Who is Helen Hong?

Helen Hong has been dancing since age 5. She is an artist that loves her craft. Helen began her dance training while living in China. She was classically trained at the Beijing Dance Academy, China’s premier dance institute and served as an instructor/choreographer at the National Academy of Chinese Theatre Arts. She won several awards at national dance competitions and had a distinguished professional dance career spanning eleven years in China.

When she moved to Canada 4 years ago, she founded her studio in London, Ontario. Because of the success of her studio and her growing number of students, she began to think that maybe she could do something with this group of talented students. The modern day dance drama originated in China in the 80’s and is very popular there today. A production the size of Panda’s Dream would take many dedicated individuals collaborating to put together and stage a show with a cast of 34. This however, did not stop Helen. Helen had a vision, a dream. She had some talented students and she had an idea for a storyline that she thought could be a very entertaining dance drama. She wanted the story to be something that would appeal to children.

Helen is a one-woman show. She wrote Panda’s Dream, choreographed it, found all the costumes, trained the dancers and visualized what the set, lighting etc. is going to look like. She even travelled to China last summer and collaborated with a colleague to have all the music written, scored and orchestrated to compliment the choreography and storyline of this production. The music is just as beautiful as the dancing! This has truly been a labour of love for her.