FeelMoreFearLess DDz Camp 2017

Just a quick catch up of what's been happening since my last post! Well, I won't say all is well so far (work truly sucks) but at least I got a job, and I am attached! 告別單身

ok catch up done, back to the main topic.

20-22.1.17 (21-22.1.17 for me :/)

Annual DDz Camp! This year a bit special because we did something that we had never done before: Freestyle battle! Missed 3/4 workshops bec of work, but felt blessed to have made it down for the battle. Honestly didn't want to take part at first bec hamchi but I am glad that I took part in it in the end.

Haven't had such great days for a long long while! Thanks @dropwhatbeat @kirinzloh@letskeepjoaquin @reubslife and whoever in the comm for organising such amazing camp! Really really proud to see so much growth in every single one of my bros and sis! Not just in terms of dance but also in terms of how much their minds are open to everything while staying humble and passionate about just anything! The fire is going strong and keep this up fam! 🔥 :')) and I tmd happy to hear that ppl want to stay in DD :'') .
.
Had my virgin experience in battling (internally), tough as hell but I didn't regret taking part! Really appreciate all the cheering and encouragement from everyone! Just hope that nothing drops from my mind when I land next time 😂! And thanks my team for "adopting" me @ishahahaha @nixfreestyle@beautifulfrostwolf @hiimgerald . It was really fun dancing with y'all! 🙆
.
And great to have you with us @baddabbing ! Hope you are proud of what @dancederivativez has become over the years! Really glad to see you! Mandatory 2nd batch photo with Mel!.
.
#ddzcamp2017 #ddzfamily

My post on insta ^

There was a short while after the battle when I actually felt like tearing. Because the club that the exco had put so much effort into shaping into a family, slowly turns out to be so united, passionate, humble and fearless. It was a moment of pride that I really thought I would cry in front of everybody HAHA I can't fully express how I actually felt into words but I really just wanna say that I am extremely proud of my family, my brothers and sisters :'D I have seen some of the freshies since day 1 they stepped into DDz. And I was so amazed that they outdid themselves during the camp, the battle. My jaw dropped and thought to myself, "Woah I have never seen this side of xxx, they can dance so well!!" and "Even the freshies who just started dancing can let go of their fear, what is freestyle to the seniors whom had longer terms in dance?!" I was inspired and just want to be better so that I won't let my bros and sis down!

Really wanna thank the family for the great two days. I haven't had this in quite a while. I missed the time when we can just slowly stroll from sch to ccp and back. I missed the time when we can just nua at the slounge and spend time chit chatting without having to worry about work.

After the battle we went to ask feedback from Ben and Luqman (really amazing awesome yet humble dancers), and Ben told me that having variation and foundation is good, but need to dance. Which my juniors did told me roughly the same thing, ".. something that a typical dancer can do, when you dance, it doesn't feel like it's you ..". Hence, my goals for myself in dance this year:

- Be more comfortable with freestyling

- Not be afraid of being in the center of attention

- Develop my own personal style

Felt a lil bit distant and left out sometimes because I am no longer in school and don't get the chance to mix around more with the people, but at the same time also very very glad that the members seem to get really bonded :) Should start muting DDz chat from now on, for good reason :)

Really took away a lot from this camp. Walking out of the camp, inspired. Just hope my work don't stop me from dancing! NO! NEVERRRR!

ps: I will update again probably when I get the photos and videos.. Maybe..

臺灣畢旅

video :)

明信片：臺灣

臺北：夕照

臺北：故宮博物院

南投：日月潭

嘉義：阿里山

南投：玉山

高雄：愛河

屏東：鵝鑾鼻燈塔

花蓮：太魯閣峽谷

DDz Post Farewell

Grad trip @Taiwan was great! The place was awesome, the scenery was beautiful, the people were friendly mostly, the bubble tea was nice, but I think I would still wanna try a solo trip next time if there is ever a chance.

Now grad trip is over I'm forced to return to the reality where my main main problem now is to find a job :'( But this is not the point of this post. This post is more for the post reflection of the DD farewell. That farewell was really one of the best I had and the farewell gift given to me was really special and I really love it! The picture on the pillow might look printed but was actually hand drawn by Joaquin! How amazing! I am really honoured to receive this gift.

And with farewell you would also expect notes from the juniors. And honestly I didn't expect a lot of things that I read from the notes :') Everyone has an idol and I am no difference from them, and I want to be like the person who is able to inspire people and make a difference in other people's lives! From what I read from the notes, I guess without me consciously doing it, it seems like I have already taken my first step, through my passion and action. I guess what I said before was true, if you have the passion or feel for something, other people would see it and feel it. I think this aligns with my type of leadership just as when I was still stuck in badminton. I was not the type of leader that can stand right in front of people and give them pep talk, motivate the people through words of encouragement. I am more like the leader that leads by example which in my personal opinion is a slower, long term but effective method of motivation. I am really really happy to be given a chance to inspire people and make a difference, no matter how small, in other people's lives.

With inspiring people comes being inspired. I can't stress how much some of the people in dance have inspired me in their own ways! Just to mention a special few: 

Isha: she is so passionate about dance and so willing to explore different styles. Who on earth has the time to join three dance clubs while being a vp and cluster rep on top of being a sutdent? That's Isha. Every time talking to her about dance, it just makes me feel like wanting to assist her in making the dance in SUTD more vibrant.

Zachary Song: I asked him a few questions regarding freestyle the other day and he couldn't answer me in the spot because he said funk and hip hop are slightly different. He said he would think about it. What I did not expect was that he really took my questions super seriously. He thought hard about it and even got his friend to come down and share with us about freestyling, targetting at the questions that I asked previously. How many people would actually go such a long way to answer such questions? Respect for him up x10000! And he fights for what he is passionate about. His passion for funk make the setting up of the club and its virgin performance in the Piano Concert possible. I have no regret supporting him from the start!

Marcus Leong: hmmm I don't even know where to start. He was only with DD for slightly less than a year, but the things that he imparts to us are more than what we learnt in the 3.5 years. I was quite sad that I couldn't spend my time in DD under him for a longer time (alumni liao a bit different).

And from the rest, your encouragements just make me want to do even better than what I am doing now!

Of course, no one is perfect and I'm definitely not perfect in many other ways. All they know is my side that dance, they haven't seen the side of me that's out of dance yet. Can I achieve the same ability when I'm just being the normal self and not about dance and badminton? 

DDz Family

‘Cos no matter who you are, or where you are from, your dance crew will always be family

Dance DerivativeZ: To many of us, dance was a territory unventured; it was a place that was full of wonder yet at the same time full of uncertainties. It was a place that had high barrier to entry to most of us. But thanks DDz, for accepting us into the dance scene unconditionally. It was a small group of people so newly formed that I had no reason to call it a family at first. The seniors then were helpful and crazy and trying their best to make us feel at home. But of course, it takes two hands to clap. And I am glad that those from my batch who stayed - Priscilla Teh, Au Cheuk Yee, Tiffany Koh, Chow Wong Chong, Leung Chi Kwan, Howard Lok, Enyan Emmie Max Koh, Lee Kern Choong, Lawrence Kam, Soh Mei Yu and Chua Hui Shan - (and kudos to those who stayed till the very end! + Tay Kang Sheng and Lim Aunn Ning) helped to make DDz so fun crazy and warm that it became a place that I/we are proud to call a family. To a lot of us, DDz is really a very special place.

As a university student, it was supposed to be “studies first, fifth rows second”. But I don’t know since when was it that it had become “dance first, studies second” for me. I spent a lot more time on dance than necessary, and I guess some of us would agree that we had been using this phrase a little bit too often: “Sorry I have dance..” Sometimes I wonder if I have actually put my priorities on the wrong thing? In any case, when people go around hashtagging #TGIF, I told myself #TGIW. Dance and sessions with DDz had become almost the only thing that I looked forward to every week. Until recently, I finally started to say #TGIF because sessions were shifted to both Wednesdays and Fridays. I can’t believe how someone who was so not used to making friends and hanging around with people would actually feel excited for the sessions just because the person get to see the people that he has grown so comfortable with. Be it alumni, juniors or freshies. And I guess it is this comfort that allows us to dance better. It is amazing how dance and DDz brought all these awesomely amazing people together.

To the graduating batch: 3.5 years, we have grown and improved, not an improvement expected for people who have already danced for 3 years, but we have grown nonetheless. Remember how every time when we revisited our previous performances or choreos, we always cringed and screamed “omg looked so cui so uglyyyyy”? How we just wanted to look away and watch someone else who could do better? And how we secretly or openly thought to ourselves that if we were to do the same choreos again now how would we look like? Just by comparing our current selves and those in our previous videos, we could tell how much we have progressed in this journey. And I would say that the growth is not just restricted to dance alone. We learnt to think for others, think for the members, think for the club; we learnt to be humble and help others, because we know that regardless of how far we have gone there are always be people who are better than us （一山還有一山高）, and also because we have been in the shoes of those who just started dancing and we know how it felt like to have the opportunity to do something that you have always wanted to do; we learnt to be open-minded, exploring different genres of dance, because we know that dance is dance and should not be restricted to just hip hop alone; and perhaps some of us also started to learn what dance truly means for us (ok at least this is a recent realization and enlightenment for myself, personal note haha). 

To the rest of the family: Different batches have different directions that they want the club to move forwards, and I am quite sure that it has no difference this year. But regardless of what direction the club is taking, in the end it always boils down to one thing that is in common for every batch. And this is what kept us together and why we started in the first place. I don’t want to mention here because I think this should be something that y’all figure out yourselves haha you might not have right now but I hope you do eventually (sorry I had to 賣 a bit of 關子 here). ANYWAYS, thanks for all the supper jio; thanks for being accepting; thanks for being open-minded; thanks for being crazy, thick-skinned and fun; thanks for the hard work in throwing faces; thanks for pushing hard and never give up; thanks for being willing to get out of your comfort zone; thanks for proving that nothing stops you from your passion if your passion is indeed strong; thanks for showing the excitement in what you do, regardless of teaching or learning; thanks for enlightening me what dance truly is about; thanks for looking out for each other; thanks for being patient; thanks for coming down and/or holding all the extra sessions; thanks for being humble, willing to learn and willing to share; thanks for being happy to share; thanks for teaching me that when someone is willing to learn, it would be stupid to not help; thanks for tanking all my nonsense and sometimes angst; thanks for taking it seriously when I sought help from you; and lastly, thanks for giving me, and the alumni, a reason to come back after we graduate.

Not forgetting our instructors!

Melissa Ng: Thanks for taking care of us all the new bloods when we first started! That day in Dover was probably the first day of dancing for some of us and you were the reason (or at least part of it) that most of us stayed. We learnt so much from you, all the bounces, all the isolations, all the hit draaaaaag, etc etc all the foundations. I looked forward to every session and missed the time when you actually joined us for supper at 34! Without your guidance from the start, I honestly don’t know where most of us would be at this moment. Truly our 啓蒙老師! Thanks for believing in the club and believing in the new bloods so that our tradition of no membership fees and no audition could be carried on till today. And thanks for believing in me regarding the captaincy haha :) 

Marcus Leong: Thanks for always being so inspirational every single time! Every session with you just makes me feel like there is something more that can be achieved and I want to achieve that! Thanks for solidifying our basics; thanks for pushing us further than we thought we could manage; thanks for teaching us that it is more important to dance for others and not just yourselves; thanks for showing us the right attitude; andddd many other things whether they are told directly or indirectly! Let’s save some space because I think if I am listing them out it is gonna take another page of this haha. But most importantly, thanks for believing in the club’s motto that anybody can dance and always having faith in the dancers :)

We started small, known only to the SUTDents as the only dance club in SUTD. And slowly, we made a name for ourselves during Marina Regatta 2015, our first ever competition. Perhaps our entrance to the local dance scene was not that impactful yet (it was indeed not), but nonetheless it was our first step into getting ourselves known. And this year we made a name yet again on a bigger stage, s24’16! True that there is still gonna be a long way to go before we can truly be fighting on the same level as other teams, but, quote from someone, “... you don’t have to be the best dancer to touch people’s hearts, you don’t need the perfect technique to be recognised, and if we are always waiting to be good enough before we step out there then we probably never will ...” and “... while dance skills and technique require time to build, the purpose foundation will determine where the club would be years to come ...” This time, we shone a little bit more brightly on stage, not because of our techniques, but because our aim to make a person’s night, mission accomplished! This event marked the start of SUTD DDz in the local dance scene, and I am very glad and feel very lucky that I was part of this team :)

And within DDz, we started to move on from state zero within the recent years. We started on choreographing. We did our solo choreographies for TMB “audition”, some of us even did another piece of choreography for choregraphers’ “audition”. On top of that, we even did a few items for the concert as well as for other performances such as the Open House performance. And more opportunities for choreographing to come! And recently, we started on the attempt to freestyle. Most of us started off learning to follow choreographies and freestyling is really really hard for us to get comfortable with. Nonetheless, time to get out of our comfort zone. Every batch brings new things to the club and I am genuinely curious to see how DDz will be in the years to come :)

After writing so much, I think I will probably still be seeing y’all after I am back from Taiwan haha so peace out!

S24'2016

Took part in this year's Super 24, the biggest dance competition in Singapore. Right after the uni's production and we straightaway jumped into the preparation for this competition. 3 months. Honestly, I didn't expect myself to have the chance to stand on that stage, and I felt really blessed that I had the opportunity before I graduate and eventually stop dancing all together (I hope not?). To cut the intro short, I would just say that the 3 months of preparation was really not easy. Never had a single session with full attendance, and sometimes lack of motivation. But I guess in the end, we managed to shine that little bit brightly on stage.

SUTD S24 Team of 2016

I honestly don't know what to say about this so I guess I will just quote what I put on the insta haha.

It was such an amazing night and we couldn't stress how lucky we were to be able to perform on the same stage (literally) with more than 1000 amazing dancers and best crews in Singapore! When we were on stage, we fed each other with positive energy and took in the vibes from the surrounding. The togetherness, energy and feeling-each-other-ness brought us through that 60 seconds on stage, which we believe was the time that our team shone most brightly! We may not be the best dancers, but the cheers from the crowd and the smiles on the judges' face told us that we had one job and we did it! We really did! We hope that we managed to touch many people's hearts out there yesterday, not with our less-than-perfect techniques, but with our smiles :) If we didn't manage to touch your hearts yesterday, we will train hard and be sure to touch yours in a year's time! We are really proud of the 24 bravest souls out there on stage yesterday to give their all! Thanks for everyone from SUTD who came down to support, you never know how much this small act and support really means to us :') Thanks all the juniors and alumni who came down to give us your greatest support too! 😘😘💞 And also have to thank Marcus #bestchoreographer who choreo-ed such an awesome piece for us and pulled through all the hardship with us throughout these 3 months! There were phases of disappointment, but thanks for never losing faith in us! :') We are eternally grateful! Our holidays at #s24 ended yesterday, but we will definitely be back next year! #sutdpride #ddzpride 

 Indeed, there were times when we were disappointed, Marcus was disappointed. But I was glad that we woke up and got our shit back together a week before the Prelims.

It was really great dancing with all the other 23 peeps la we really felt each other on stage. No matter how much we held back during pracs, I believe that all of us really just whacked and threw face on stage already. The feeling when you know that you are bringing joy to the audience is heavenly! Even though we didn't manage to get into finals (which would have been an added bonus) and we know and accept why, I believe that we shone really brightly on stage!! 😁😁 The feeling was awesome when you heard the crowd cheering for you and really enjoyed your performance. I think the thing that satisfied me most was the smiles/hint of smiles on the judges' faces. The first thing that came into my mind once I saw the smiles was that "WE DID IT!" S24 is over now; it's time for me to take a break from dance for the next few days and focus on my school work. But fear not. SUTD Dance DerivativeZ. We. Will. Be. Back! #s24 #dancederivativez #bestchoreographer @monkcus_ #LTinSUTD

 The two captions really captured all I wanted to say laaaa.

So despite not getting into finals (for reasons we agreed and accepted), we still went to watch the grand finals of this year's S24! How can I miss such a big event? It was a pity that not all 24 of us came down to watch though. Of course the teams were awesome, to the point that I was like "omggggg when can we ever in our lifetime achieve that kind of zai-nessssssssss?" but the biggest takeaway that I got from the event was that: 

Dance to Perform, Perform to Perform.

Dance for Each Other. Feel Each Other.

Dance Together. Matching Conviction. Matching Energy. Because you want everyone to do well.

"... because you treasure it so much that you have to let it go ..." - wise words from Ryan Tan.

The teams that are really good always have the qualities of these. While not all of them are as high standard as some other teams, the feels the vibes the togetherness the closeness that they gave out really touched the audience's hearts. In these aspects, DDz really still has a long long way to go. The night of S24 grand finals was really quite an inspiring night laaaaa.

Talking about DDz, so much worries despite my term was over. Understand that it is not my problem anymore, but as part of the team that did so much for the club, worries is unavoidable la. Especially this year is such a different year with intake of experienced dancers, the way the club used to manage the club is getting outdated and have to change and adapt. It is gonna be difficult for the current exco but I guess as part of the club I will just have to take initiative and also give the exco as much support as I can. DDz is gonna change, same as every batch, but I think this time the change is gonna be big. 

Postcards: Australia - Perth

Perth, Western Australia

Koala, Australia

Kangaroo, Australia

The Pinnacles, Western Australia

And people say pictures speak a thousand words :)