Dance Academy Festival
The Annual Dance Fest was a Great Success!
The Dance Academy hosted their annual festival this week, Dance Fest, with a total of 57 dancers who participated in two intensive workshops. Although the event was limited to only Bangkok Patana dancers this year due to COVID restrictions, the dancers still thoroughly enjoyed the event and performed their sequences in front of an audience. There were additional performances from the Dancesport Team, Daze, Under 11 Dance Team, Varsity Dance Team, and the Cheerleading Team.
Two guest teachers were invited to teach the beginner and intermediate level workshops. The first guest teacher, Toppy Phatsaraporn, is a freestyle dancer and fance instructor based in Bangkok who teaches at various leading studios. You can find Toppy regularly participating in (and winning) one-on-one dance battles throughout the city. Toppy led the intermediate workshops, sharing the importance of foundational skills, isolation techniques, and genre-specific vocabulary such as bounce, rock, and two-step. Toppy also led a second workshop focused on native African dance styles and afrobeat.
The second guest teacher, Ryan Orlino Licudan, is also a dance instructor based in Bangkok and who specializes in street-style dance. For his workshop, Mr Ryan focused on foundational elements of street-style dance, including a hint of commercial dance, as inspired by Michael Jackson.
The annual Dance Fest is a great opportunity to bring young dancers together in a fun learning environment, allowing them to practice their performing skills with their peers and to be inspired by a diverse range of dance instructors. In response to students’ questions, Toppy shared that each time she dances, she feels more confident in showing what she is capable of doing, which brings her happiness and in turn motivates her to practice more!
Bangkok Patana dancers are even more determined to practice, train and excel after the Dance Fest!
