With The Flow

Introduce yourself!
I’m Melerna Montevirgen, but everyone calls me Lerna. I’m from the Philippines and I’m a dancer.

We hear it’s your first time in Singapore. How are you liking it so far?
Yes, it’s beautiful! The city is so maunlad (prosperous in Filipino)—it’s so far from what the Philippines is. Everything here from the buildings to the scenery is so beautiful, and I’m so surprised that it’s so clean here. The main thing that got me though is that there’s no traffic!

I’m actually in Singapore because my dance crew got invited to perform at a dance exhibit, which is great because we get to check out all the tourist spots while we’re here. Before this, we were in Vietnam competing in a dance competition called the Summer Jam Dance, in which we won the championship title!

Tell us about your crew!
I got recruited into my current crew, Bawz, by a friend of mine, who is one of their head members.

Recently, we’ve started travelling a lot more, from Vietnam to Singapore this year, and we even have a bunch of trips planned in the coming months, but I can’t say where exactly because I’m not sure I’m allowed to disclose it just yet.

Do you have any other interests outside of dancing?
I’ve been customising clothes for myself for a little while now, just trying things out for now. I’ll pick out a little something from one piece and add it to another, that sort of thing. But other than that, it’s really just dance, dance, and dance (laughs)—it’s really my life.

My main source of income is dance—I actually dance on TV and other stuff like that back in the Philippines. But it isn’t easy because the competition is very intense in this field, and everyone’s so talented.

But if I weren’t a dancer, I think I’d be a teacher. In fact, I took up early childhood education in college, so I guess there’s a little bit of interest there. I do teach dance sometimes, to people of all ages.

If someone wants to visit the Philippines, where would you recommend?
I’d tell them to visit all the places in the Philippines! I can’t pick a specific one because every single place has its own beauty. Like in Metro Manila, we have a lot of pretty buildings and malls. On the flip side, there are a lot of beaches in places like Laguna and Zambales that are just breathtaking.

And the one Filipino food I would say people have to try is sinigang, a sour soup. Personally, I like mine extra sour—the kind that makes your face scrunch up, I love it. I’m actually craving it right now (laughs).