytechnic and NTU categories and I stand by my testimonials that these two young couples dance much better than some couples I have seen in the previous two categories.

I swear if I ever have kids I will send them for jazz and latin classes to build up their foundation for dance.




The Horvath Evening Dance Performance by the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts was chereographed by Krisztina Horvath from Germany, using music from J. S. Bach and W. F. Bach Phillip Glass the piece that caught my attention was "The Last Supper."

The pieces were very formal and the opening pace was slow which made it actually difficult to focus just like a trainer attempting to teach a fast-paced dance routine at "Tai-Chi" speed. It gets very tiring after a while. However, when the dancers simultaneously formed the picture of The Last Supper everything suddenly became clear. It was interesting to note that Ms Krisztina shifted her perspective of The Last Supper in her chereography at a later part which only increased our attention of where this dance was heading. In my personal opinion she viewed The Last Supper in a very negative perspective like it was simply a ritual to emphasise the impending doom of Jesus and he was going through this ritual just exactly like he knew he would be meeting his doom. This perspective might be hard to swallow for some christians I guess.

Techniques were pretty impressive but.. I just felt that I could not connect with the dancers. Like.. I could not sense their emotions clearly when performing the chereographed pieces. Perhaps it was the culture involved. After all Ms Horvath was from Germany and most the students graduating were from China based dance trainings so I was inclined to believe they would not have a problem grasping the technical aspects of the dance but feel.. perhaps I'm not in strong position to comment for I'm not afterall a seasoned dance performer myself.


A new crossroad in my life - And I'm not prepared to make such a decision so soon.