KOTA KINABALU: A local-based dance group will bring honour to the state for promoting Sabah through traditional dances.
Head of the Art Collection, Yusof Md Ali, described the effort as killing two birds with one stone.
“While we are happy to entertain and showcase our traditional dances to our audiences in Japan, we also hope to promote Sabah and lure them to come and see our beautiful state themselves,” he said.
Although this will not be their first performance abroad, since they have also performed in Europe and China before, Yusof made sure that they train equally hard.
This time around, the dance group will be performing in three districts in Japan, namely Fukuoka, Kumamoto and Osaka, in conjunction with the Asia Month scheduled for October 11 to 14.
“We have been performing really hard and I hope everything will run smoothly,” said Yusof, who is also the group’s choreographer, yesterday.
He will be leading the 12-member group to perform the 1Malaysia and Sabah ethnic dances such as Magunatip, Sumazau and Daling-Daling.
“The event in Japan comes just in time, especially since it will be Visit Malaysia Year in 2014. So we are promoting the state a few months earlier,” he concluded.