spotlight: Choreographers of Caderas

In 2003 Lionel Araya, from Los Angeles, USA, together with Alicia Foo from Singapore, co-founded L.A. Dance Connection (LADC) with a vision and passion to develop a dynamic dance scene in Singapore based on the popular LA dance styles. Lionel, the Artistic Director of LADC, has more than 15 years of experience in Hip Hop/Funk, Street Jazz, Lyrical Jazz and Salsa.

He has performed and choreographed for CBS and Warner Bros. in Hollywood, and his choreography was voted among the best in the annual West Coast Salsa Congress, Los Angeles (1999 - 2002) – one of the biggest and the most prestigious international Salsa events in the world. Internationally, Lionel has organized numerous dance conventions in his native country of Costa Rica, and conducted popular dance workshops in Manila, Bali, Chennai, Hong Kong and the Maldives.

Since his arrival in Singapore, he has been invited to choreograph for several prestigious events such as the Chingay Parade, the Asian Tourism Awards and the Singapore Radio Hit Music Awards, among others. In his 10 years here, he has trained young aspiring dancers in the Music and Drama Company (Singapore Armed Forces), Singapore American School, LASALLE-SIA College of the Arts as well as at his own studio, LADC. He has been grooming the young and talented dancers from the SMU Caderas Latinas Salsa Performance Team since the team’s founding in 2004.

Louis Ng - Latin Ballroom Team

Trained in London from 1991 to 1996, Louis quickly took the Latin dance scene by storm, emerging as the 5 times Singapore Open Acrobatic Rock & Roll champions and 10 Times South East Asia Amateur Latin Champions from Dec 1990 to Nov 1992. As Louis turned professional in 1993, he continued his glory by emerging as the 5 Times South East Asia Professional Latin Champions from 1993 to 1994, and was even invited to represent Singapore in the world professional Latin American dance championship in 1994.

To share his passion for Latin dance, Louis, together with his wife Catherine, opened their very own dance studio in 1993 and have since groomed many Latin dance enthusiasts. They have also been organizing the annual Stardust Dancesport Grand Prix for 9 years, with the latest one being held in June this year and it was a huge success.

Besides teaching at his studio, Louis is currently a World Dance Licensed Adjudicator and is also part of the executive committee of the Singapore Ballroom Dance Teachers Association.