With yellow outfits and perfect makeup, the young girls practised with a tape recorder before going on stage in Wong Tai Sin to dance at the Chuk Yuen North public housing estate.
It was a chance to shine. The five to nine-year-olds from the local housing estates, all members of the Hans Andersen Club, sometimes were lacking in co-ordination but made up for this with enthusiasm and flexibility. There were children performing magic, cubs who grinned as they spun around with their partners, a high-kicking kung-fu team. All their efforts were greeted with cheers.
Positive affirmation is a rarity for some of the children. Many come from broken homes where their fathers have been educated to be strong and tough. So little love is shown to the children and when they are perceived to have failed in some way, a physical beating may follow.
Many of the children come from low-income families on the estates, or they are parted from their mothers on the mainland awaiting permission to immigrate.
'We give these children a chance to perform and build up their confidence,' said Hans Andersen Club executive director May Kwan Wong.
'The Chinese Dance Group, the girls with the yellow outfits, they come from a local housing estate. Then there's two girls who are performing a segment from a Chinese opera which is about a young couple who experience difficulties but resolve their differences in the end and live in harmony.'
