| History of International Folk Dancing in Singapore |
Singapore is a multi-racial society. Dances from different ethnic
groups, i.e. Chinese, Malay and Indian, are the heritage culture from
China, Malaysia, and India.
The western folk dance was started in YMCA as early as the 1950s. In
the 1960s, folk dance instructor, Mr Ricky Holden, was the first
American to introduce folk dancing to school teachers and folk dance
enthusiasts. In the 1970s, Taiwanese folk dance instructor, Mr Yang
Cangxiong, was invited to Singapore to conduct international folk
dancing sessions. There was an overwhelming response from all the
folk dance organizations.
The People’s Association (PA), as the main grassroots organization,
has also been playing an important role in promoting folk dance
activities in all its community centres. International folk dance classes
and folk dance nights are widely organized in most of the community
centres throughout the island.
In the 1980s, most of the international folk dances were introduced
to Singapore through folk dance instructors invited from Taiwan and
Hong Kong. Dances were mainly from Taiwan, Hong Kong, Israel,
America, Japan, and other Southeast Asian countries.
Since then, folk dance workshops and courses have been gradually
organized by other folk dance organizations. From 1983, local folk
dance instructors also started traveling overseas to Taiwan and
Hong Kong to attend folk dance camps organized at international level,
such as the ‘Asian Folk Dance Camp’ in Taiwan.
In 1988, folk dance activities also expanded its popularity to the
Residents’ Committee (RC), a neighbourhood grassroots organization.
Meanwhile, senior citizens aged 45 and above were encouraged by
the Singapore government to participate in social, sports and cultural
activities. These caused a rapid increase in folk dance participation in
1989.
Since then, the nature of folk dancing gradually changed its trend
towards recreational dances.
In June 1989, the first Israeli folk dance instructor invited to Singapore
was Mr Yehuda Emmanuel. Many new Israeli folk dances were
introduced and these attracted more than 400 local folk
dance enthusiasts. |
|
