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SINGAPORE - In Secondary 1, Soo Mei Fei and her classmates saw a poster outside their National Junior College classroom which advertised: Indian dance try-out . There were 15 of us, mostly non-Indians, and we decided to join as we thought it would be Bollywood, she recalled.
To their disappointment, it was in fact Indian classical dance. But Soo persisted.
Last Tuesday (Jan 26), the 23-year-old made history as the first Singaporean Chinese woman to perform a full-fledged arangetram, a debut recital of Indian classical dance bharatanatyam, on stage.
In the audience at the Goodman Arts Centre Black Box was veteran local dancer and choreographer V. Balakrishnan, who said: The performance was not a debut but that of a professional dancer.
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V.K. SANTOSH KUMAR
The repertoire was challenging.
It had difficult shabdam, varnam, padam, javali and thillana - key elements in the Indian classical dance form bharatanatyam.
But, more importantly, the artiste had to show expressions of love for the lord tellingly during the arangetram (debut on stage) as the theme was Mohamana: The Love Within.
Budding dancer Soo Mei Fei executed the rhythmic pieces flawlessly at the Goodman Arts Centre Black Box on Tuesday. The performance was not a debut but that of a professional dancer, said veteran local dancer and choreographer V. Balakrishnan. I have no words to express the standard and quality of Mei Fei s performance from the first piece itself. She has a very bright future.