DANCE ME A STORY FEATURED IN THE STAR

Our studio production has been featured in the Star newspaper! Have a read here, and when you're done you can book your tickets to Dance Me A Story (NOW AVAILABLE!) through any of the following ways:

1. Come in person to Studio 23
2. Call Eileen at 012 805 3005
3. Email us at studio23kuching@gmail.com

DANCE ME A STORY!

We've been SUPER busy lately, preparing for our upcoming dance production: Dance Me A Story!


Featuring two stories:

"An Arabian Fairy Tale", in which you'll travel around the world with our Belly Dance divas!

"Stronger", where our Modern Jazz and Flamenco dancers will battle it out on the dancefloor!

One of our goals with this show is to support the Sarawak Women for Women Society, and raise awareness of domestic violence. 

We're aiming for at least 1500 people for this show, so share, share share this with your friends and family! And then share some more :)

Join us on November 6th for what's set to be a night of incredible performances!




Tickets available NOW!






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For more information or to book tickets, you can:


Call Eileen at 012 805 3005,


Email us at studio23kuching@gmail.com, or


Drop by the studio! We are located at 152 Lorong 8, Jalan Tun Ahmad Zaidi Adruce. It's right on top of Little Hainan, and very close to 3rd Mile.

Rehearsals: August - October

WEDNESDAY (starting 3rd August)

6:00 - 6:30 p.m. : The Storm Princesses
6:30 - 7:15 p.m. : The Water Princesses
8:15 - 9:00 p.m. : Flamenco
9:15 - 10:15 p.m.: Argentine Tango (rehearsals start Sept)

THURSDAY (starting 4th August)

6:30 - 7:10 p.m.: Flamenco (own practice)
8:15 - 9:00 p.m.: The Tribal Princesses

FRIDAY (starting 5th August)

5:00 - 6:00 p.m. : Happy
7:30 - 8:00 p.m. : The Air Princesses
8:00 - 8:30 p.m. : The Savannah Princesses
8:00 - 8:30 p.m. : Smooth Criminal (3rd Fl)
8:30 - 9:00 p.m. : I Believe
9:00 - 9:30 p.m. : Make You Feel My Love
9:30 - 10:00 p.m.: Tore My Heart

SATURDAY (starting 6th August)

5:00 - 5:30 p.m.: Bust Your Windows*
5:30 - 6:00 p.m.: Apologize
6:00 - 6:30 p.m.: Sweet Disposition*
6:30 - 7:00 p.m.: Hush Hush*
7:00 - 8:00 p.m.: Fame & Thriller*

*The audition for these songs are at 8 p.m. on Sunday 21st August. Please come for practice this Saturday onwards if you have already learnt the dances, and would like to audition for them.

TUESDAY (starting 9th August)

8:30 - 9:30 p.m.: Breakin' Dishes/ Beggin'/ Imma Shine

STUDIO 23 AT THE WORLD BELLY DANCE DAY 2011

Over the past weekend a group of the Studio 23 dancers were in the house for the annual World Belly Dance Day, held this year in Bandar Sunway. Check out this write up about the event!


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WORLD BELLY DANCE DAY MAGNET FOR THE NEWLY CHARITABLE

 by THOMAS TAN on 16 May, 2011

The guests that packed Euphoria by Ministry of Sound in Bandar Sunway last Saturday enjoyed an eye-opening experience as professional belly dancers from all over the world, including renowned French dancer, Yael Zarca, showcased their talent at the fourth Malaysia World Belly Dance Day.

It was a really great event for a worthwhile cause, as the proceeds from the sale of tickets at RM85 each will go to the Handicapped and Mentally Retarded Children’s Centre Selangor.

The evening saw top-class entertainment that amply displayed the grace and sophistication of authentic belly dancing.

Local and international belly dancers from Singapore, Indonesia, Vietnam, China, Ukraine, France, and more, showed a previously unimaginable range of expression that the just pelvis and hips can convey to applause and cheers from the audience excited to see the dancers performing in different styles, techniques and combinations.

“The charity belly dance is part of our commuity service and continuous corporate social responsibility (CSR) programme; we’re doing our part to reach out to the needy and contribute to the community,” said Celebrity Fitness managing director, Choi Kwangho, who co-organised the event with Belly Fusion.

Co-organiser Brancy Nekvapil, who is the director of Belly Fusion, added that, “We want to do our bit for charity and donating to the welfare home is a wonderful thing to do for the community and I think everyone should come forward and help the less fortunate.”

Brancy took up belly dancing in 2005 and is active in performing and choreographing belly dance routines for annual dinners and private functions.

Spotted among the celebrities were actor Kelvin Liew, 8TV host Baki Zainal, DJ Max of One FM, 8TV Quickie host Megan Tan, model Wilson Tan and many more only too eager to join in the cause.

“It was for a good cause,” said

Charles Chow, 30, who attended the show with his friends, adding that, “We enjoyed the entertainment and contributing to the less privileged. Giving to charity is a wonderful thing.”

Belly dancer, Serena, from Studio 23 Kuching enchanted the audience with her solo performance, “Istanbul Groove”. Serena and her husband, Albert, who was here to watch her perform, are co-owners of Studio 23, a popular dance and fitness centre in Kuching.

World Belly Dance Day is held concurrently in several other countries in the month of May, with the objective of promoting authentic forms of belly dance.

The Handicapped and Mentally Retarded Children’s Centre Selangor is a home for children and elderly people who are orphaned, mentally retarded, blind, handicapped in some other way.

BOOTCAMP POOL PARTY

As part of the Core Strength Bootcamp, we had planned an outing for everyone to get a workout and dinner in a new location. We settled on a pool party and pot luck dinner, followed by games! Here are some highlights from the evening! We were unfortunately unable to get everything (such as some hedge jumping) but maybe next time we'll just get some hidden cameras :)

It sounds funny calling this a warm-up, but anyway...

Using the pool is a great way to work out your arms -
you'll never need the ladder to get out again!

Jeremy kindly demonstrates how you don't need your hands to wave when you're in a pool.

It wasn't all hard work - we just had to get some action shots in as well!

A delicious, healthy dinner prepared by everyone!
Salads, roast chicken, bruschetta, hummus and butterless apple crumble -
it all went down very well after a great workout!

Getting ready for games!

Penguin maneuvering is serious business.

Taboo, the bomb game (we can't remember the actual name but it's really fun!) and
Hey, That's My Fish! were the games on deck for the evening. Great family fun!

B-BOY AND ARGENTINE TANGO CLASSES STARTING SOON!

Reminder: Our first B-BOY CLASS starts tomorrow (Friday, May 6th) at 3:00 - 4:30 p.m. 


The B-BOY KIDS CLASS starts on Saturday (May 7th) at 4:30 - 5: 30 p.m. Catch Daus and the Soul Higher team with their last demo this week at 8:15 tonight! 

We've had a lot of requests for more B-Boy classes, and we'll open up a Sunday 4:00 p.m. class in June if we have enough people signed up for it - so if you're interested, let us know and tell your friends about it!

ARGENTINE TANGO: It's time to ocho and gancho! Our 3-month beginner course starts Wednesday 18th May, 9:15 - 10:15 p.m.

More info is coming soon, so stay tuned!

GO BALD 3 AT THE SPRING: MAY 15

We would like to highlight two important individuals this month who will be going bald this May 15th:

Silas Michael from Truevents

It was Silas who first introduced SCCS to us, and even before Studio 23 was launched in 2009, Serina and her dance troupe performed for the SCCS Golden Child Camp at Santubong in 2008. For the first two Go Bald events, Studio 23 performed at the Spring to help promote awareness and to support the cause of SCCS.

We told them, "look, you can dance or you can get shaved"... the rest was easy!

We are also very proud of two ladies who got shaved; our very own Georgette Tan and Joanna Yap. Albert also went onboard as copywriter for the Go Bald team last year.

Bald Crazy Monkeys at the Spring

This year, we won’t be around during the Shave off on May 13 – May 15 at the spring, as a group of us will be attending the World Belly Dance Day Charity Event in KL the same weekend. We want to show our continuous support by helping Silas to raise money for his pledge card. Let’s help him reach his target of RM20k for the children!

Even the guys got into the Belly Dancing action!

Jeremy Rose (our youngest Brazilian Jiu Jitsu student!)

We would also like to help 10-year-old Jeremy raise money on his pledge card. One of the most traumatic experiences for children who are already suffering from the burden of cancer is the loss of their hair. 

We want to applaud Jeremy for stepping up and helping to spread the word. This is the 2^nd year in a row that he is getting shaved. Because of him, children with cancer will know that it’s okay to be bald.  Way to go, Jeremy!    

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We'd also like to highlight a recent post written by Silas. It's a great reminder on why the SCCS is such a worthy cause that deserves our support:

Go Bald 3: Let’s Help Kids Fight Cancer!

By: Silas Michael

Silas and his son, Matthew, both got shaved during the inaugural Go Bald event in 2009!

Three years ago, a friend of mine, Rodney Wong, an exco and Publicity Chairman of the Sarawak Children's Cancer Society (SCCS), approached me and several young entrepreneurs to come up with a happening approach for youths and the current generation to be involved in charity, specifically in aid of the SCCS, which supports children and families suffering from the trauma of childhood cancer.

Inspired by a similar event in Singapore, we decided to create GoBald. It is a campaign that aims to:

1) Raise awareness on childhood cancer in Sarawak

2) Garner support from the public for the SCCS and her projects

3) Raise funds for the SCCS

Apparently, a new childhood cancer case is diagnosed every 5 days in Sarawak (based on the last few year's report by the SGH) and the most well-equipped hospital in Sabah & Sarawak that provides the necessary treatment for childhood cancer is the Sarawak General Hospital (SGH) that is located in Kuching, Sarawak. Even children from Sabah are sent there for bone cancer treatment. Even the famous major private hospital, Normah Medical Centre, only has facilities for leukemia treatment. 

The SCCS provides many forms of support for the children diagnosed with cancer and their families. You can find out more at www.sccs.org.my but some of these include:

1) Providing counselling

2) Providing accommodation and transportation for those from out of town especially the less well-to-do families

3) Running programs and activities such as the Golden Child Camp (at resorts, incl family members) and children's ward visitations

4) Provide financial support for treatment

5) Helps purchase cancer treatment medicine when the hospital stock runs out (hospital has a pretty lengthy process in the procurement of new medicine stock, at times)

On an annual basis, the State Government allocates RM5k for every recognized state welfare organization, including the SCCS. However, the SCCS has a annual operations overhead of some RM500k.

Recently (last year), they were asked to relocate to a new location as the current place they're at now (just 4 min walk from the SGH) has been gazetted for urban development. The State Govt has provided a nice 1.7 acre land for the new SCCS centre but:

1) It's much further from the SGH (so the SCCS need a bigger van)

2) The new centre is well-equipped and more hospitable and bigger with more rooms but will cost some RM2.5million

While there are already some corporate sponsors supporting the SCCS, the sum that they provide is far too little and hence we need to raise a call-to-action by the general public via GoBald (The SCCS has other events including an annual food fair that raises some RM250-300k) especially among the youth and current generation (17-40yrs).

In the first year, GoBald was participated by some 100 shavees and 2 were ladies, raising about RM215k. Last year, over 400 people shaved, including more than 20 ladies, raising some RM400k++

This year, we are running GoBald in two cities. Miri and Kuching:

1st May - Bintang Megamall, Miri

15th May - The Spring Shopping Mall, Kuching

This year, we hope to garner more shavees and raise even more funds. The target is RM1.5million but we'll leave that as the annual target and not just on GoBald's campaign alone. Nonetheless, nothing wrong with trying to achieve that amount. If not this year, maybe next year. But that's a whole new story init?

So, just how do we raise funds as a shavee?

In the first year, Kenny Sia, a renown blogger and celebrity in his own right came to the fore to help champion the cause among his blog readers and friends. He pledged to raise RM50k before he would go onstage to GoBald. Kenny raised of RM60k for the SCCS. In total, over 100 heads were shaved in front of a watching audience at the Spring, Kuching and RM215k was raised.

Last year, several prominent individuals came to the fore and one of them, a gospel artiste and church pastor, GT Lim, raised over RM90k from his sponsors. In total, over 400 heads were shaved and about RM400k++ was raised.

This year, there are no celebs. No prominent VIPs. But there's still you and I. We can make a difference too. I'm pledging to raise RM20k from my friends and business associates. You could raise RM100 or RM100k. The amount does not matter. It's the action and desire to show your support for children with cancer. So, join me in this quest, and let's Shave to Save. Let's help kids fight cancer!

Find out more at www.gobald.my and see how you too, can participate and support the campaign and the SCCS.