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Pierre Png on pointe: Dance date with ballet devotee

Png, who plays a ballet instructor in the drama The Gentlemen, didn’t choose the leotard life — the leotard life chose him.

Pierre Png’s palms pushed my hips off into a swivel. For about a quarter of a second, I executed a faultless pirouette. Then I whacked him in the face.

“That’s all right,” said my dance partner, who was truly a trooper. There he was, in black tights and ballet slippers, every inch the danseur. In point of fact, the 42-year-old had taken up ballet only five months ago, for his role as a ballet instructor in the drama The Gentlemen. But his teacher had proclaimed him a natural.

I had made extensive preparations for our dance session, too: I had put my hair up into a ponytail. That’s about the extent of my physical ability, so poor Pierre had his work cut out for him.

“When you pull off to do your second, your elbows tilt up a bit. Point like this; thumbs in. Shoulders down. Can you see the posture? See the muscles here. Immediately you see that elegance,” he instructed, with infinite patience.

I was about as elegant as a chilli cheeseburger with extra pickles, but for that moment, poised at the barre, I almost believed him.

PIROUETTING PERFECTIONIST

That’s the thing about Pierre Png: When you get him talking about a pet topic, he brims with an almost childlike excitement that’s irresistibly infectious. “It’s that tipping point — finding that sense of balance. And that moment when you’re just about to lose your balance, then you gain it back,” he mused, waxing lyrical about why he had fallen in love with ballet. “It’s very much like acting, where you feel (the music) and there’s ups and downs. You just feel and you move.”

Of course, he didn’t choose the leotard life — the leotard life chose him. When he first heard he was going to have to play a ballet instructor, his first response wasn’t enthusiastic. “I used to make fun of ballet,” he recalled. “‘Wah, those guys wearing tights — they think they’re damn sexy, is it?’”

But after going through a crash course and filming for the show, he became so fascinated by the dance form that he took it up privately. Unsatisfied with his performance on camera, he has resolved to perfect his moves.

“I continued dancing ballet because I’m such a perfectionist. I wanted to do a nice pirouette. You can do it for TV because it’s edited, and you can do it again. But I want to, at the snap of a finger, do a pirouette, or just some of the routines that I could not achieve in one take,” he said.

“Looking back, I think I was afraid (at the start) but the more affirmation I got from my instructors, the more I felt free. It felt really good to achieve those poses and movements. It was addictive. It’s a lot better than saying my lines in Mandarin!”

MAN IN TIGHTS

But while he’s more than happy to expound on his new obsession in a newspaper interview, he hasn’t exactly bragged about it to his bros.

“They don’t really know yet. They think I’m still doing it for work,” he smiled. “If they ask, I’ll tell them. But if they don’t, then, yeah — it’s just ‘me time’. It’s my own leisure activity. But screw them — I’m here enjoying myself. And girls tend to like a guy who is able to appreciate the arts,” he quipped.

We observed that he seemed to have a penchant for off-the-beaten-track activities such as his other hobby, unicycling. He grinned almost sheepishly.

“While people were doing MMA (mixed martial arts) and Brazilian jiu-jitsu, I did traditional Aikido. People are mountain biking — and I’m unicycling,” he said. But “I don’t go out to look for unusual sports. They find me ... A lot of people say unicycling is clown-like. But when they try, there’s no chance they’re going to be able to balance because a unicycle is a fixie”.

The principle is the same, he said, when it comes to ballet. “I like to know that there’s so much more to a move — and I can do it.”

The next thing he would like to try is just as random. “Stand-up paddleboarding is something I really want to do,” he blurted out.

Somehow, we’re not all that surprised. If there’s anyone who can leap straight from barre to board and back again — and look badass doing it, too — it’s got to be Pierre Png.

Catch The Gentlemen on weekdays at 9pm on Mediacorp TV Channel 8.

 

Special thanks to The School Of Dance.

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