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....

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