Last week we mentioned that a current Covid wave in Hong Kong is thought to have started in semi-secret ballroom classes where the mature socialite wives of HK’s 1% pay strapping young male dance instructors to give them some rather intimate tuition.
The most recent gossip on the ground there suggests the coronavirus probably arrived with some young dancers who were smuggled into the city from across the border in the dead of night on speedboats to evade quarantine.
If that’s not enough to convince you to option the film rights, the underground Asian cougar dance scene has been a rampant hotbed of drama for years. We first got a glimpse of how mad it can be back in 2006, when the 60-something Monica Wong (the important banker daughter of a shipping tycoon) ended up in court trying to claw back a £6 million advance she’d shelled out for lessons with a prized 30 year-old Italian dance pro.
Sadly, their cozy relationship went up in flames after the couple ended up getting less applause in a dance contest than one of the pro’s former love rivals.
WaPo:
Those who have contracted the virus from the dance cluster “are all over the place,” spread across every area in the city
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Lam admitted in a news conference Monday that these dance clubs were not regulated. Last week, the Hong Kong government shuttered bars, bathhouses and night clubs, but the cha-cha and tango could go on at the dancing venues, a loophole that remains.
The Guardian from 2006:
Hong Kong's media have given front-page coverage to the case and dwelt upon the glamorous details of Hong Kong's salsa scene. Since the craze hit in the 1990s, many of the world's top dancers have moved to the wealthy territory to teach rich housewives, politicians and tycoons.
The best foreign instructors, many of whom partner their students in pro-am competitions, can charge tens of thousands of dollars a month for daily lessons in the cha-cha, rumba, samba, jive and paso doble.
Mrs Wong paid $130 for her first hour's lesson with the couple, but as her interest increased so did the amount she paid. According to the judgment, she was almost at the point of "obsession" when she signed up to the multimillion dollar deal.
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Among the positive results was a Top Gold Lady award for Mrs Wong at the Emerald Ball Dancesport Championships in Los Angeles in 2003