Do things you

Cris Horwang began learning ballet when she was only five years old. Even then, the tiny girl in her tutu at the exercise bar regarded her teacher with adoration. Here, she decided, was a role model, and all she wanted thereafter was to follow in the nimble footsteps of her idol.

Twenty-two years later, the roles are reversed, and Cris Horwang, an accomplished teacher of ballet, wants nothing more than for her many students to love and follow her, the same as she did her first teacher of dance.

"I want to see my students dance as well as they can. At the same time they have to feel happiness and to love both dancing and me - like I loved my teacher," she says.

Cris's introduction to ballet was at Bangkok's Aree School of Dance Arts. It was there that she met and worshipped her first teacher. Later, with dreams of a career in dance, she flew to the US to study ballet at the Walnut Hill School for Performing Arts in Massachusetts. She later attended the California Institute of Arts, and having finished her ballet studies at an advanced level, she is now attempting to achieve the Solo Seal of the Royal Academy of Dance in London, the pinnacle of achievement at one of the world's best-known schools of dance.

Having drawn her career path, Cris now stands at the same point once occupied by her role model.

In 2002, she returned to Thailand to work as a dance teacher in after-school classes at the International School Bangkok. She has about 400 students, of all ages.

"I'm not a Miss World who always loves children," she says. "I just keep asking myself: if I were a student, what kind of teacher would I want?

"Children in grade 3 or 4 may love a teacher who is kind and sweet. But if I am teaching a grade 12 student, I have to be like their best friend, so they don't have any difficulty reaching me."

Cris admits to being hot-tempered, but has learned to be calm and, as a teacher, has accepted that all people are different.

"Some students might be born to be a ballet dancer; they have great physical co-ordination. So they don't require a lot of effort to do something I want. Others try their hardest to do what I want, but still can't do it."

As a teacher, Cris often builds expectations of students and is delighted any time she sees them progress.

"Some children cry easily when they can't achieve some movement. I feel: if only I could do it for them! But if I push them to do it for themselves, then I feel better," she says.

The young teacher says that in overseas countries, many dance teachers force their students to join dance companies once they start to know how to dance. But Cris only wants to see her students having fun.

"I want to see them come to me before going home and say: 'Bye, Miss Cris', like they have had so much fun in the class," she says. "I don't want to whip and push them to enter dance companies. I just want them to love dancing, like I love it."

Since returning to Bangkok, Cris has become devoted to her teaching career and begun to sense that her young students regard her in the same way she regarded her first teacher.

"I once spoke to a student who didn't bring her dance shoes to class. I asked her,

'Why didn't you bring your shoes with you? Dancers always have dance shoes, you know'."

On the next day, she got a call from the student's mother, asking her to talk to her daughter, who was distraught and accusing herself of not being good enough for Cris's classes. "She said she had made Kru Cris disappointed," Cris says.

"I knew she was sad, but I was so proud! I didn't know how deeply she respected me. I realised that my words might have had a strong influence on her - just like my beloved teacher's words once influenced me. And that makes me be here for them."

Despite her achievements, Cris remains a workaholic. We met for this interview at almost 8pm, and she was starting her third job of the day at Fat Radio. She looked fresh and bright, despite having started at 8am.

Every day, she runs to a tight schedule. Mondays through Fridays she teaches from 2-6pm. Then she drives from the classes at Pak Kret district in Nonthaburi to host a programme on 104.5 Fat radio from 8-10pm. She works for Chic Channel on one morning every week, is also a dance choreographer and regularly hosts various events.

She admits that as a consequence her life often "runs on low batteries" and she doesn't want to get out of bed in the morning.

"My closest friend even said: 'If you're exhausted, why don't you quit? Just choose your most favourite job'. But everything is challenging. I know I can't quit because everything I do is my happiness; I choose to do them because they are things I love," she says.

"So I have learned to think positively. I just tell myself: 'Let's have fun. Go out and do things you love'."

By Suwicha Chanitnun

The Nation