TUNE in to TVB Jade any night of the week, and chances are the screen will be filled with formation dancing youngsters in life-threatening Lycra.
Whatever the occasion - Canto-pop performance, variety show or beauty pageant - the show is not over until the sinewy young women and men who make up the TVB Dancers have strutted their stuff.
It has been that way since the inception of TVB's dance department 25 years ago, and it is not going to change. Now, dance has been granted even greater importance with the signing of American choreographer Brad Jeffries.
How did TVB manage to snare a dance wunderkind on a one-year contract when he would normally be too busy in his native United States to even commit a spare weekend to the station? Thanks to feature films (Back to the Future III, Death Becomes Her and the upcoming Beverly Hillbillies, to name a few), countless television shows (Tracey Ullman Show, Life Goes On ) and music video projects (Madonna, Neneh Cherry, Stevie Nicks), Jeffries has become one of an elite crew of choreographers who can pick and choose their projects.
But TVB? While many people Stateside may have queried Jeffries' decision to make the move at a time when his career is going from strength to strength, he feels it is time to expand his horizons and ''push the envelope'' of his dance career.
And Jeffries got the chance to take a break from the hallowed halls of Hollywood when ex-TVB choreographer Michelle Williams offered him the job.