Mel Wong has been invited to study Contemporary Dance at the prestigious conservatoire Trinity Laban in London, so she’s running a fundraising campaign to help pay for it. She’s also trying to set the world record for most consecutive grand battements!
Learn more in my interview with her below!
When did you start doing ballet as an adult?
I took my first ballet class as an adult in Easter 2011.
Did you ever take lessons as a kid?
I didn’t have any formal classical ballet classes as a child, but my jazz and musical theatre teachers would incorporate elements of ballet into their classes. I completed vocational training in dance and performing arts to BTEC National Diploma level, but due to a mental illness and life circumstances I never got the opportunity at the ‘right’ age to complete my training and start a professional career.
Why did you decide to take ballet as an adult?
There were a few factors that made me decide to take up ballet as an adult, the first one being that for all my life I craved the opportunity to study classical ballet and after achieving a number of goals as a semi-professional athlete I worked up the courage to walk into my first ballet class. After I recovered from my illness I threw myself into training and competing as a martial artist, believing that I was no longer young enough or thin enough to go back to dance. But when I watched a UK company (the Northern Ballet) perform ‘Cleopatra’ something inside me just released and I felt the need to pursue dance training again.
Why are you running a fundraising campaign to support your dancing?
I have been invited to study Contemporary Dance at the prestigious conservatoire Trinity Laban in London, but it is very expensive and I am having to fund it alone since I have no relatives that I can rely on to support me in my studies. My age (I am 31) means that I am not eligible for dance scholarships, which I find incredibly unfair, and I am also not eligible for government support due to the internally-verified status of the course that I have been invited onto.
I have set up a fundraising campaign (http://www.gofundme.com/skydancerfund) to try and reach others out there in the world who understand my situation and want to see a dancer who doesn’t fit the mould in terms of age or ‘classical’ body shape achieve their ambitions. For any dancer pursuing full-time training is hard work, but I am ready to work! All my life I have been pursuing a dream to dance, choreograph and perform professionally and my experiences up until now have really prepared me for this opportunity and have given me the focus needed to knuckle down, complete my training and achieve my long term professional goals.
What is your ultimate goal with it?
When my training is complete my ultimate goal is to form my own artistic dance theatre company, which will give performance opportunities to other dancers like me who don’t meet set ‘standards’. I aim to create my own movement language, which will fuse classical ballet with more contemporary movement forms and martial arts to really push physical boundaries. I want to say something very clear with my work, I aim to show how male and female dancers can be equally strong and vulnerable and really showcase how beautiful and breathtaking dynamic bodies can be.
Where do you take classes?
I take as many open classes as my current finances allow studying ballet at my local dance studio – Hype Dance Company – three times a week and taking extra classes with the Northern Ballet.
What is your favorite part about ballet?
Ballet is so all-consuming, it requires total dedication and you can’t cheat or fake any elements of it. As a complete form of physical training, ballet develops the body in ways that other movement forms don’t encouraging strength, precision and expansion (which are things that I love). As an art form it is so versatile and offers so much room for expression and freedom, when I dance ballet I believe that I can really pour my soul and my heart into my physical movements. It facilitates so much more than jazz or contemporary styles.
What is your least favorite part?
I don’t have a least favourite part of the art or movement language itself, but I do have issues with the way that ballet is sometimes presented as an elitist privilege. Dancing ballet professionally is something that isn’t available to every human being on this earth, but that’s true of any gift or talent, and I don’t believe people who aren’t the ‘right’ colour, shape, age or gender should be automatically excluded from trying it. Yes, some professional companies will always require a certain aesthetic, but there is room in this art form for a variety of dancers provided they have something to contribute.
Who/What is your ballet inspiration?
I’ve been inspired by so many dancers throughout my life. As a youngster I idolized the glamourous stars of the 20thCentury – Rudolf Nureyev, Margot Fonteyn, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Gelsey Kirkland, Natalia Makarova – and as I grew older I fell in love with Sylvie Guillem, Alessandra Ferri, Darcey Bussell and Nicholas le Riche. Now I would say my main inspirations are the dancers who are surpassing what’s expected of them and the way that they move, so Guillem remains an inspiration as does Natalia Osipova, Tamara Rojo, Junor Souza and Marianela Nunez. And I wouldn’t be where I am today without my ballet teacher Emily Talks!
What motivates you to keep dancing?
I’m alive so that’s motivation enough for me! Seriously, dance is my life, it inhabits every moment to the point of obsession.
Do you take any other dance classes?
I have take as professional an approach as I can manage with the resources that have been available to me so in addition to ballet class 3-4 times a week, jazz and contemporary classes a few times a week and also daily practice in Yoga and Pilates.
What are your hobbies outside of ballet?
Aside from reading, watching movies and socializing with friends, I use a lot of my spare time outside of class for conditioning. So I attend Pilates and Yoga classes and one-to-ones regularly, and also work out at the gym to maintain my fitness.
What advice would you like to give to those who want to start ballet or have just started?
For anyone who is thinking of starting ballet you really just have to do it, don’t put barriers in the way of yourself. So what if you don’t have legs like Sylvie Guillem, you still have value as an individual dancer and ballet might just be the right art form for you. For anyone who’s just started ballet I would say stick with it, be as interested as possible in everything that you do in class, use YouTube to learn from the ballet legends and masters and never lose your beginners’ mindset!
Anything else you’d like to add?
Before I head off to dance school I am planning to set a new world record for the total number of continuous grand battements (the current record is 1,199!). I am fundraising for the record attempt with a Kickstarter page:https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1671982406/world-record-attempt-grand-battements and I hope to raise enough money so that I can make charitable donations to the Cats Protection League and MacMillan Cancer Care.
Do you have a blog?
I have a website: www.skydancermel.com where I blog about dance, movement, mental health and anything else that springs to mind! I also have a Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/MelSkydancer and Twitter account https://twitter.com/MelMAOW.
