You can Dance if You Want to

* NEW Digital NAC-AEP dance theatre performance

Synopsis:

A dance competition gone wrong - a Latin Dancer who absent-mindedly left her dance costume bag on the MRT; a B-boy, in his hurry, brought the wrong music track for the competition; and a contemporary dancer who sprained her ankle moments before go- ing on stage. ‘You can dance if you want to’ is a light-hearted dance theatre comedy, albeit with an empowering life skill message - Dancing is always fluid, creative and adaptable, a reflection of how we tackle difficult situation or solve problem in our daily life. Through dance , we hope to empower our youth to be inquisitive, creative and courageous.

At a dance competition, a series of unfortunate accidents and mistakes befell the com- petitors;

- a B boy found himself having to perform and adapt his Hip Hop breaking movement to a Chinese folk song. He had mistakenly brought his grandmother’s mp3 player instead of his own as he rushed out of his house. And all he could find in his grandmother’s mp3 player was a Chinese folk music soundtrack.
- a Latin dancer who had carelessly left her costume bag on the MRT. In desperate mea- sure, she rummaged through an old wardrobe in the backstage, and in it, she found a classical Indian dance costume.
- a contemporary dancer who twisted her ankle, minutes before going on stage. She had to improvise her dance routine with a chair. She would use the chair as her crutches, modify and adapt her dance routine with it.

As the saying goes, the show must go on.

These young dancers pressed on and tackled their competition hiccups with persever- ance and confidence. What they discovered through this nerve-wrecking experience was the importance to keep an open mind and be creative when face with any obstacle.

In scene 3 and 4, the dancers decided to form a collective where they could share, col- laborate and explore their passion of dance. Together they created a new dance language - a fusion of Flamenco, Contemporary and Hip hop.

Overall Objectives:

To create awareness and promote dance appreciation
To introduce different dance styles - Contemporary, Latin, Hip Hop
To introduce and feature the diversity of dance techniques, music and costumes of dif-

ferent dance styles
To promote an inquisitive approach towards dance
To stimulate audience to think creatively and face challenges with a positive attitude
To illustrate that arts/dance can and does develop, evolve and reinvent
To foster friendships and bonding, build social cohesion and trust
To highlight the beauty of collaboration among dancers, regardless their training and

specialty, a healthy collaboration generates great innovation