Champa Meuanglao
Menu
  • Home
  • Section
    • Business
    • Lifestyle
    • Food
    • Travel
    • Lao Airlines
  • E-magazine
  • Contact
  • on ISSUU
  • Advertise with us!
  • ພາສາ: English
    • English English
    • ລາວ ລາວ
  • laoairlines.com
Champa Meuanglao
  • Home
  • Section
    • Business
    • Lifestyle
    • Food
    • Travel
    • Lao Airlines
  • E-magazine
  • Contact
  • on ISSUU
  • Advertise with us!
  • ພາສາ: English
    • English English
    • ລາວ ລາວ
  • laoairlines.com
Lifestyle

En Pointe

posted by Mai
Jul 5, 2018 2413 2 0
Share

Maria Sascha Khan grew up in a small farming town with few prospects, but followed an unwavering dream to become a professional ballerina. Through sheer determination and a few strokes of good luck, she was discovered by a former Bolshoi Ballet dancer, and was able to study ballet in England, Monaco, and abroad. Since then, her education and talent has propelled her career to the international stage and beyond.

Not satisfied with fame and acclaim alone, Maria Sascha says she’s always been fascinated by the ability of the arts to transform people’s lives.

“Much of my passion for my art form is based on how I can use it to help other people. At the moment, it is an exciting time for ballet in Southeast Asia, a place in which until now ballet has been relatively unknown,” she says.     

Her visit to Laos saw her cover an array of events, including working with Lao children (many of whom had never met a ballerina or had any kind of ballet experience before), speaking as a keynote speaker at a Global Shapers community event, and holding a performance and demonstration at the Lao National School of the Arts.

“The welcome and enthusiasm with which I was received and the reception of what I had come to share was so overwhelmingly beyond any expectations. I was moved to tears.”

Maria Sascha’s time in Laos saw her reaching out to Lao youth, and showing them that following a dream is not only possible, but practical as well. She says that the young people she met seemed eager to expand their horizons and help their country forward into the future.

“It will be exciting to see how they can preserve the cultural traditions of the past while bringing them forward into the future. It has been extraordinary to see the enormous interest in ballet.”

Being the first ballerina to visit Laos in this capacity, Maria Sascha hopes to grow the art form in partnership with the non-profit arts organization Youth Arts in Action, which is run by her mother and siblings, Nadia Khan, Julian MacKay, and Nicholas MacKay, all of whom are professional artists and dancers. Maria Sascha hopes to bring a ballet masterclass program to Laos, and even perform a ballet she is developing called “Warrior of Light,” which recently premiered at the London Coliseum. The ballet is a story focusing on uniting all cultures and people, and her goal is to include the different dancers she has worked with in Southeast Asia and abroad in various iterations of the performance.

While ballet is a physically demanding performance art that requires a lot of discipline, it can take performers around the world, expanding horizons and making dreams a reality. As with any classical art form or craft, it takes years of training and dedication to perfect it. And nothing can unite people quite like the arts.

“My point has always been that you may not be able to fix the whole world, but you can make it a more beautiful and better place than it was before,” she says.

Ballerina Maria Sascha Khan’s visit to Laos as a cultural ambassador was supported by the UK’s Education is GREAT campaign.

 

 

Text by CAMERON DARKE

En Pointeຄວາມສວຍງາມຂອງຊີວິດຜ່ານສິລະປະ
Share

Previous

[:en]48 Hours in Busan[:]

Next

[:en]Southern Laos Charming by Nature[:]
  • English
  • ລາວ

Recent Posts

  • 4000 Islands, 4000 Memories
  • In the Footsteps of Giants
  • The Most Luxurious & Elegant Address in Vientiane
  • Khammouan
  • Forecasting Success

Categories

  • Art
  • Business
  • Café
  • Festival
  • Food
  • Lao Airlines
  • Lifestyle
  • New
  • Social Enterprise
  • Stay
  • Travel
  • Uncategorized

Archives

  • April 2021
  • February 2021
  • January 2021
  • November 2020
  • September 2020
  • July 2020
  • May 2020
  • March 2020
  • February 2020
  • June 2019
  • May 2019
  • March 2019
  • January 2019
  • December 2018
  • November 2018
  • September 2018
  • July 2018
  • May 2018
  • March 2018
  • January 2018
  • December 2017
  • November 2017
  • October 2017
  • September 2017
  • July 2017
  • May 2017

Follow Us

You Might Also Like

Lifestyle, New
May 31, 2019

Finding His Way

How a Self-Trained Cartographer Made the Best – and Only – Maps of Southern Laos Following the trails of mapmaker...

Read More
0 0
Lifestyle
May 1, 2017

Bangkok Beats

From electro-folk to gritty blues, the live music scene in Bangkok is one of the best in South East Asia…with a...

Read More
0 0
Copyrights © 2018 Champa Meuanglao. All Rights Reserved.
Website by Designix Studio
Back top