THIS MONTH
Events
The pool league held their end of season party and presentations in July at pink flamingo in Cha Am, and some of the winners are shown here. A good time was had by all!
Hua Hin Online Community
There have been lots of questions this month from a number of new forum members looking to make the move to Hua Hin. While still in low season in terms of tourists the town is constantly growing in terms of foreign residents and expats. As more and more people reside in Hua Hin on a permanent or semi permanent basis the demand for services and shops will also increase. A new shopping mall is also on the cards and there has been plenty of discussion on it on the forums.
Accommodation hunters have been rewarded with a larger selection of guesthouses and hotels with online booking on HHAD as our sponsors list increases yet again. A new website has also been launched to promote our accommodation partners in Hua Hin, take a look at Hua Hin Guest Houses and Hua Hin Accommodation for more details. There is no better place online to advertise a guesthouse or hotel in Hua Hin if you want instant direct bookings and no better place to look for somewhere to stay.
Property problems
A very busy month for real estate discussion as buyers air their views on the developments they have purchased from. Some glowing reports were shared but not all stories had happy endings. Sadly the owners of certain developments decided to blame HHAD for allowing the truth to be told, following a threat of legal action we were forced to remove certain comments regardless of their authenticity. It was a disappointing turn of events and our only advice to anyone buying on a development in Hua Hin is to do your homework, speak to current residents, and get a legal team, in some cases though even this wont be enough to protect you should things go awry. The number of horror stories we get is frightening however we are unable to allow members to tell their stories on many occasions simply due to the dark nature of a number of property developers in our small town. Even those who claim to be assisting foreigners with property disputes are often hiding their true colours.
A new website offering interactive property development maps and details on the more reputable developments in Hua Hin has been launched and can be found here: Hua Hin Property
Local Events
Moving on to a brighter note there were a couple of reports on local events such as the off-road competition, the Hua Hin regatta and the Hua Hin golf festival. August was a busy month for local events in town despite being one of the quietest in terms of tourism. HHAD’s second photo competition was run and judged with a great selection of members pictures, we will be running another one this month.
Lots of discussion on the referendum and voting that took place on the 19th of August, now that the charter has been passed we all hope that it will lead to a speedy road to democratic elections and an end to military rule. Thaksin’s sporting ambitions back in England also come under the spotlight as Man City get off to a flying start this season however the vast majority are not enamoured with the man following his years of xenophobic rule and anti foreigner sentiment in Thailand.
Plenty of questions and answers in the ever popular “Ask the Expats” section with topics including tailors, vets, aquariums, languages, and safety deposit boxes – whatever your query you’ll definitely get an answer here.
HHAD forums are the definitive online message boards and discussions for the area with over 2,700 members. There are sections for finding and booking accommodation, seeking out bargains, and exploring the local area and beyond. There is also a nightlife section for the night owls, a restaurant and feeding guide along with an online meeting point for visa runners and clubs. The ever popular “Ask the expats” section is great for quickly getting the answers you need from the people that live here.
Logon and find out what is happening in Hua Hin:
There is also a blog for the Hua Hin area at:
White Lotus
The award wining White Lotus is a modern Chinese restaurant on the 17th floor of Hilton Hua Hin Resort and Spa, open everyday from 5.30pm to 10.30pm. It offers a choice of indoor or outdoor seating on the balcony, which command a spectacular view of Hua Hin and the entire Gulf of Thailand. The restaurant, with its trendy and contemporary setting creates the right balance in style that offers a dining experience that is relaxed, affordable and romantic. Backed by a feng shui design setting that creates the right balance in style and harmony in taste, diners at the White Lotus will enjoy a new standard in Chinese cuisine that signifies prosperity, happiness and longevity.
White Lotus has recently introduced a new menu, and the Observer was invited to sample and review the new offerings. Chef Stuart Daly, Executive Chef, at the Hilton made us most welcome, along with Sous Chef Thitiwut Pakamataput, and offers an a la carte selection embracing modern Cantonese and Szechuan cuisine (such as the appetiser Sichuan Hot and Sour Soup with Chinese Fish Maw, Sea Scallops Squid, Prawn, Bean Curd and Mushrooms, priced at 220 baht), as well as some Western dishes (such as Braised Australian Beef and Seasonal Vegetables in Black Pepper Sauce priced at 450 baht), and there is also two set menus offering some of the a la carte items as well as some unique to each menu. These are priced at 850 baht for menu A, and 1,600 baht for menu B. All prices are exclusive of tax and service charge. The food is excellent, as you would expect from such an esteemed hotel, and you would be hard pushed to find such a wonderful dining experience anywhere else at such reasonable prices.
White Lotus boasts an extensive Hilton Wine Experience and each dish uniquely features a carefully selected wine recommendation. Fragrant Chinese and herbal fusion teas are also available. A monthly White Lotus Wine Dinner is extremely popular with both hotel guests and local diners.
At weekends and public holidays, you will find that the White Lotus is open for lunch from 11.30am to 2.30pm and offers an authentic Dim Sum lunch experience. Reservations and enquiries for the White Lotus Chinese restaurant can be made by calling the Hilton Hua Hin Resort & Spa directly at Tel: + 66 0 3253 8999 or
email fb.huahin@hilton.com
Flash where are you
If you were born in the fifties or sixties and now worry about your greying hair and spreading wrinkles (and waistlines) while struggling with the TV remote control or mobile phone, then this article is for you. For those of you younger you can just snigger and snort in derision and smile knowingly, while remembering that we are all old codgers one day.....
Do you remember those innocent days way back in the sixties, or way, waaaay back in the fifties when the technology revolution began? Technology was going to make our lives one long holiday. It was easy to feed into the hype because rockets were blasting off in every direction eventually leading to Leica orbiting the globe until her/his final fatal re-entry, followed by Yuri Gagarin whizzing around the globe as the first man in space. Eventually there was the ‘One step for man’ TV landing on the moon in 1969.
If you were young boy at that time your cowboy hat and cap gun were being replaced by a fish bowl helmet and a ray gun that whirred and fizzled with lights when you squeezed the trigger. Of course the main techno wizardry was the TV, black and white to start with, which opened up the world to us and showed us all the wonderful things we were missing out on. Presumably before that we must have been deeply unhappy and deprived.
Even before the TV, magazines informed us that it was a requirement to get a car if you were a pillar of society who was aware that new technology would solve all our future problems. American cars at that time had fins and massive rocket influenced bumpers, weighed as much as a bulldozer and sucked up fuel like an elephant at a water hole.
The whole theme running through the sixties was of a new exciting world inspired by the technology revolution eventually leading to a kind of acceptance, then boredom in the seventies until the new boom started, based mainly on the new computer technology.
So how many of the promises, predictions and fantasies about the future came true? Presumably not many because this does not feel like utopia, more like the social predictions in the movie ‘Metropolis’ or even the ‘big brother’ predictions of the book/movie ‘1984’, even if the date was a little out. Even those that have come true have a downside. But lets not be tempted into looking at the past with rose tinted spectacles.
If one looks back to the aforementioned Fritz Lange movie Metropolis (wonderful cinematography, direction and sets, watch it if you can) made in about 1924, the central image was a robot in a segregated utopia. More than eighty years later, despite amazing technological advances we realise that the personal robot is still a long way off. However the author Isaac Asimov gave us the laws of robotics for when they eventually turn up,
1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
2. A robot must obey orders given to it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.
After five decades of development, robotics technology is approaching its infancy. Many of the promises of science fiction have yet to be realised, and our imagination still far exceeds our ability to manufacture and program. However, the technology is developing quite rapidly on all fronts, including intelligence, sensing, manipulation and actuation, walking gait and navigation. In fact robots in some form or other have been around and in use for over 50 years, with the most obvious example being in car manufacture. (Anyone remember the 1979 Fiat Strada ad campaign? The car was sold on being entirely produced by robots with the tag line ‘Handbuilt by robots’). They are also increasingly being used in other areas, and particularly in medicine, space exploration and the dirty, dangerous and difficult jobs such as underwater cable laying and repair.
However personal communication devices seen in the early Star Trek (and before) have come to pass, the dream of instant communication is here. Every annoying teenager now has a device the size of a stamp that plays music, takes photos, provides games, has internet access and of course is a phone too. They can now spend their time with their friends, talking to someone else, who are probably doing the same thing. Mobile phones are amazing things, but who has followed someone in a supermarket talking to their loved one about what to buy, or worse followed a driver weaving around the road while wooing his girlfriend. Beam me up, Scotty!
Computer gaming could hardly be called a major technological advance for human kind, but they are difficult to avoid, however hard you try. You thought playing cards by yourself was pathetic, try pretending to be a ninja or soccer hero when your main athletic skill is a twitchy thumb. However they say that this might be what the world will be like in future. Future humans may have shrivelled bodies from lack of use, large bloated stomachs from snacking, pasty white blotchy skin from lack of natural light and huge finely formed muscular thumbs.
TV’s have established themselves as the centre of our lives and the ultimate political weapon, however the technological advances have mainly been tweaks. Essentially if we ignore what is broadcast, the developments in fifty years have been fairly minimal. As with ‘Hi-Fi’ music systems most of us don’t know the difference between older and newer technologies. TV’s have become a ‘Mine is bigger than yours’ scenario and only the kids know how to operate the remote (using their agile thumbs).
When you watched TV at the dawn of technology, flying cars were very big, preferably with a glass bubble so you could see all the marvels around you. What we got were hovercrafts, which only made an impression for a short time until we settled for hydrofoils and catamarans on water, and stuck to cars on land. The idea of magically floating flying cars was a nice idea but ultimately a bit impractical (they tend to float around too much). Perhaps the nearest we have come to that is Magnetic Levitation transport, or maglev, which is a form of transportation that suspends, guides and propels vehicles (especially trains) via electromagnetic force. This method can be faster than wheeled mass transit systems, potentially reaching velocities comparable to turboprop and jet aircraft (900 km/h, 559 mph). The highest recorded speed of a maglev train is 581 km/h (361 mph), achieved in Japan in 2003. In China there is the world’s first operational high-speed conventional maglev railway, the Shanghai Maglev Train from downtown Shanghai (Shanghai Metro) to the Pudong International Airport, opened in 2002, and first commercial automated “Urban Maglev” system, opened in 2005.
There are two primary types of maglev technology: Electromagnetic suspension (EMS) uses the attractive magnetic force of a magnet beneath a rail to lift the train.
Electrodynamic suspension (EDS) uses a repulsive force between two magnetic fields to push the train away from the rail.
Another experimental technology, which was designed, but is yet too be built, is the magnetodynamic suspension (MDS), which uses the attractive magnetic force of a permanent magnet array near a steel track to lift the train and hold it in place.
Of course at home we were promised kitchens of the future, that would make the tame wife of the fifties simply do a flip for joy that she could spend more time cooking lovely meals for her hero. This utopia never really came about despite the microwave oven, dishwasher, electric slicer etc. However in recent years other areas of technology are now starting to creep into the home. It is expected that in the coming years our homes will be controlled by computer technology allowing us to program virtually every aspect of our home. Already here is home security with alarm and surveillance systems, entertainment systems, pet care, pest control, telephones, energy saving, lighting, heating and appliances all controlled by a computer, Also available are robotic pool cleaners, which thankfully appear to abide by the Three Laws! The refrigerator recently announced by Electrolux is an example of how things will develop - it will be connected to the internet and be able to order food to restock itself. ‘Intelligent’ devices like this could become everyday items. Another likely development is that each person living in the home will have a profile of their preferred settings stored and accessed by the computer, such as heating, lighting and music, and these will automatically be activated when that person enters a room - could become complicated in a house full of students of course!
Despite the wonderful majestic Concorde, which was a joy to watch soaring over any city, air travel seems to have remained stuck in small, economic based technological evolutions. Whatever way you look at them most airplanes look like ungainly metal tubes with wings stuck on. Yes, we all travel more, to more destinations, but for most of us taller than 160cm (or without a business account) this means hours with our knees up near our ears, suffering from thrombosis and dehydration.
The days of stylish air travel probably ended with the unfortunate Hindenburg. We wonder if there is a market here for an enterprising businessman to bring back the fantasy and style to air travel with updated airships, imagine actually seeing what you are flying over. Note: Airships got fatal bad press following the disaster, The Hindenburg would not have caught fire if America had been willing to sell a safer gas to the then dodgy German state.
There are however plans for jets that go at unbelievable speeds or skim the stratosphere, but at present the simple fact is that you can fly relatively cheaply in discomfort or the opposite. We are unhappy either way.
The future of air travel is likely to be evolutionary rather than revolutionary, with the next big step being the hypersonic plane, powered by hypersonic engines or “scramjets” (supersonic combustion ramjet), which would enable aircraft to travel from London to Sydney in about 90 minutes. Scramjet engines operate at speeds in excess of Mach 5 (five times the speed of sound) and have a simple mechanical design with no moving parts. They would also permit single-stage-to-orbit space vehicles - spacecraft that fly into space in one piece, something that might bring space tourism within the grasp of the ordinary person and not just billionaires. So the sight of Virgin Space may not be so far away after all, book your seat.
Aircraft with new propulsion technology may need to be radically redesigned. One of the most popular concepts of recent years is the “blended-wing-body” design, originally conceived by aerospace corporation McDonnell Douglas. This design does away with the traditional tube and wing design of modern commercial aircraft, instead opting for merged shape that makes it look like a flying wing. Its advocates claim that integrating the engines, body and wings into a single lifting surface improves the overall efficiency of the aircraft.
Although it does not come with a glass bubble or float the most positive step in the car industry recently is the high-performance, zero-emissions Tesla Roadster.
The electric-powered Tesla Roadster boasts the equivalent of 135 mpg and a range of 250 miles on a single charge (approx 4 hours overnight), a combination heretofore unseen in a mass-produced electric vehicle. Its extended range is due to its state-of-the-art lithium-ion Energy Storage System. And remember this is an electric car, the Tesla Roadster is capable of accelerating from 0-60 mph in about four seconds, with zero emissions.
Whatever sci-fi program we used to watch, it didn’t predict the internet. Yes, there were monitors where we could view each other across the world, but nobody predicted a relatively cheap way of sending all sorts of information around the world in an instant. Remember the days when you stuffed pockets full of coins into a public telephone or had the luxury of fearing the next telephone bill. The alternative was mail, which had about a four-week turn around for an answer from the other side of the world, not exactly spontaneous. The internet has mainly been a technological development with positive effects. The future of the internet though is unclear; there are already serious problems and debates about security and privacy, and many feel that there will be a rise in attacks on the hardware that keeps the worldwide web going from anti-technology ‘Luddites’.
In addition the internet may become a victim of it’s own success, with too many people attempting to use it, causing the system to get slower and slower, or even crashing so often it would become unusable. However these potential problems are already being looked at and are likely to be solved in the main, if there is money to be made for the main players in the internet, the telephone giants of the world.
One common prediction is that mobile devices (phones and laptops mainly) will play a massive part in the development of the internet, enabling people to remotely control other devices. Howard Schmidt, who has worked on security issues at companies like eBay and Microsoft, and is a former U.S. cyber security czar, had this to say, “Everything, including coffee pots, home lighting, alarm systems, autos and heart pacemakers, will have a secure IP [Internet protocol] address and be able to be controlled by the owner,” wrote Schmidt. “RFID [radio frequency identification tags] will know when you use up the last bag of corn, add it to your e-shopping list, and transmit it to the grocery store for you the next time you go shopping or if you elect to do home delivery.”
If you really want to know where all the technological development went try visiting an arms ‘show’. You will find missiles that can almost knock on you door before blowing you to bits. Or surveillance devices that make the idea of privacy in the 21st century a quaint idea from the past. Maybe we would all be floating around in flying saucers with perfect health, if all the money put into weapons were channelled into other areas. Check out our Asia Times report in this issue on this disturbing market.
One of the things we may remember from the past was the friendly surgeon only too happy to hack you open for even the slightest cough. Ahhh! Thank heavens those days are getting scarcer; we now have fibre optics to take a look inside you and keyhole surgery to sort out the problem. We can scan through slices of the body a build up a detailed picture of what is wrong with little invasion of the body. And there is more to come.
Nano technology is likely to be the big breakthrough in the present and future, and in relation to health it is already called Nanomedicine. In the near future, advancement in nanomedicine will deliver a valuable set of research tools and clinically helpful devices – it is expected that new commercial applications in the pharmaceutical industry will include advanced drug delivery systems, new therapies, and in vivo imaging.
Farther down the line, neuro-electronic interfaces and cell repair machines could revolutionise medicine and the medical field, but now nanomedicine is becoming one of the biggest industries in the world. In 2004, nanomedicine sales reached 6.8 billion dollars, and with over 200 companies and 38 products worldwide, a minimum of 3.8 billion dollars in nanotechnology R&D is being invested every year. As the nanomedicine industry continues to grow, there is no doubt that it will have a significant impact on the economy.
The most important innovations are taking place in drug delivery, which involves developing nanoscale particles or molecules to improve bioavailability. Bioavailability refers to the presence of drug molecules where they are needed in the body and where they will do the most good. Drug delivery focuses on maximizing bioavailability both at specific places in the body and over a period of time. Over 65 billion dollars is wasted every year because of poor bioavailability. In vivo imaging is another area where tools and devices are being developed. Using nanoparticle contrast agents, images such as ultrasound and MRI have a favourable distribution and improved contrast. The new therapies and surgeries that are being developed might be effective in treating illnesses and diseases such as cancer. Finally a major advance will be made when nanorobots such as neuro-electronic interfaces and cell repair machines become a reality.
So are you one of those who look around you at all the new technology and bury their head. Are you afraid of programming the TV, bemused by all the options on your mobile phone, scared to dive into the world wide web and a laptop is what appears when you sit down. Remember that ray gun or the flying saucer you dreamt about, they are here now, only in different forms. Come on, where is that space cadet spirit, Flash Gordon, Where Are You.....
Observer interview
Very few people outside of the entertainment business (or those who scour the credits for familiar names) will have heard of Paul Harris, but many people will have seen the results of his work, as he is a leading choreographer, dance teacher and movement director, whose most recently released work was in the movie ‘Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix’. Paul visited Hua Hin recently, and the Observer was lucky enough to have a chance to talk to him about both his movie projects and also his lesser-known stage, TV, commercial and teaching work.
The first obvious question was, however, about why he was in Thailand, and specifically Hua Hin? Holiday or work?
“I have been doing more and more work in Asia, since I was involved in ‘Entrapment’ with Catherine Zeta-Jones in 1999 (Paul choreographed the laser scenes with the actress), and I have been teaching more and more in South East Asia, where I am trying to help to develop dance in The Philippines, Indonesia and Thailand. So making a base here makes sense, and also gives me somewhere to hide away and relax when I need to. I loved Hua Hin the first time I came here a few years ago and being fairly close to Bangkok means I can be anywhere in the world in less than a day if I am needed.”
Paul explained how he came to be a choreographer, and we also asked how he would describe choreography to someone. “That’s an interesting question, and complicated to explain because although I am a choreographer my work is sometimes not strictly dancing. Really choreography can be as much about getting actors and dancers to move in a certain way just as much as it is about designing a dance routine. I started out as a dancer (at the age of eight he was one of the most successful Juvenile and Junior competitors ever in Ballroom Dancing) and did quite well (he won the British Open Championships at the famous Blackpool Dance Festival in both Ballroom and Latin American Dancing - as well becoming United Kingdom, International and West European Champion), I then turned professional and studied Jazz Dance, Tap Dancing, Historical Dance and Classical Ballet and won the British Exhibition (Theatre Arts) title. However I increasingly felt that I was going nowhere with my dancing because it was a very closed world, and there wasn’t much room to do anything other than the strict regimes of ballroom dancing. Although I loved dancing and was good at it, I felt I could do something more.”
Paul shocked the ‘Strictly Ballroom’ world by retiring from competitive dancing and went to study Acting at The Academy of Live and Recorded Arts in London. Although dancing and acting are obviously connected, why did he choose to train as an actor?
“I needed something new, something that I had never done before and that I didn’t know anything about. Although the dance world had been fantastic for me, at the time it didn’t hold any challenge for me any more.”
On graduating, Paul played leading roles in British television and theatre, including major National tours of three West End Productions. His roles during this period included A-Rab in West Side Story, Dill in To Kill A Mockingbird, Edmund in The Lion The Witch and The Wardrobe, William H. Bonney in Billy The Kid, Scranton Slim in Guys and Dolls and Catsmeat in Snow White with the late Marti Caine. What happened next?
“I was really enjoying myself, and I was lucky that I was offered and took a part on the TV drama ‘Casualty’, playing a Latin American dance champion. They wanted someone to choreograph the dance routines that also understood the drama, so with my background I offered to do them myself. I didn’t think much of it at the time, but the routines impressed a leading dance agent who in 1997 recommended me to the Director of a small British movie, ‘The Tichborne Claimant’ to choreograph the dance sequences.”
The Director in question was David Yates, who has just directed ‘Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix’ (and who is about to direct ‘Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince’) and Paul explained that this was the connection that eventually led to him being involved in the latest Harry Potter movie. “We get on very well, and work well together, and to top it all off we are both from St. Helens in Lancashire (now Merseyside)! The conversation I had with David before taking the job to choreograph ‘The Tichborne Claimant’ made me realise that I was in a unique position to be able to combine my acting and my dancing skills, which has led to me being where I am now.’
Paul has been in demand ever since he realised how he could combine his two backgrounds in dancing and acting wthat he now sees as a natural combination, and admits it can be hectic. “When you are working on a big movie it can be quite stressful, even though you are working with good people because we all have the big budget hanging over us - you need to do the best you can in the limited time available. Having said that I enjoy it and don’t think it’s a problem, but you do need to get away from it for a while, which is why I wanted a place like Hua Hin to do so.”
As well as Catherine Zeta-Jones in ‘Entrapment’, Paul has worked with a number of leading actors including Scarlett Johanssen, Gary Oldman, Sam Neill, Natalie Portman, Helena Bonham-Carter and Ralph Fiennes. We asked Paul who are the best dancers and who he enjoyed working with the most?
“To be perfectly honest I have enjoyed working with all of them, but if I was forced to pick favourites I think I would say Gary Oldman and John Kani (who was in ‘The Tichborne Claimant’), but I also really admire Sean Connery. As far as dancing goes, that has to be Catherine Zeta-Jones who has a natural advantage over anyone else I have worked with as she was trained as a dancer.”
What other choreographers’ work do you enjoy, and do you find yourself watching movies and television from that perspective?
“The two I really admire are Michel Fokine (a groundbreaking Russian choreographer and dancer whose most famous work is probably The Dying Swan (1907), which was a solo dance for Anna Pavlova) and Twyla Tharp (a leading American dancer and prolific choreographer). Unfortunately I cannot turn off my work, and will always watch any production in terms of the movement, which isn’t just dance don’t forget.”
We then asked Paul to tell us some more about his work that will be most familiar to our readers, namely the Harry Potter movie, as well as some of his other work and future projects.
“An interesting aspect of my work on HP was that although I was the choreographer, what I did really fell between two stools. I am credited as ‘Choreographer Wand Combat’ and I was heavily involved with both the actors and the CGI effects guys as well as the Director; I had to devise a general wand technique that could be tailored to suit each character in conjunction with the actors, while also referring back to the previous films to make sure I wasn’t changing anything too drastically. Luckily some of the characters are teenagers who would naturally develop their style as they get older but it must still be consistent. As far as my other work goes I have been involved in a lot of great projects, but I must make mention of a stage production I was involved in – ‘The Entertainer’ at the Old Vic in London starring Robert Lindsay. I have worked with Robert several times and I really enjoyed working with him on that. There are two movies coming out in the next few months that I have worked on - The Other Boleyn Girl and Inkheart – and I will be working on some more BBC period dramas.”
He is also a successful author of dance books, having written Salsa and Merengue - The Essential Step by Step Guide, which is considered a definitive work of its kind in the dance industry and is the basis of the syllabi Harris has written in Merengue, Salsa and Mambo, for four of the awarding bodies of the British Dance Council. Harris is an acknowledged authority and leading choreographer in Historical and Period Dance, Tango, Salsa, Swing, Ballroom, Latin American, Theatre Dance and Movement Direction. The natural follow on from the books is teaching, and in 1996, Harris founded London Theatre of Ballroom, who are dedicated to preserving and progressing Ballroom Dancing as performing art. They enjoyed a critically acclaimed six month run at London’s Cafe De Paris and are still Britain’s only Ballroom based theatre company. Their repertoire, choreographed entirely by Paul Harris, consists of shows based on Swing, Tango, Latin Dancing, Vintage Dance and American Smooth (Hollywood style partner dancing).
Paul is a dance tutor at The Actors Centre and teaches dance at the Central School of Speech and Drama, the Academy of Live and Recorded Arts and the Italia Conti Academy. He has appeared as a dancer and a guest dance expert on television in England and in Asia, to discuss choreography and to promote dance styles as diverse as Salsa, Argentine Tango, Lindy Hop, West Coast Swing, 19th Century Dance, Historical Dance and Dancesport. He was the main dance coach in the “Kick boxer to Dancer” episode of the BAFTA-award-winning Faking It, and he has coached and choreographed for world champions in Showdance, Salsa, Ballroom Dancing and Argentine Tango including several of the professional dance teachers from British television’s Strictly Come Dancing and Strictly Dance Fever. With his Asian teaching as well he is certainly a busy man.
Harris is a Fellow and Examiner of the United Kingdom Alliance of Professional Teachers of Dancing, as well as an Honorary member of the British Association of Teachers of Dancing, and an Honorary Lifetime member of the Philippine Professional Dance Teachers Association. He has adjudicated at many international dance championships, including the prestigious Blackpool Dance Festival and he is a licensed adjudicator with both the World Dance Council and the International DanceSport Federation.
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