By Cheryl Wong and Shafeena Banu
With over six years of experience in Chingay, this will be her first time choreographing a dance for a whole contingent in 2013.
Eileen Hoe is the petite woman behind the biggest mash up of Chingay 2013 - a three-part parade number that features 1,100 dancers kicking it up everything from “Can Can” to “Gangnam Style.”“I wanted to see people of different ages, race and religions come together doing the one thing they all love, which is dance,” said Miss Hoe.
The throngs of dancers, organized by the Community Development Counsel (CDC), come from clubs in every corner of the country to practice together for the largest road show of the year. When it came time for the first rehearsal at the F1 pit building, Miss Hoe was firmly in command.
She bellowed into the broadcast system giving detailed instructions to dancers in the midst of the entire buzz. Upbeat music of Can Can
blasted at the pit dozens of spotlight shining down on the faces of Eileen and the dancers. The atmosphere was filled with excitement and a tinge of urgency as the dancers beamed their faces to concentration focusing on their dance steps waving their yellow pom-poms in the air and moving to the rhythm of the music.
To the performers it is all fun as they groove to the amazing mash up dance routine but for Eileen, the dance is accompanied by a headache.
“I wanted to see people of different ages, race and religions come together doing the one thing they all love which is dance”
The dancers are made up of different ages, backgrounds and come from different dance groups such as the Wanna Studio who specializes in line dancing and dozens teenagers who are hip-hop dancers. It seems like an almost impossible mission to get dancers of such great genre to dance to songs like “Gangnam Style”, “Can Can” and “Reach Out For The Stars.”
“One of the hardest parts would be to get all the dancers to dance in sync” said Miss Hoe dressed in all black during a break before the rehearsal.
Dancer Doris Tay 42, from Gek Poh Community Club had nothing but praises for her,
“In the three years I’ve known her, she has been committed, very passionate over dance and very skilful and she isn’t just a teacher but a good friend too.”
“She never scolds us even if we dance wrongly, she will only encourage us to practice more” said Fadhliah Binte Abdul Rahim 16, a student from Choa Chu Kang Secondary School.
Headline
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Committee Spirit Driven By Passion
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Module
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M202 Chingay 2013 - Industry endorsed article
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Type
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Feature Piece
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Summary
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For the last five weeks of the module Media Writing, we partnered Chingay 2013 to cover a range of stories that feature the festival.
Chingay is is an annual street parade that celebrates the birthdays of Chinese deities as part of the Chinese New Year celebrations.
Along with my team mate, we did a feature article on Eileen Hoe who is the woman behind the parade number involving 1,100 participants.
The article is descriptive, colourful and gives a background to the main character of our article. We interviewed Eileen to find out the challenges and the satisfaction of her job and what influenced her decision to be part of Chingay 2013.
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