I performed for thousands at Disneyland — now I try to recreate that same spark of magic in my business

• Lee Wan Yu, a former Disneyland parade dancer, explains what it takes to create 'magic' every day.
• From the heat and lights of Hong Kong Disneyland's parades, she learned teamwork and grace under pressure.
• Now she channels that joy and discipline into teaching and choreographing, with some help from AI.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Lee Wan Yu, 30, a Hong Kong Disneyland parade dancer turned freelance dance artist, teacher, and choreographer. The following has been edited for length and clarity.

I started dancing when I was three years old, after asking my mom for ballet lessons as we walked past a studio.

From then on, all I wanted to do was dance. That love eventually led me somewhere I, as an introvert, never expected: Hong Kong Disneyland.

It started in 2017, when Hong Kong Disneyland held an audition at the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts in Singapore, where I was studying for my diploma in dance.

I went with a friend who didn't want to go alone. I had no expectations and just wanted to see how a professional audition works.

About 50 dancers from the region participated in the audition.

They gave us a short jazz combination and had us perform it in small groups, cutting dancers until about 20 of us were left. They took our photos, measured our height, and recorded our body measurements.

Months later, while I was studying for my fine arts degree in New York, I was offered a standard one-year contract as a parade dancer at Hong Kong Disneyland.

Disney's energy

When I arrived in May 2018, I realized I was the only Singaporean parade dancer at the time. The team included dancers from Hong Kong, Japan, the Philippines, Russia, Taiwan, and Thailand.

A typical day started around 11 a.m. We had a warm-up class, followed by makeup and costumes.

We typically performed two parades a day, one in the afternoon and one at night, for about 30 minutes each. During festive seasons like Christmas, we could have up to four parades a day.

In the middle of each parade, we would stop in front of the castle for a short "show stop" to interact with guests.

Rehearsals for the Halloween parades sometimes ended around 2 a.m. because they took place after the park closed for the night.

The Hong Kong heat can be terrible, and the night-parade costumes had lights wired through and batteries attached. You could feel the weight pressing on your shoulders.

Sometimes I felt homesick or lonely, but once you're in costume, you have to bring your full energy.

Disney's 'magic'

When you step into Disneyland, you should feel like you're transported to a different world — a place where you can disconnect, forget your problems for a while, and just be happy.

This is why guests would never see dancers working out during breaks, because Disney wanted to keep the illusion. We were also not allowed to take any backstage photos or videos.

The magic is the reason some guests come to every parade. There were adults who followed the route, taking photos, and kids who waved at us every day. I remember a teenage boy who came almost every weekend, dancing beside the route the whole time.

Some of them recognized us outside the park without our costumes. Others gave us prints of photos they had taken of us.

It was more than just branding and the experience.

At Hong Kong Disneyland, everyone, from the dancers to the sound crew, respected one another. Even when people were tired, they were still polite. That attitude really stuck with me.

I learned that how I treat people — not just the audience, but also my colleagues, the costume team, and the stage managers — really affects how smoothly everything runs and whether people want to be around you.

On the other side, Disney valued its performers. It was very serious about safety and well-being. We had good medical insurance, which is important for dancers.

After one year, I decided not to re-audition for contract renewal. I wanted to explore new challenges.

Creating Disneyland's magic in daily life

I'm now a freelance dancer, teacher, and choreographer in Singapore, where I try to infuse Disney's spirit of "magic" into my work.

Dance training can be stressful for kids, especially during exams or competitions, so I try to keep that sense of fun alive and create an environment where my students feel safe and excited to learn.

The magic is about creating that little moment in class where someone feels proud or inspired.

I also try to bring that same magic into my choreography. AI plays a small part in helping me express my ideas.

As a choreographer, I often have to write synopses for school performances or competitions, and that part is difficult because dancers think in movement, not in sentences.

Recently, I started using ChatGPT to help organize my ideas. I don't let it write for me, but I use it to structure what I already have and express my thoughts more clearly.

I'm also open to trying AI software for large-scale productions with apps that can help with pinpoint formations, map things out, and visualise spacing.

Over the past two years, I was a choreographer for Singapore's National Day Parade performances, overseeing close to 600 students for one of them. I remember spending weeks figuring out formations by hand, staying up until 3 a.m. or 4 a.m., moving people around in Excel.

If AI could help with that, it would save so much time.

But technology can only assist — the emotion behind the movement still has to come from people.

That's how magic happens.