Beyond the HOCC backstage

By Kezia Tan

 

It’s not every weekend you catch 1,700 students back in school on a Saturday night.

But on the evening of 25 Feb, fans packed the Nanyang Auditorium to watch the halls finally face off in the academic year’s most anticipated dance showdown.

The annual dance competition at the Hall Olympiad Closing Ceremony (HOCC) acts as a closing hurrah for the Inter-Hall Games.

This year, 18 halls took part in the battle onstage, delivering everything from heart-pumping hip hop to graceful contemporary dance in their own interpretation of the theme “Odyssey”.

“Odyssey” comes from a poem about the Greek hero Odysseus, who spent 10 arduous years wandering the earth.

For many of the dancers, that theme was lived out long before they even took to the stage.

Each of them faced sleepless nights and months of preparations, with DIY choreography, late night practices and even wardrobe malfunctions adding to the blood, sweat and tears.

Creating the moves

While some halls typically hire external coaches to teach and choreograph the routines, others did some or most of the choreography themselves.

Hall 1 presented an original and captivating love story woven seamlessly into their choreography, leaving the audience first silent in anticipation, and then cursing during the plot twists.

Three quarters of the routine were created by the senior dancers. An external instructor choreographed the last part of the dance.

For the nine student choreographers, fitting the storyline into the dance was a big challenge.

“There are points where you get stuck and you don’t know how to continue,” said 20-year-old dance captain Yvonne Tang, who was also a student choreographer from Hall 1. To escape the rut, she would seek inspiration from dance videos on YouTube.

Eventually, after about two to three months of choreographing and editing, everything fell into place in the final weeks.

“It feels really nice when you see your moves executed properly and forming the visual you want,” said Nur Nabillah, 20, another student choreographer from Hall 1.

Being a choreographer also meant stepping up as a leader for the second-year Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information (WKWSCI) student.

Developing passion

As many of the first year dancers had no dance background, Nur found herself nurturing the newcomers on how to improve and cultivate their passion for dance.

Her favourite moment is when she sees new dancers develop a passion for dance.

Hall 16 faced a stressful final sprint to perfect their dance moves.

Three days before HOCC, the team members, who choreographed the entire contemporary and jazz-styled routine themselves, were still working on their steps and stage arrangements.

“As students, we don’t have the experience of external choreographers so we are really learning along the way,” said Tan Shi Jia,22, a final-year choreographer from WKWSCI. “So it’s basically a work in progress all the way until the second last day or the day of the competition.”

The biggest bump in the road was coming to an agreement on the dance steps, as their 12 choreographers had different ideas on what the final routine should be like.

“It’s difficult because we all have good intentions but it’s just hard to agree on something,” said Tan.

“It’s really hard to come up with a common vision, but when it does happen, then it’s really worth it.”

Wardrobe crisis

Besides an impeccable routine, a dance performance is incomplete without costumes to set the mood.

But several halls faced problems with their wardrobes.

When the dancers of Hall 1 ordered their costumes from online retailer Taobao, they were expecting rugged naval uniforms that would fit seamlessly with their “Pirate vs Navy” theme.

So it was certainly a rude shock when they received uniforms that more closely resembled that of Japanese schoolgirls.

Most halls get their costumes from Chinese retailer Taobao, the go-to site for affordable items.

The costume team from Hall 1 had been hesitant about ordering from the site, but had decided to proceed because it was cheaper and easier than going out to scout for costumes.

“We were quite unsure because it is sometimes sketchy, especially if there are no reviews for certain sources,” said Nur.

The team ended up heading to Bugis to buy a new costume the very next day, and the schoolgirl uniforms were cut up and used as scarves for their final costume.

Hall 12 almost didn’t receive their Taobao costumes in time.

Their package came just two days before their showcase — a full-dress rehearsal and side performance for the hall’s residents.

The hall ordered their costumes, which included muscle tanks, khaki jackets, and boots, in early January. They expected it to come at the end of the same month, according to Jesselyn Lee, 23, who is part of the costume team.

What they did not expect was for their package to get caught in Taobao’s Chinese New Year hiatus, during which parcel shipments were suspended for 10 days.

With only two days to complete their costumes, the team set out in a mad rush to sew gold mesh and cloth onto their outfits.

“We sewed from 2am to 9am on the day of the showcase,” said Lee.

Setting the stage

Besides their own outfits, the dancers also had to think of how to dress the stage, and they did not hesitate to pull out all the stops.

This year, Hall 16 came up with a 2.5-metre high and 8-metre wide, fully handmade structure.

The backdrop, a 1930s China style structure, was made to mimic the image of a Chinese theatre, in order to bring out their “Shanghai Pang” theme.

The large frame, adorned with gold and red curtains and a 1.7-metre long LED signboard, started off as pieces of PVC pipes, bamboo poles and LED lights.

It took the whole team more than two months and about 200 hours to complete.

First-year College of Engineering student Vanessa Thien, 19, led the making of the structure.
“We had to think of how to piece the pipes together and how it would stand, and we had to get all the tools to do it ourselves, so it was quite challenging,” said Thien.

As Hall 16 were the defending champions, the pressure was on them to deliver.

Thien was constantly worried about the structure being unimpressive compared to other halls.

But during the actual performance, their worries were for nought, as murmurs of appreciation for the structure spread through the audience.

Hall 8, on the other hand, chose to set the stage in a different way — not with props, but with sheer numbers. The group included 53 dancers this year, making them the biggest dance crew on stage.

Dance captain Edmund Aw, a second-year student at the College of Engineering, said it isn’t every year the hall gets more than 50 dancers, and that they decided to make full use of their numbers.

Most halls usually have about 30 to 40 dancers.

“Our dancers are all the elements we need,” the 23-year-old added confidently.

Attendance issues

But with such a large team, attendance was a big issue.

Aw admitted that the group did not have a single practice with everyone present.

“That caused a lot of problems with our formation — if you have one person missing it makes a lot of difference,” he said. “You don’t feel the dancer there, and when he comes back he’ll have missed out a lot and we have to go through the details again.”

Still, they managed to work around it, and tailored the choreography to their numbers.

At full strength, the dancers filled the stage to form quick-changing patterns of different shapes and sizes on the dance floor.

The team was also split into groups to fill any scene transitions, or lapses in the routine, from when there was a change of dancers.

“At every point in the routine, the audience has something to see,” said Aw. “We wanted everything to flow seamlessly.”

An Odyssey’s end

The championship title for this year’s showdown went to Hall 8, with Halls 16 and 12 coming in second and third place.

The elated screams and tears of joy, and disappointed silence from those who lost, showed that true to the nature of competition, results ultimately do matter.

But the dancers agreed that what mattered more was the whole experience and the feeling of pride in giving their all.

“I don’t think that it matters as long as we dance together as one onstage beside each other. The crowd really cheered for us and that’s enough,” said Tang, on Hall 1 placing only ninth this year.

“It is never easy but all of the dancers support and motivate each other, and it is always worth it,” said Hall 8’s Aw.

“We simply want our dancers to look their utmost best, be confident, and have the best time of their lives on show day.”