Virtual Dance Competition Vallary Lokre Head Dance Coach, Bangkok Patana School
Bangkok Patana School began hosting a Virtual Dance Competition when Bangkok, unlike other cities, was doing relatively better in terms of COVID-19 after the first big wave had calmed down in Thailand, and staff and students were back on campus here at our school in August 2020. We had realised that we were among the lucky few at the time to access face-to-face learning while in most other major cities in Asia, there was still a lockdown and only online learning was taking place.
We wanted to create a virtual opportunity for dancers in schools to be able to get up, find some motivation and dance. This gave birth to the Bangkok Patana School Virtual Dance Invitational. Compared to the first year, the competition has really grown in popularity as well as in the quality of entries in its second year. We were delighted to have had 213 entries this year from 28 different schools and 8 different countries - Thailand, China, Singapore, Sri Lanka,
Malaysia, Indonesia, Myanmar, Taipei, India and Brunei. The breakdown for the number of entries per category are: • • • • • •
Primary Solos - 69, Primary Duo/Trio - 27, Middle School Solos - 48, Middle School Duo/Trio - 15, High School Solos - 44, and High School Duo/Trio - 10
We did not want to limit the number of entries from each school, and with the competition being absolutely free of charge to enter, and was absolutely done with the intention to be inclusive for dancers of all proficiency levels. Although we have awarded the top three spots in a typical, yet healthy, competition fashion, all the entries are worthy of appreciation. In our first year we published the results online and sent out certificates to participating 26
