Dancer with her feet on the ground

Daydreaming is something that Chow Ho-wan does often.

'It helps me relax and get inspiration,' she says.

As one of the top students at the Jean M. Wong School of Ballet, Ho-wan has won many awards and distinctions.

The latest is passing the Royal Academy of Dancing's highest qualification - the Solo Seal Award - in November. It is awarded to dancers who are ready to join a ballet company's corps de ballet and Ho-wan, 21, was the only dancer in Hong Kong to qualify last year.

But right now she is concentrating on studying Applied Chinese at City University. She says it's too late for her to become a professional ballet dancer.

'I guess I do regret not pursuing a career in ballet,' says Ho-wan, who started dancing when she was five years old. 'My parents wanted me to concentrate on my studies first and ballet was only supposed to be an extra-curricular activity.' But Ho-wan consistently gained distinctions in all her ballet examinations and was recently awarded the Tsinforn C. Wong Memorial Scholarship to study at the Australian Ballet School in Melbourne this year.

'Even though I am too old to become a full-time ballet dancer, I plan to teach ballet,' says Ho-wan.

She performed with the Hong Kong Ballet in the Nutcracker in 1988 and 1989, dancing the part of Clara.