Back in the early 1960s it was brave for a 16-year-old girl from Hong King to travel right around the world to train as a ballerina. But that’s what Wei Wei Wong did.
You won’t recall her as a ballet dancer, but you will remember her as a part of the Young Generation, who were all over our TV screens in the late 1960s and early 1970s. As the head-dressed, sequinned, high-kicking showgirl dancers fell out of fashion, the young, trendy dance troupe, put together by choreographer Dougie Squires, perfectly caught the mood of the swinging ‘60s.
After three years training to be a ballerina in London, Wei Wei saw an advert to recruit this new group of dancers. She was planning to head to the USA to further her ballet studies, but stopped in her tracks, bowled over by this new style of modern dance.
Dougie Squires was bowled over too, by the response. He saw about 300 dancers, many more than he expected. “It was a nightmare, I had to split the auditions into two parts,” he says. He had a disco section and a lyrical section. Wei Wei was in the latter. “She was so feminine and had a lovely technique,” he remembers.
TV producers loved the Young Generation and they were on pretty much every BBC variety show back in the day, appearing with the likes of Shirley Bassey, Val Doonican and Lulu.
This story is from the April 2020 edition of Let's Talk.
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This story is from the April 2020 edition of Let's Talk.
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