“JOM! Baile Latino” - HELP Inter-College Latin Dance Competition 2009

The Dance Club, HELP University College
4 July 2009

KLPac

By Jovita Bautista (President The Dance Club)

4^th July, 2009 was not only celebrated by the Americans for their Independence Day but also by a group of over 400 enthusiastic young people on the success of “JOM! Baile Latino”, an inter-college event organized by The Dance Club of HELP University College at the Kuala Lumpur Performing Arts Center ( KLPac ).  The event was organized by 26 young inexperience college students including myself!  We started 3 months ago, planning, recruiting competitors, getting sponsors, and making tickets sales to make this 1^st Inter-College Latin dance competition in Malaysia a success and memorable.

The aims for this event are to ignite a revolution for creative dancing by encouraging teenagers and college students to take up dancing as a form of art, and to encourage healthy living and a healthy lifestyle for youths.  We also wanted to create more exposure for Latin Dancing and one of our most important objectives is to bring the dance club members into the next stage of healthy dance competition. At the same time, the HELP Dance Club will also be able raise funds for members to make costumes for competitions or performances besides promoting HELP University College as one of the leading colleges in this field.

The event saw 20 enthusiastic couples, for Beginner to Advance categories, from HELP, KDU, Taylors, INTI, UCSI, Lim Kok Wing and The One Academy University-Colleges participated in the competition. The 200 seats were sold out before the event and 50 seats were reserved for our VIPS/Sponsors.  Just before the event started, the room was so packed and overwhelmed by last minute walk-ins who insisted on sitting on the floor or standing at the side just to watch and support their friends.

The panel of judges comprised of dancers and celebrities including Judimar Hernandez (Judge for SYTYCD season 1 & 2), Alam (Champion for SYTYCD season 1), Tengku Noor (Top 6 for SYTYCD season 1) and guest judge, Volker Mann (Germany) who represent all judges with participant commentary.  Also present were also our Guests of Honor, The CEO of HELP University College, Datin Chan with spouse, President, Datuk Dr Paul Chan, president of HUC, Dr Kong with spouse and our many generous sponsors.

We kicked-start the competition with a performance from Malaysia’s top under-9 juvenile couple, Dominic and Nisha Lor (Age 9 and 8), who mesmerized the crowd with an amazing cheeky cha cha.

The participants competed fiercely and finally the winners emerged.

Result of competition:

Advance Category:

Champion – Nazrin & I-Yin (HELP)

1^st Runner Up – Aris Khoo & Rachel Quek (HELP) and Chua Zjen Thak & Chong Hui Ning (Taylors)

Beginner Category:

Champion - Aevent Koh & Chua Jeh Ying (HELP)

1^st Runner Up - Yeoh Jie Cong & Lee Shu Er (HELP) and

2^nd Runner Up - Ong Chun Yew & Gan Huan Ting (UCSI)

Best Dress Category: Stephen Wong & Jo-Ann Bautista (The One Academy)

Prizes sponsored by:-

HELP, Stephanie Ho, Tony Cheam, William & Luisa DanceWorld, My Dance Shop, Club 9sixlounge, Ali Maju, STC Spinky