Line Dancing in Beijing China With Liz Collett

Line Dancing in Beijing was yet another story and another chapter in my life. We fell in love with the people mainly.

We were treated like royalty and shown so much. We climbed the Great Wall, visited the Forbidden City & Tienanmen Square etc. etc. We danced in their Festival in front of the rostrum and in the parade. We also danced 2 x 15minute performances on stage, once in a shopping mall and the other at Olympic Park.

I really didn’t know what to expect and only had approx 8 weeks to prepare which meant outfitting 37 of us, planning dance medleys and music and getting together to practice which doesn’t sound much, but in my group I had dancers who had only been dancing 8 weeks and others for 18 years so putting an interesting medley together took a little thought but all came together very quickly and the team really put a lot of effort into giving it their best shot.

I was extremely proud of the whole group as the newer dancers of course had to put a lot more effort into their dancing and tried so hard to please. It was all worth it because the greeting we received and the warmth and friendliness between the two nationalities could never be replaced by self-gratification. We believe we were fabulous ambassadors for Australia and I am now responsible for coordinating an event on the Gold Coast to reciprocate and bring the Chinese as well as other nations together on our shores.

I am hoping that there will be several  Aussie line dance groups who will support the event and get involved in exchange between our countries.

One group of 30 Chinese ladies will now be coming to visit us in February so it will be an exciting time preparing for them and welcoming them to our country.