Hong Kong News Archive 1999

There will be a reception with light refreshements held by Dansinn Dance Studios on the 7th November 1999 from 3:00p.m. to 6:00p.m for the celebration of Dansinn Dance Studios' GRAND OPENING. Any interested parties or firends are welcome to attend. For more information please contact Throsthur Johannsson.

The Hong Kong DanceSport Association will be holding their Annual General Meeting and a Dinner Party at the Hong Kong Jockey Club on 13th November 1999. The deadline for recieving the proxy form is on the 10th November. For further information please contact the association's secretary Ms Kitty Fung.

Louis Van Amstel and Karyna Smirnoff will be doing a show at the new convention center on the 5th of December and Andy Bautista's Big Band will be playing the music on the night.

Starting from 24th October 1999 Star East Cafe will have a function called Shall We Dance? Every Sunday from 2:00pm-7:00pm hosted by Asian Champions Nick Fok and Helena Ho. It includes a tea buffet and free coaching.

The "Pacific Rim Cup" Modern and Latin Dance Competition held at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre (HKCEC) on the 11th and 12 October 1999 concluded with great success. Six talented dancer pairs recieved the memorable Pacific Rim Cups to loud applause from judges and spectators. The press release and results are now available.

Michael Wentink and Beata are coming to town again! They will be performing at a dinner ball at the Grand Hyatt Hotel on the 6th November 1999. For further information please contact Paul Bishop.

Classical Female Singer Carmen Chan's CD is released, please check the homepage "Pearls of Love" for details.

More competitions.  The Come Dancing Studio Academy, the organiser of the 1st Hong Kong Open 10-Dance DanceSport Championships on 26th December 1999, will now add 2 more events : 5-Dance Modern and 5-Dance Latin and is named "The Best of Amateur Championships".

The Hong Kong DanceSport Association (HKDSA) list of Hong Kong dancing couples is finally out after more than 2 years of determination by HKDSA. To the surprise of a lot of people, the HKDSA ranking list is compiled by simply adding the marks allocated to the first six couples of every ranking competitions during the 2-year period. No marks are awarded to the efforts of the competitors who have attended the competitions but did not get into the final round. The list is included in our results page.

Due to the number eight signal typhoon the opening ceremony of the New Causeway Bay branch of Creation Dancing School will be postphoned to the 3 October 1999.

Lawrence Chan & Gertrude Ko will be demonstrating in the Peak's Restaurant (Terrace on the peak) on the 25th September as part of the celebration activities for Mid-Autumn Festival by the restaurant. Charles Wu will be demonstrating on the 24th September at the restaurant.

Throstur Johannsson will be opening a dance studio (Dans Inn Dance Studios) in Sheung Wan in October. For further details please see the press release. You can contact Throstur at prostur@netvigator.com.

Coming this weekend on the 19th September is the 1st Anniversary Party of Champion Ballroom Dancing Academy organised by Champion Ballroom Dancing Academy and sponsored by Citi Gold. This will be the first dance event in Hong Kong that is sponsored by a multinational corporation and could perhaps be an indication that dancesport is finally slowly gaining its recognition in the sports industry in Hong Kong!

The International Pro./ Amateur Ballroom & Latin Championship organised by The Hong Kong Dance Institute was successfully completed on 5 September 1999. It was on the whole a very well organised event with participants from all over the world, including Canada, Germany, Iceland, Korea, Singapore, Taiwan and China. The most exciting part of the evening and which received the most applauses was definitely the amazing performance by a very young couple from Iceland who are only 14 and 15 years of age respectively and won the amateur Latin championship. Results of the competition are now available.

The New Causeway Bay branch of Creation Dancing School is scheduled to open on the 26 September 1999. There will be an opening ceremony and a cocktail party on the day to celebrate the grand opening.

Notwithstanding the adverse influence of Uncle Sam (typhoon) on 22 August 1999, the Hong Kong DanceSport Association stood its ground and continued to proceed with its Ten Dance Competition. Many determined competitors fought their way through the storm to  to fight for the cup of the Ten Dance selection competition and win a free ticket to the 1999 IDSF Asian Ten Dance Championship to be held in Taipei in October. Results for both the Ten Dance selection competition and the Hong Kong Open DanceSport Mid Summer Cup are available here. The Aaron Cup which was scheduled to be held at Regal Hotel in Shatin on the same day was cancelled and postponed until 18 October 1999.

Do you have any plans for next Sunday yet? There is going to be a Ten-Dance Selection Championship at the Hong Kong Open DanceSport Mid Summer Cup and Dinner Party on the 22 August 1999. The Champions of this selection competition will be given two free return air tickets to Taipei, Taiwan to participate in the 1999 IDSF Asian Ten Dance Championship to be held on 10 October 1999!!

Dynamic Dance Club, organised by President William Chan and Vice President Kwan Sun Chuen was created four years ago. In August 1998, it moved from its original site in Tuen Mun to its present address in Shum Shui Po. At the end of July, several members of the club will go to Singapore to participate in an international event. Shortly afterwards, to celebrate its fourth birthday, Dynamic Dance Club will be hosting its 4th Anniversary Celebration Party on Saturday, 14 August 1999 where President William Chan will demonstrate the Standard dances. At the same time, Bill Chan and Pat Mak were also invited to demonstrate the Latin dances. All are welcome to participate in this joyous event. If you are interested, please contact Dynamic Dance Club for further details.

German Professional Latin Champions Martin Dihlmann and Lydia Weisser will be performing in Hong Kong on the 18th July at Kowloon Shangri-la Hotel. Ken Chou from Taiwan will also be performing at the same event.

Good news for dance lovers! A new dancing place situated in North Point is opening on 10th July.  As part of the celebration for its grand opening, famous dance teachers from Hong Kong, Shenzhen and Guangzhou, including Lawrence Chan and Gertrude Ko and Hammy Lai and Candy Wong are invited to perform on the evenings of 10th, 11th and 12th of July.

Coming right up is a series of events organized by Paul and Rozana Bishop's Dance Academy. First of all, the undefeated 9 times World Modern Champion Marcus Hilton (M.B.E.), and Michael Stylianos who was the tutor for many world champions and is currently the chairman of the Latin Committee and examiner of I.S.T.D, were invited as guest speaker at the dance workshop at Hong Kong International Trade and Exhibition Centre on 30th June 1999. Then on the next day there is also a dance competition in the afternoon followed by a dinner party at the night where once again Marcus and Karen Hilton (M.B.E.) will grace the floor with their performance. For more information on the competition please visit www.mai.com.hk/dance/dancehitec.

Ten-Dance competitors prepare yourselves! The 1st Hong Kong Open 10-Dance DanceSport Championships organised by Come Dancing Studio Academy will becoming soon. This event will be held on 26 December 1999 at Y.M.C.A. Yaumatei, Kowloon, Hong Kong.

After a two year hiatus, Gladys Fernandez and Ricardo Gallo have returned to Hong Kong to grace our dance floors. They will be here for a short period of time to perform and to give two intensive workshops on the techniques of dancing the Argentinean way. The workshops are held during May 30th - June 6th,1999 and the performance will be on the 30th of May and 5th of June.

has just been appointed by International Dance Shoes South East Asia to act as their main distributor in Hong Kong. Enquiries are welcome, please email to ids@mai.com.hk
Click here to view a selection of IDS products

The 3rd Hong Kong DanceSport Championship co-organised by the Hong Kong DanceSport Association (HKDSA), Provisional Urban Council and Provisional Regional Council was completed on 9 May 1999. On the whole, it was a well-supported dance event. There were over 46 entries and no empty seat at the spectators' stand despite the rainy weather and the fact that was Mother's Day. Perhaps it was meant to be a family day or HKDSA felt a need to become more family orientated, the spectators were invited to participate in the lucky draw of "Who are the Champions?" and TV pop stars were invited to wave the Hong Kong flag and led the marching-in ceremony. It was a truly special occasion for all attendees, much like attending a TV family show. Fortunately, the extra pressure did not affect the performance of the athletes. Despite the extraordinary long music for each event and the minor hiccups with the computer scoring causing reruns, the athletes continued to dance away and survived the competitions without incident.
Check out the results to see who are the champions.

The 7th Come Dancing Cup H.K. Open DanceSport Championship organised by Come Dancing Studio Academy and held on 1 May 1999 was a total success. Since the announcement of the abolition of the distinction between professional and amateur dancers, the 5-dance Latin event on the day was the first dancesport competition in Hong Kong which tears down the barrier between professional and amateur dancers. It was truly a rare sight in Hong Kong to see professional and amateur dancers from Singapore, China and Hong Kong participating in the same event. Each of the 13 couples was also asked to do a solo dance before the commencement of the actual competition.It was also a wonder to see the very young couples from China (as young as the age of 12) competing on the same floor as the more experienced dancers and winning the most applauses!
There was a series of performances after dinner which were led by Lawrence and Getrude wearing traditional Chinese costume and doing ballroom dancing and finished by the performance by Sandro Cavallini & Hanna Kartunnen. Sadly, it was Sandro and Hana's last show together before splitting up but no way did this affect their spectacular performance. All guests were stunned by their performance. Cheers, shouts, applause, whistles continuously echoed in the air. Results for the competitions could be found in our results section.

If you are interested in becoming an adjudicator for or competitor in dancesport, there are a few training courses and seminars organised by different dancing organisations coming up. Firstly there is a "Professional teacher and adjudicator" course jointly organised by a professional ballroom dance organisation and a Hong Kong Dance education college on 18th April. Subsequently there is a "Competition Adjudicator Training Certificate" course to be held on 2nd May which is organised by the Hong Kong Ballroom Dancing Council where upon completion, certificates will be issued by John Taylor (I.S.T.D.). For those who are interested in improving their dance knowledge, you may be interested in the seminar presented by Chirstopher Hawkins and Hazel Newberry organised by Helena's Dance Workshop on the 8th May, the "Beginner competitions' training class" organised by the Hong Kong Ballroom Dancing Council, "Modern and Latin Dancing Seminar" held at HITEC International Trade & Exhibition Centre on 30th June 1999 presented by Marcus & Karen Hilton and Michael Stylianos.

After 6 years of dancing partime as a professional dancer, Lawrence Chan has finally decided to give up his high ranking governmental career and devote all his time in dancing.  Lawrence firmly believes that: Practice is the only way to become perfect! We hereby wish that Lawrence's dancing career will reach a new height in no time!

Due to the unexpected split up of Bryan Watson and Karen Hardy (see general news above), Donnie Burns and Nicole Hansen have been invited to perform at the Hong Kong 'Super' International Ballroom and Latin Championship to be held on 27th and 28th March 1999 instead. It will be the first time the performance of Donnie and his new Swedish partner be shown in Hong Kong and much anticipation is expected from both his fans and foes.

The Hong Kong Vs. Guangdong Team Match organised by Fox Dance Studio held on 21 March 1999 has been successfully concluded. For the spectators, the overflow of excitement was nonstop. Having completed the Hong Kong ranking amateur events, the Team Match participated by both professional and amateur talented dancers of Guangdong and Hong Kong shook the floor with excitement. The evening was finally brought to a close in style by the magnificant performance by World Champions Alan and Donna Shingler. Results of that night's competitions are now available.

James Lau, one of the most respected dance teachers in Hong Kong has passed away on the 14th March 1999 at the age of 83. James has spent a large part of his life actively participating in the promotion of ballroom and latin dancing in Hong Kong and will be deeply missed by all teachers and dancers in the dancing community.

The 99' Hong Kong Dance Sport Championship & 5th Anniversary Dinner Party presented by Helena's Dance Workshop held on the 24th January 1999 would no doubt be one of the most memorable events of this year. Following the exciting Hong Kong Dance Sport Association (HKDSA) amateur competition events, the President of the HKDSA gave a detailed speech on the aim and purpose of the Association. The spirit of the crowds was further elevated by the latin demonstation competition performed by the professional dancers in Hong Kong, Macau and Guangzhou, and then reached the climax of the evening - when the 98 Professional Modern Rising Star Champion, Christopher Hawkins and Hazel Newberry took the floor and did a most breath-taking performance.
The results of the competiton are now available at our results page.

We have the results for the last competition (Countdown To 1999 DanceSport Spectacular) in 1998 for the South East Asia. Detail results are now available at our results page.

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