When I listen to Leonard Cohen’s guttural voice singing “dance me to your beauty with a burning violin / dance me through the panic ‘til I’m gathered safely in / lift me like an olive branch and be my homeward dove / dance me to the end of love”, I tend to believe a bit more in love. It doesn’t matter if the song actually has quite a different origin – inspired by the insanity of World War II – because songs are what we want them to be when they touch our hearts. The same goes for dance.
August is here and in this issue we’ll dance you to the end of summer, by bringing you the stories of some of the best performers in town. And not only their stories, but also a glimpse of everything you can try if you’re up to learning some new moves.
On our cover we feature Anna Leong, a local ballet dancer and teacher with as much beauty as talent. When Anna dances her face and movements tell us stories, they talk to us, they make us feel.
Dance is all about feeling. Imagine Pina Bausch and all the emotions she put in one of her works, all the melancholy, all the existentialism. Local dancer and performer Candy Kuok is not Bausch, but she certainly navigates the deep waters where dance meets other significant concepts – in her case, Macau’s memory, the city landscape, the past.
In the same way that Macau has restaurants from all over the world, so it also has dancers and dance from almost everywhere. From Indian performer Victor Kumar to Brazilian Giovanna Leoni, from pole dancer Varie Anderson to Macau Glee Club’s Emma Seward, there’s a wide range of things you can try and they’re all here over the coming pages, for you to explore.
Speaking of trying, don’t forget to visit our revamped website www.macaucloser.com and subscribe to our soon to be launched weekly newsletter. That’s the best way to know about everything going on and happening in town, as usual, CLOSER to you.