Virtual Dance Competition

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 schools. Due to the overwhelming number of entries and seeing how much effort not only the students themselves, but the parents, dance teachers, friends and community members put in to make this competition super successful this year, we felt the need to honour our participants in a much bigger and better way. This feeling gave birth to the first ever live Virtual Award Ceremony at Bangkok Patana School. The grand live 'Oscar style' award presentation ceremony is the first one in its kind to be hosted by Bangkok Patana School. The Dance Academy, in collaboration with marketing, IT and the lighting department worked together to make it special. Presenters included several members of Senior Leadership at Bangkok Patana including Mr. Matt Mills and Ms. Cindy Adair, from FOBISIA, CEO Mr. John Gwyn Jones MBE, and Students Events Executive, Ms. Janine Minchin, as well as several dance educators from Bangkok International Schools. There were two stunning performances - one from our student committee for KPop and another beautiful performance by Ms. Nanzie who was on the panel of judges for the competition. Watch the whole ceremony here. Needless to say, the effort put in towards this event was worth it. The award ceremony in particular received very strong positive feedback from the community. We hope to continue hosting future events in the current virtual format and explore the possibility of a face-toface competition in the future. We are extremely grateful for all the support we have received from the FOBISIA team and we hope to develop opportunities for dance in a variety of ways through such collaborations.

Thank you for the organisation of the event. I watched the live stream and you guys really showed how it is done! We had some really positive feedback from our parents who also watched to support their daughter's entries. - Alice Curwood, Head of Curriculum PE, The Alice Sith School Kuala Lumpur

Khun Sarun & Khun Nanzie

Ms. Vallary, Organiser