Performing arts are not only sources of relaxation and entertainment, but also, a gateway to numerous employment opportunities. They provide enthusiasts and professionals with the opportunity to explore themselves and showcase their talent. There are many renowned performance arts institutions, which educate young musicians, nurture them, and guide them towards a bright career path.

One such noteworthy institution standing at the helm of academic, infrastructural, and career excellence is none other than Yogaero Art Music & Dance. It was established in 2001 and is situated at Wilayah Persekutuan Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The institution aims to provide a holistic learning and lifestyle experience for the community. Besides music, art, ballet, and dance lessons, it also offers a variety of fitness lessons such as yoga and zumba to cater to a more health conscious demographic.

Building Strong Relations

Yogaero Art Music & Dance is driven to create a balance between the physical, emotional, and intellectual aspects of life, regardless of age and gender. A family can always find a particular lesson for each family member to engage with, as the institution has a wide variety of lessons to choose from.

That serves its purpose to become the one-stop center for families looking for consistent, weekly activities as bonding opportunity—with either the family or to make new acquaintances with members of the neighborhood.

The institute boasts of two studios with parquet floor and mirrored walls for the dance and fitness lessons and six classrooms of different sizes for music and art lessons.

An Erudite Leader

Yogaero marches towards excellence in curricular and extra-curricular endeavors under the prudent stewardship of the Principal, Madam Annie Quek. She has redirected and rebranded the institute from merely focusing on the fitness lessons to a more balanced, artistic, and fitness development learning center.

Madam Annie has always believed that a healthy state of mind is the precursor to a happy life, and an exemplary community is made of joyful and contented individuals. She is also of the opinion that emotional and physical health can be kept in check when a person feels a sense of achievement and fulfillment after each lesson.

Focus on Academic Excellence

Yogaero offers its students a variety of music lessons including violin, piano, guitar, and gu-zheng (Chinese zither). The physical lessons consist of ballet, Latin, jazz (contemporary), zumba, aerobics, yoga, and yoga kids. Additionally, it organizes arts and craft sessions for those who are interested in expressing themselves through colors.

The institute specializes in training the students in various instruments such as, violin, piano, and guitar. These are flexible instruments that can either be performed solo, duet, trio, or in a group setting with essentially any other instruments.

Team Yogaero believes that the key of playing any instrument is to be able to interpret and internalize the music and perform it as if one is telling a story to the audience through music. It takes a lot of understanding, pondering, and excellent techniques and memory to achieve that level of performance proficiency.

Exploring the Extra-Curricular

Beyond the traditional curriculum, the institute provides the students various opportunities to delve into their creative side. They get the chance to interact with each other, learn more, and grow together. Different workshops conducted, provide a fun learning experience while taking a break from the formalities of the usual lessons. Yogaero also conducts day trips either to the philharmonic or interesting locations like beaches to conduct ukulele and cajon sessions.

Other than that, the institution also organizes masterclasses either conducted by the guest pianists that visit from overseas or by the principal herself. Among the notable masterclass guests are touring world class pianist, Ivajla Kirova from Bulgaria, currently residing in Germany and Mireia Frutos from Spain. In these masterclasses, students can choose to either attend as an observer or as a participant and have a previous thirty minutes lesson with the pianist who will be conducting the lessons that day. Students who are participating, have to prepare their repertoire in advance and perform as they would in a real concert and receive feedback from the masters.

Yogaero encourages the students who are preparing for exams or competitions to participate in masterclasses as it would help build their confidence playing before an audience and more importantly, to further improve their techniques.

Both teachers and students can benefit a lot from these masterclasses even only through observations as they can still soak up the stylistic interpretations and also various methods of troubleshooting and overcoming challenges in difficult passages. These are indeed opportunities and experiences that are hard to come by.

The biggest project the school offers is a public concert. The planning and preparation usually takes approximately two years as it ensures that the right message is sent to the audience by delivering the best yet entertaining performance.

The Accomplishment Saga

Through its dedicated endeavors, the institute has won numerous accolades. Its ballet and contemporary dancers have won numerous awards for the last five years under the coaching of Catherine Ng, who has also won several titles under her belt.

Yogaero’s dance students have participated in a ballet competition organized by The Dance Society of Malaysia on several occasions. The head of guitar department, Lee Thiam Foo, had led the guitar ensemble into the title of Terrega Malaysia International Guitar Festival 2017 and won the place of first runner-up.

Career Perspective

Team Yogaero is of the opinion that the traditional paths that arts students can pursue include independent singing, music composition, lyrics writing, music tutoring, dancing, or to be attached to any industry-related establishments. The social media right now is the biggest platform for basically any form of art.

Accordingly, art students have the chance to break through the conventional work-for-others and get paid by becoming their own content creator, publishing their work online, and finding the right clients to collaborate with. The sky is the limit when it comes to art and creativity and so it is totally up to the individual on how they would market their skills and services.

The Future Road Map

Marching confidently on the road ahead, Yogaero Art Music & Dance plans to collaborate with different public venues such as malls during festive seasons as a platform for providing students the exposure to public performances.

It is also on the lookout for different instrumentalists to conduct sessions as guests to the masterclasses and interesting workshop partners to engage the students with. As for its long-term goal, the institute strives to become the Institute of Choice in the community when it comes to performing arts.