LookAtVietnam – In recent years, the storm of hip-hop and break-dance has reached Vietnamese youth and has become part of today’s youth culture.

Dancer Khanh Thi. (Photo: phunuonline)

The spectacular Vietnamese couple, Chi Anh and Khanh Thi, who won the National Dance Sports championship in 2006, 2007 and 2008, entered the top ten of the Asian Dance Championship in 2008, the top 200 of over 3,000 professional dance pairs of the International Dance Federation (IDFS), and ranked the 4th at the 24th SEA Games. Together they have introduced a new rhythm for the young with the art sport called dancesport.

Like hip-hop and belly-dance, dancesport has been warmly welcomed and is spreading and dominating stages.

Dancesport is a kind of communicative dance with lissome steps to Chachacha, Samba, Mambo, Pasadobe, tango and Slow Waltz but with the tempo accelerated, the beats stronger and the movements more active. Dancers are healthy, supple and flexible and have well toned bodies.

Dancesport is divided into two parts: one for professional dancers with strict rules of IDFS, in which, Chi Anh and Khanh Thi are the number-one dance team, and one for amateur dancers as public entertainers.

It is hard to say when dancesport was first introduced in Vietnam, but it was popularized in 2005 by two young dancers, Chi Anh and Khanh Thi.

The couple first met in 1999 and began dancing together in 2000. They decided to become professional dancers at a time when professional dancing in Vietnam was a narrow field. They left for France in 2003 to improve their skills. In 2005, they returned home to introduce dancesport and the new sport spread quickly to Hanoi, Hai Phong and HCMC.

Khanh Thi says the rules of Dancesport are rather complicated and strict, requiring the master to hand over techniques and dances to trainees in the simplest and most effective way. Some learners seek glory in professional competition and others want to improve their health and prolong their youth.

Though separated, both Chi Anh and Khanh Thi are devoted to training younger dancers, hoping that some of them will become top world dancers.

Dancesport Club of Khanh Thi is located at Hoa Lu Sport Centre, 2 Dinh Tien Hoang street in HCMC’s District 1.

VietNamNet/SGT