Dancer Linh Nga performs at a show in the Miss Universe 2008 peageant held in Nha Trang Town in July 2008

Linh Nga has finally confirmed her long awaited dance shows in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, following 10 years of painstaking training in China.

The 22-year-old who puts her life into dancing is very excited and relieved to have secured the dates and venues for her own show.

“After three delays, there won’t be any more changes - my show will be held in Hanoi on January 17 and 18 and in HCMC on February 24 and 25,” says Nga, who returned from China six months ago after a decade studying classical Asian dance.

She does not want to disclose the figure but her dance show, which is called Vu (Wind), is estimated to cost billions of Vietnamese dong (a billion dong is equal to US$59,066), not including wages for the supporting dancers.

There have been rumors that the delays were caused by a lack of funding that was fixed when a wealthy man decided to pitch in.

Her relationship with mogul Ha Dung

Nga says she is really annoyed by the questions about her relationship with Ha Dung, a famous music writer and owner of the privately-run Indochina Airlines.

The lady-killer Dung is well known for helping female singers Ho Quynh Huong and Tra My along the road to success.

“I wonder why people are so inquisitive when they see us together. I think of Dung as my uncle. He is in fact my parents’ long-term friend. They have got on with one another since they studied in Russia.

“It was only when I came back to Vietnam that I met him at a dance performance. The respectful uncle was concerned when he saw dancers running from one show to the next with an empty stomach, so he decided to help us find sponsors. He is actually not my sponsor,” Nga says.

“His Indochina Airlines company will provide assistance for the dancers in the coming shows. It is actually a part of my advertising contract with the airlines. As for the music in the shows, it was composed by Chinese writer Shen Hui Bin and local writer Quoc Trung, not Ha Dung,” she says.

The dancer, who has received prestigious prizes in China for her dancing excellence, said that she had heard some even more “interesting” queries about the affair.

“Some asked me whether I was going to turn into a singer.

“I do not deny that we had a lot of problems getting sponsorship from several businesses who thought that it wasn’t worth investing in a dance show,” the dancer said.

“Uncle Dung has helped us appeal to sponsors because he could see that we were bringing dancing to life. But I must say that we would have gone ahead with the show with or without his help.

“The program did not go according to our original plans because of reasons out of our control. At first, we planned for August 8 as I wanted it to coincide with the Beijing Olympics. Unluckily, China’s Sichuan earthquake occurred and all of the Chinese artists I invited to join the shows could not attend.

The next time, we had to put it off because the HCMC municipal theater still hadn’t completed its facelift.”

But this time Nga’s dream looks like it is going to come true with the final show just before Tet (Lunar New Year) as she and her colleagues breathe fresh air into Asian classical dance.

Reported by Bao Tran