20 teams to vie for national lion dance champion title

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FOLLOWING the heat of preliminary regional matches held in June and July, the battle to be the national lion dance champion is reaching its peak.

A total of 20 winning teams shortlisted from the nationwide search are set to compete at the 15th Malaysia National Lion Dance Championship 2011 from Nov 18 to 20 at Arena of Stars, Resorts World Genting.

A press conference-cum-drawing lots of team challenge sequence was held at the Time Square, First World Plaza recently prior to the much anticipated championship day.

Present at the event were Genting Malaysia Berhad senior vice-president of public relations and communications Datuk Anthony Yeo, assistant vice-president of pomotion and entertainment Wong Siew Lai, Selangor & Federal Territory of Dragon & Lion Dance Association chairman Leong Lik Thong, KLM Airline country manager Estee Ng, Vitagen deputy manager Michael Ong and Vitagen senior product manager Yap Jay Queen.

Strong backing: (From Left) Selangor & Federal Territory of Dragon & Lion Dance Association deputy chairman Lim Ah Chye, Ong, Yeo, Ng, Leong, Wong and Yap during the press conference-cum-draw session.

What’s special with this year’s preliminary rounds is that the teams are from four regions — central, northern, southern and eastern.

The regional preliminary rounds were held to pick the best of the best lion dance teams from these areas in Malaysia.

From the 20 teams, only eight teams with the highest points from the semi-final will get to compete in the finals. They will then stand a chance to challenge for the championship title on Nov 20.

The champion will take home RM10,000 cash, while the runner-up, third place and fourth-placed winners will win RM6,000, RM3,000 and RM2,000 respectively.

The four remaining finalists will also receive RM1,000 cash each.