How two music lovers started a class mixing dance fitness and friendship in Hong Kong
- An Australian ballroom dancer and a Chinese Panamanian lover of Latin dancing combined their love of music and fitness to open Flye Dance Fitparty
- Sessions are 55 minutes and include various musical genres, and are for young professionals who don’t like working out in the gym
Meeting friends in a new city is always a challenge. For Eliza Jiang and Upekha Senaweera, two young female professionals working and living in Hong Kong, a mutual passion proved two people with starkly different backgrounds can bond over some of the most basic human interests – music and dance.
Chinese-Panamanian Jiang is a lawyer who grew up dancing to salsa, merengue and reggaeton in her birth city of Panama. Jiang moved to Canada to obtain her bachelor’s degree and then later New York for her master’s in law before finally settling in Hong Kong.
“I wanted to come to Hong Kong as it is one of the prime places, alongside Singapore, for international commercial arbitration work, which has been growing and booming as China grows its economy and invests abroad,” says Jiang.
“And outside work, in the city, I mingle with people from all different backgrounds – Sri Lankan Aussies like Upekha, Latin Chinese, British, German – all of which adds to the city’s vibrancy and multiculturalism.”
While Jiang continued to practise law in the city and explore, she frequented various dance classes and clubs, which led her to her friendship with Senaweera.
“The first time we met was at a salsa club in Hong Kong,” says Jiang. “Upekha loves to dance, I love to dance, and we met through a common friend who is also a dancer.”