Traditional Chinese Dance Competition

Last week I was called to  judge Chinese Traditional Dance Competition in conjunction with the University Utara Malaysia (UUM) Cultural Festival 2012.  I am honored and grateful that UUM have invited me as a chief adjudicator in the dance competition. Over the last 3 years, other than UUM,  I have been involved in the School  activities  judging  the Chinese Traditional Dance Competition.  The other one was Northern Region Chinese Folks Dance Competition (吉北華小中華民間舞蹈觀). Many of you may only know me as a belly dance teacher,  are you surprised I jumped the fence and reveled in the opportunity to judge Traditional  Chinese  dance competition? Some of you asked me do you charge when judging? Of course YES, I charge my judging fee and  I dont judge for free!!!

So for all of my young dance students  that I meet in class, competition, I hope that I can make their  dance life happier and healthier and mostly,  MORE FUN!  It’s such a great as  their  teacher, such a fabulous life style, such a rewarding return when I see they fall in love in dance.  I am happy I have been fortunate enough to wear many hats in my dance journey. Beside from  managing studio,  be a  competition judge  several years,  and done almost every job behind the scenes of running a performance from lighting design to stage managing. Dance has played an integral part in my life. I am thrilled that I am able to share my passion with you. 

So far the Dance festivals in school  include competitions for teams only, it’s simply serve as a cultural event focused on  a competitive element,  develop   a great team bonding exercise for a dance group. Serving as a judge in dance competitions is not an easy task.  Different judges have different predilections in what they want to see, some might be especially interested in technique, while another wants to be moved by musicality and expression, but both factors are obviously important and need to be considered. To me, many times this is an unappreciated job, yet the dancers’ supporter/family often make unkind comments because they disapprove of the competition's results.  When you sit there for hours, watching then judging groups of dancers,  some dancers don’t come in — they leave something of themselves outside of the dance. Others come on the floor make me looking  and  keep on looking. I see that spirit in every move,   in the expression in the eyes and their energy, they made me remember them. 

To clarify the judging criteria, for me it is more about the traditions and the costuming too. Costume must be something that isn’t what everyone else is wearing when competing.  So I look for teamwork first of all, then emotion and togetherness in the spirit, Energy is exciting to watch. I've noticed that, it always seems to be the most energetic group that wins. But the energy must be controlled, not wild and the rhythm throughout the whole performance, all  the elements that combine to create a beauty story. I feel this is the same across all kind of dance. Other judges may see and feel differently, but that is my criteria, of course, most judges held their own opinions, and try to do the best and most conscientious job. 

Keep My Dream Alive!

With the end of April fast approaching, each day I continue to work hard to keep my dream alive even though I am having really hard/stressful  time during the past few weeks. My mom had kidneys failure and she has been on dialysis, three times a week for the rest of her life.  We all  love her  so much but  there's nothing to be done to really fix her health problems.  There are so many other things that my family members are  going through -- too many to list. Thanks God that her  first dialysis went well with no problems. She had to change her eating habits and  this has completely changed her  life too. We are  try to make her  life better as much as we can. I've been by her  side through this whole horrible process, and I'm not going anywhere.

I have lots to do!  I will not stop during my stressful time. I  start to go  back to my dance routine and went to Hadia belly dance workshop, only Saturday. So happy to see Hadia, she is one of my respected dance teacher!  As usual, I still participated in her ‘Body Logic workshop’. What Hadia did was to start with technique, she had us drilling proper move many times.  She was giving so much information through the entire 3 hours to help the new participants understand the nature of oriental style dancing. I can see some of the new participants  felt uneasy of her Body Logic combination sequences.  That was very useful and I am really glad to polish my technique, I love that!  The afternoon workshop was the drumsolo!  You know me well, I hate choreography, I never dance it and never teach it. I always choose to create my own choreography. The drumsolo workshop was great cause I rehearsed many time in her  technique class, I actually felt I was dancing a lot in this workshop,  I was exhausted by the end of the 3 hours.

I had an amazing rehearsal last week  with my students. Not only the class was great, the students  are all working hard, they are all so respectful. I have loads of interesting news and events to spice up your dancing life!  I am starting to think about the beginning of May. This time of year always reminds me of celebrations – Mother’s day and Penang World Belly Dance Day charity event. I am participating  my solo dance, wish me luck to complete the whole choreograph.