House of Dancing Water star, Faye Leung, on the show that’s transformed Macau’s entertainment scene

There was just one thing missing when Faye Leung, the lead performer in Macau’s iconic The House of Dancing Water, joined the live aquatic show. “I didn’t even know how to swim – that was a big challenge for me,” the dancer says. 

“When I first signed on to appear in the show, I was sent to Belgium to train for six weeks,” Leung recalls. “During those six weeks, I had to learn how to swim, scuba dive and catch up with the dancers’ act.” 

But the intensive training paid off, and Leung became key to the success of the US$250 million production, which celebrated its fifth anniversary last September and has entertained over 3.2 million spectators to date. “It’s been a fantastic experience for me. Even after five years and 2,200-plus shows, I still enjoy it so much,” she says. 

Leung plays Annie, a princess who holds a central role in a classic good-defeats-evil love story. Annie meets a handsome stranger who, along with the help of the water, a villager and a group of tribal people, rescues her from captivity and a evil queen. The role was custom-made for Leung by the show’s creator, renowned theatre director Franco Dragone. 

When Leung is in action, dancing and weaving in and out of the show’s many fountains, her moves have a natural and effortless flow to them, much like the water that serves as her stage. But for the former Hong Kong Ballet performer, those fluid moves were not easy to learn. “Being a ballerina, I was used to dancing on a dry stage,” she says. “In the first year of the show, I really had a hard time trying to adapt and figuring out how I could use different muscles and different movements to adapt with the water."