Wong Kwok Wing: Dance value starts a road of inheritance

Wong Kwok Wing (Sunny) has been engaged in the dance circle for 33 years during which at the beginning he joined the dancer training class of TVB and today he becomes the special choreographer for such stars as Aaron Kwok, Kelly Chan, etc. His dance steps have influence both in Hong Kong and Macao and he inherited the dance culture to the young generation to promote the development of the local cultural and creative industry.

The Star Dancer Introduces the Dance Culture to Macao

Since 1984 when he started dancing, Sunny experienced a change from dancer for TV entertainment programmes to a professional choreographer. In 1992, he decided to start his own choreographer career. At the beginning, he worked as a freelancer to contract some choreography work for concerts, feasts and singers. After that, he opened his own company and even participated in choreography for large-scale programmes. These rich practice experiences laid the solid foundation for his opening of his first dance training school.

Ten years ago, he opened Dance Union training dance talents in Hong Kong to discover talents with potential, providing excellent new dance stars to the industry. Sunny introduced such training model into Macao three years ago and cooperated with Chessman Entertainment Production Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as the “Chessman”) to operate Dance Union Macao. Chessman has many Macao singers and need to present performance in different places. Such cooperation method can provide more professional training to dancers in Macao, enabling them to create a different world of their own on stages in Macao or other regions.

Having a Big Goal and Performing on Bigger Stages

Sunny encouraged the younger generation by citing master Michelle Barrie Williams who has passed away: “Dancing is a kind of hard work, but as long as you like it, you should follow your dream to create a life belonging to you.” He hoped that the opening of the dance school can provide more room for local younger generation to try different things and improve dancing skills in Macao.

Based on such idea, he employed professional choreographer from foreign country and organised a team of performers with professional qualifications and he hoped that trainees can learn and be skilled at tap dance, Chinese dance, ballroom dance, Latin dance, etc. Also, Sunny led dancers from Macao himself to participate in performance and large competitions to improve their skills. He said: “As a professional dancer, actually you should be able to perform any dance. If you want to be engaged in this sector, you must have many capabilities and each capability must be high so that you can be performing greatly on the stage.”

Macao Does Not Lack Talents Who Can Proactively Promote the Development of the Industry

Sunny found that Macao does not lack talents and also many people have a will to learn dancing. However, currently there are few full-time dancers and trainers. He believed that in most cases performers from other regions were employed as leading performers although there were demands for large performance programmes and this caused few opportunities to local dancers to perform on the stage and the employment atmosphere can be hardly driven if there is no complete industry chain. Therefore, the cooperation with local entertainment company can provide a larger stage to enable persons of noble inspirations to give a full play to what they are capable of. He planned to seize more performance opportunities for Macao trainees and enabled them to proactively participate in shows in Hong Kong or Mainland China, so as to train more full-time dancers. Sunny hoped that dancers in Macao should strengthen their cooperation and the awareness of competition to promote the development of the industry and create the opportunity of making prosperity for the industry.

Comparing with adjacent areas, dance-related large events were performed on few platforms in Macao and dancing styles were also not diversified. Therefore, Sunny said that he would cooperate with Chessman or other organisations to hold dance competition programmes to popularise culture, creativity and entertainment. Under support and marketing from forces in all circles, a better platform and a better performance atmosphere was constructed for more younger generations having a will of participation, thus enabling more Macao people to know that dance is not only a healthy sport but also can be developed as promising cultural industry. “We want to continue the fire and go beyond the entertainment circle and Macao, enabling each dancer to enjoy the stage of dream.”