This year, eight-year-old Dion Das Louis was one of them. He was the youngest among the 15 Malaysian contestants at the championship held from June 28 to July 6 in Long Beach, California.
Dion was a long way from his home in Kuching, and making it to the contest hadn’t been easy,
Speaking with FMT Lifestyle, Dion and his mother Edina Lanying, 43, shared that he had actually qualified for WCOPA last year after bagging gold for his ethnic dance performance at the Malaysia Championship of Performing Arts (MCOPA).
However, due to financial constraints, he was unable to make it to Anaheim, California, where the event was held last year. “I felt very sad and angry,” recalled Dion, a standard two student at SK Green Road.
But Edina and her husband, Louis Anak Lansam, encouraged their son to hold on to his dream of dancing on an international stage. His love for performing, Edina added, started when he won a prize in a dance competition while in kindergarten.
“We told him that perhaps it wasn’t his time yet and that God had a better plan. We prayed together every night that he would make it to WCOPA next year,” shared Edina.
So, as hard as it was, Dion put his disappointment aside, and set his sights on the next year’s WCOPA, dedicating his evenings to practising his performance. His contemporary ethnic dance was called “Ngajat Burung” and was choreographed by Edina and Louis, who are dancers themselves.
“We wanted to introduce Sarawak and the dance was inspired by the movement of the hornbill and the great Argus, birds that represent Sarawak,” Edina explained, adding that Ngajat is the traditional dance of their Iban tribe.
It was also the same dance Dion performed at MCOPA last year that earned him the name “Little Bornean Birdie” by his parents.
His hours of practice paid off as Dion once again qualified for WCOPA this year. This time, his parents had raised enough funds from various sponsors for the trip. Now, it was up to Dion to make his dream of winning come true.
Recalling how he felt before he took to the stage, Dion admitted there were butterflies in his stomach! And how did he overcome the jitters? “I breathed in and out!” he said.
Soon, the time came for Dion to perform. As the song “Menjong” by Sarawakian band At Adau filled the air, Dion sprung into dance, delivering an energetic and mesmerising performance from start to finish.
Incidentally, “Menjong” in the Kenyah language means “rise up” and that is exactly what Dion did with his winning performance.
Clad in a beautiful costume that reflected his Sarawakian heritage, Dion made a striking sight. The hornbill’s skull and the feathers of the great Argus were real, Edina shared, and belonged to her family. The costume was designed by Louis, with the help of Dion’s makeup artist, Gary Lauder.
Dion’s one-minute performance bagged him a gold in the ethnic dance category for those eight to 10 years old.
For the similar age group, he also won gold in the photo shoot model category and two silver medals in the formal and casual modelling categories. He was also declared the division winner for the ethnic dance and photo shoot categories.
Indeed, this “Little Bornean Birdie” won big and certainly made Sarawak and Malaysia proud on the global stage. Asked how he felt, he replied simply: “I’m so happy and excited!”
What made it even more special? He achieved the feat less than a month before Sarawak Day on July 22. “We dedicate his victory as a gift to Sarawak,” concluded Edina.