A Dazza-ling White Christmas Weekend Report

Jennifer Choo Sue Chin | January 13, 2014

The much-anticipated weekend came after a long wait but passed quickly. Time flies when you’re enjoying it!

Saturday 21 Dec 2013 – West Coast Swing Workshop with Darren Bailey & Fred Whitehouse, Tea Party & Choreography Competition

 

Group picture

Group picture

The event kick-started with Darren and Fred’s West Coast Swing workshop. About 70 people signed up for the workshop to learn some basic West Coast Swing steps as WCS is generally quite unknown here in Malaysia, but widely popular among line dancers abroad. With Darren’s expertise in breaking down dance steps, everyone on the floor managed to get the steps and able to west coast along with the music. With Fred’s fun ways, there were a lot of laughter. Basically everyone is satisfied with the workshop. We learned, the basic 6 count west coast rhythm, basic steps, the right-side-pass, and the whip with 8 count rhythm.

After the 2.5 hour workshop, we stop for a short tea break and just west coast socially, trying out the steps with different partners. A few lucky ones get to partner with Fred and Darren themselves, which was really awesome.

Then we proceeded to the much awaited for Choreography competition where contenders signed up to win the Bunga Raya Award (B.R.A.). The judges were: Darren Bailey, Fred Whitehouse, Lim Sae Min, Jennifer Choo & Bunga Raya herself. The intention of the competition was to encourage, improve and promote local and regional choreography. After a hard time discussing and arguing who to win the B.R.A., the judges selected the winners:

  1. Alice Cheong: Work Hard Play Hard >Stepsheet< >Video<
  2. Soo Wong: Reach for the Stars >Stepsheet< >Video<
  3. Wendee Chen: La Botella >Stepsheet< >Video<

Consolation prizes go to (in alphabetical order):

Check out the dances! They are great! Everyone is a winner and I will be having these dances in my next events!

Sunday 22 Dec 2013 A Dazza-ling White Christmas Line Dance Party (11 am – 4:30 pm)

White angels, fairies, princes and princesses trickled into the Hee Lai Ton restaurant as early at 10 am with Christmas carols in the air. With almost everyone dressed to the “Dazza-ling” White Christmas theme, the restaurant turned into a myriad of white, true to the White Christmas feeling. With almost 300 guests coming from as far as USA, Australia, Indonesia, Taiwan, Singapore and local Malaysians (Klang Valley, Perak, Penang, Negeri Sembilan, Pahang, Kelantan, Johor, Melaka), it was indeed a gathering of old and new friends with the same passion, line dancing.

To top it off, the stage was immaculately decorated (Thanks! Benedict E) with a fire-place with flickering flames, a 8 feet high Christmas tree (Thanks Ivy Low) decorated in silver and white ornaments and plenty of gifts wrapped and arranged under the tree and all around the stage. Thanks to my friends who put up the decorations in approximately 3 hours!!

Ben, Philip, Goot and Jeannie putting the backdrop up

Ben, Philip, Goot and Jeannie putting the backdrop up

Christmas Tree

Christmas Tree, Fireplace and Backdrop

In between the 70 lined up current and classic line dances, Darren taught the crowd 2 of his recent choreography. The first one LOVE REALLY HURTS was a simple jive to an upbeat music by Billy Ocean, Love Really Hurts Without You. It’s 32 count 4 wall and has multiple restarts to phrased to the music. Later on, Darren taught a dance which was just choreographed with Fred, YOU, ME AND THE MUSIC to Lemar’s song of the same title. This is a funky 2 wall high intermediate line dance but the crowd absolutely love this one.

Love Really Hurts

Me, You and the Music

Rebecca Lee, the well-known line dancer turned hip hop star in Malaysia, pulled off a superb high energetic performance with her students, which included dances like Mr Saxobeat and Darren & Fred’s own Trespassing, much to their enjoyment. The finale of the performance was topped off with the appearance of Rebecca’s hip hop friend doing a flip.

Darren and Fred were also requested to do a dance demo of Darren’s dance co-choreographed with Roy Verdonk, Roy Hadisubroto, Raymond Sarlemijn, and Pim van Grootel. It’s a really beautiful dance and with Darren’s and Fred’s superb dance technique, the demo became more like a performance!

Christmas is a season of giving. More than 150 lucky draw and  250 table draw prizes were given away to lucky winners. Sponsors include Yu Yu Dance Shoes of Cheras and Mary Kay cosmetics who sponsored the main draw prizes. Everyone went home with more than a Christmas gift! There were also pop quizzes being asked on the FB event page to set excitement before the event and some of the quick-witted winners were: Leong Mei Ling, Soo Wong, Jessie Cheong, Debbie Lem, Lee Ros and Andrea. The final live quiz asked was why was the theme of the party chosen to be “Dazza-ling White Christmas” – Leong Mei Ling hits the bulls-eye with the answer, “Dazza is Darren’s nickname, while White comes from Fred’s surname, Whitehouse”.

When the clock stroke 4.30pm, many line dancers were reluctant to leave. Many still took the opportunity to pose for photographs with each other and of course with the special guests Darren and Fred. Many wonder if they’ll get to see them again. Well, let’s make that a 2014 Christmas wishlist… til the next event!

 

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VIVA LATINO! At last…

Jennifer Choo Sue Chin | March 22, 2012

After the 3 months of planning and preparations for the event, the days flew by and the long awaited weekend arrived at last! There were classes of dance revisions, numerous dinner meetings with my team, and get-together to get the stuffs done.

Friday arrived. Our special guests, Connie & Aaron, rushed from work to Harbor Front in Singapore to board the last Aeroline coach to KL at 8pm. They arrived at 1am, while Ivy and I picked them up and went for supper at our Malaysian mamak shops. We chatted and bumped into Michael and another Latin dancer friend who were in KL the same weekend to take part in a Latin Dance competition. Oh yea, the reason I had Connie & Aaron over this weekend was because their competitions were initially scheduled for Friday and so I had booked them on Sat and Sun for workshops and party respectively. Too bad the competitions got postponed to Sat, so they had to sacrifice their competitions to compete with the top world dancers for my event!

Connie Showing how to cha cha

Aaron showed the samba - volta

     

Sat – Latin Technique Workshops day at Twinkle Toes Dance Studio in Tmn Danau Desa. The registrations for the workshops were overwhelming, I had to create a 2nd workshop session! The participants came and ready to learn the techniques from the experts. Though the time is short, Connie & Aaron exposed to the local line dancers on the different way of dancing Latin dances such as Rumba, Cha Cha and Samba. The techniques are of course not easy to master at all (if they are, then we’d all be professionals!). Everyone went back happy and awed by their skills and strength and very motivated to dance like them, one day!

Some of the dancers in their best dresses

Sun – party day! More than 300 dancers from all over the country appeared at the venue in their best dress, some latin competition dresses and indeed, the restaurant was filled with sexy dancers by 10 am. The party kicked off with WOBBLE – a good fun, warming up, and ice-breaking dance to shed any hint of shy-ness away from the dancers. The dance were led by my Penang friends, Eddie, Wendy, Goot and Jan with whom we picked the dance together in Toronto and San Francisco. The party just got heated up and everyone just danced and enjoyed themselves.

Wobble leaders on stage

Wobblers on the floor - fully packed!

Teaching Feel Good Cha

 

Then I taught my new dance, Feel Good Cha, which I specifically choreographed for the event. Taught the dance to a very interested and enthusiastic crowd. Despite being an intermediate dance with tags and restarts, the dancers managed to learn it! How relieved I was! The crowd was very pleased with the dance and many told me they had started teaching it already this week! Yay!

Aaron & Connie - Current Latin Amateur Champions in Singapore

 

After that, the crowd was introduced to Connie & Aaron, the reigning Latin Amateur Champions of Singapore. They performed a Samba to the cheers and whistles from the crowd who were evidently very pleased with what they saw.

More dancing continued and then we had a mini game – So You Think You Can Dance Viva Latino Edition. Most dancers were shy to take part at first, but with some coaxing and encouragement, we managed to get some competitors to compete in the genre of Cha Cha, Rumba and Jive. We decided to take Samba out and make it as a finalist dance instead of the Paso Doble. The competitors started to show their stuffs, some shy but many shone and it was tough for the judges to choose the best dancers within 30 seconds! Little Joey, Rezall, Hsiang and Annie got into the finals to compete in the Samba. Rezall’s obvious latin techniques awarded him the champion of So You Think You Can Dance Viva Latino Edition!

Winners and Judges of So You Think You Can Dance Viva Latino

We were then entertained by Connie & Aaron’s 2nd latin performance – this time a Cha Cha number to a contemporary cha cha music. It’s very interesting to see Connie’s seduction and Aaron’s pursuit but as Aaron puts it in words, the guy will NEVER get the girl. LOL! The performance was indeed dramatic and fiery!

More dancing continued with some fun dance numbers such as Jump in Da Line (Guyton Mundy), Ooh I Like That (Rachael McEnaney & Ryan Lindsey) and Proud Mary Burning (Philip Sobrielo Gene). As in all my events, I’ve specifically added in some classic line dances such as Push (Michele Perron), Keep it Burning (John Robinson & Craig Bennett), Rio (Diana Lowery), and Chilly Cha Cha (AT Kinson). There are also new dances which we picked up from WOW, and JB. I’ve also specifically added in dances by the local choreographers who are gaining popularity locally and internationally. I’m so proud that Malaysians are also contributing to the line dance world in terms of choreography!

Dance crowd

 

Connie and Aaron got onto the dancefloor again to showcase their final performance of the evening, a rumba to Adele’s song Feel. Gosh, the dance was so emotional, so passionate and I was on the brink of overwhelming tears. The crowd went crazy went Aaron picked Connie up and twirled around the dancefloor. It was indeed a grand finale of the performances! Everyone just gave them a standing ovation with thunderous applause.

Connie & Aaron - Rumba number - Feel

Another highlight of the event was the Grand Lucky Draw – offering 9 grand prizes. The top prize is a pair of custom-made Latin Shoes worth RM168. The 5 best dressed dancers were announced. A special prize was awarded to Sie Kwan as the Dancing Queen for being able to dance 100% of the event’s dancelist, no joke.

Winners of the Best Dressed competition

The dancing continued on until the end and everyone bade farewell unwillingly to each other, especially the dancers from other states. Till we meet again next year ~ thinking hard what would be the next theme!

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Viva Latino: Party Highlights

Jennifer Choo Sue Chin | February 22, 2012

Some interesting activities have been carefully planned out for the event:

  1. Latin dance performances by Connie & Aaron
  2. Best Dressed Competition
  3. Game: So You Think You Can Dance
  4. 50 Lucky Draws
  5. 10 Table Draws
  6. 9 Grand Prize Lucky Draws (updated!)
  7. Teach of my new dance: Feel Good Cha

I will be posting out the rules and materials for the game: SO YOU THINK YOU CAN DANCE so you guys can prepare well in advance for the game! Watch out for more details coming right up!

10 more days to VIVA LATINO!!!

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Dance for Good Health, Peace and Joy 2011

Jennifer Choo Sue Chin | December 22, 2011

Rachael and I

We’ve been looking forward to the trip since a year ago… the day finally came and voila! I have 2 busloads of (80+) line dancers tagging along me this time from Kuala Lumpur to Johor Bahru for the event. This year, the Lim family has invited the Line Dance Princess, Rachael McEnaney, to be the guest of honour, so naturally, everyone flocked to JB that weekend to meet and dance with her.

The Lims and McEnaneys

We arrived in New York Hotel and quickly scrambled into our rooms to change into our RED and WHITE christmas themed attire for dinner. Everyone got excited when they came down to the lobby and saw Rachael and her look-a-like mom (Gill), whom many mistaken as her sister! Many were seen taking photographs with their line dance idol. Suddenly a song was played in the air and Rachael and Philip Sobrielo started dancing Proud Mary and in time, many other joined in! It’s a pre-planned Flash Mob that Dr Lim JP has coordinated with the different group of dancers that was scheduled to arrive that evening 🙂 The whole lobby was filled with line dancers in Red and White and other Christmas colours! Many hotel guests were seen taking out their camera to record this special event!

We then adjourned to the adjacent coffee house for a sumptuous steamboat dinner. Many were seen catching up with each other as we were from different parts of the country and world! Line dancing do bring us together every once in a while in events like this. After dinner, we had a little jamming, also at the hotel lobby! The GM was so kind to accommodate us, in Christmas and dance spirit!

One thing I liked about New York Hotel was its spacious floor space outside the rooms where we had our dance performance practise at night before we retire and prepare for the BIG day the next day!

Wild Party Animals ready to PARTEEEE!!

Early next morning, we were up and ready, this time in our animal prints attire, WILD and READY to PARTY! We call ourselves the Party Animals. We even have a mascot who came with tiger ears and tail!! No prize for guessing who she is! She’s a real sport and such a lovable funny tigress!

Our mascot in full gear - Roar!

When we arrived at the event venue, many people had arrived and busy taking pictures with Rachael. She was also spotted in animal prints! We started dancing and meet up with our line dance friends from other places. As expected, Rachael taught 4 nice dances (expertly as she always does, she simply has a way to teach and break down the complicating steps/sequence):

  1. A Place in the Sun (beg) – it’s fun to hear Rachael making sounds during the “fan brushes”. She taught and let us try one wall, but we went all the way with 4 walls… she sat down and eventually lied down – bored – and said we didn’t need her anymore!
  2. Purr Kitty (high beg) – a cute fun dance (hey, it fits our attire!) which Jan and I learnt in Toronto. It’s good to refresh again for but others are happy with the dance. Cute, simple and stress-free.
  3. Hi-A-Ma Cha (low int) – (Pronounced as “Ha-ee-A-Ma” Cha as heard in the song Pata Pata) a cute real cha cha dance with some salsa elements. It’s great to see Rachael executing the Latin techniques and how she rolled her hips. It has some easy, harder, challenging options for the last set – which makes the dance more interesting! There is a 4 count tag – which you could just hold or just shake!
  4. Had A Bad Day (high int) – Choreographed to one of my fav songs Bad Day but not sung by Daniel Powter. It’s a nightclub with lots of syncopation (the usual) but the dance fits the lyrics and melody perfectly. There are however 2 restarts to the dance which may be a little tricky for some but very clearly heard in the music. I loved it and can’t wait to teach & dance it!

note: Loving all the 4 dances – I will be adding them to my party playlist on March 4th! So don’t just forget the dances you learnt!

The crowd - in their own colour themes

There were some performances too during the 8 hour dance event – for the dancers’ feet to take a breather (although some dancers prefer not to). We were awed by a dance group from Singapore, Angel Chia, and the Indonesians put up a grand show that covers the whole floor. Love their props and costumes, as always! We then did a 4 wall Proud Mary Burnin’ which was interesting! Some of us donned colourful wigs to make the dance more fun… Note: we’ll do the 4-wall formation again for my party on March 4th.

Then some of us (from all over, again) put up a performance – Fake ID – following the line dance steps choreographed by Jamal Sims and Endraico Johnson in the movie Footloose 2011. Most of us have never practised together and only practised the not-so-easy steps a few times. The phrasing especially was hard to remember if you’re not used to the song yet! However, we had fun donning cowboy costumes and doing the cowboy stuffs! Fun was the keyword, not Lines!

Rachael gave us a surprise showcase performance. It just showed how strong she is in almost every dance discipline, and how flexible and how great her dance techniques are. When most of us complained of dizziness after making 2 twirls, she twirled around the perimeter of the dance floor (There must have been between 20-40 turns altogether?! Maybe more!) and just stop right there – with no hint of being ‘mabuk’. We really have much to learn from her! She’s such an inspiration to all of us!

Rachael's Showcase

All in all, the event ended with a big bang! It was the best Dance for Good Health, Peace and Joy ever and everyone simply fell in love with the sweet and talented Rachael. Everyone had so much and fun, were reluctant to leave but look forward to the next Dance for Good Health, Peace and Joy. Great job and a million thanks to the Lim family for pulling off a yet another biggest dance event of the year!

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