A beautiful princess is held captive by an evil queen until a fisherman — washed up on the shores of this magical kingdom — comes to the rescue, braving great heights and deep waters. Since late August, audiences of House of Dancing Water at City of Dreams in Macau have been watching Singaporean performer Ms Megan Lau in the lead female swing role of Princess Aani.

In April, Ms Lau was conferred a Bachelor of Arts (Honours) degree with Distinction. But her life at present hardly fits the conventional narrative of a young graduate’s path. While her peers may be busy with internships or new jobs, the 24-year-old is a performer in House of Dancing Water, a circus spectacle that features breathtaking acrobatics and dance performed in and over water.

“We watched the show in 2014 and 2016, and I absolutely loved it,” she said. As a 13-year-old, she declared to her mother that she wanted to be a ‘water princess’. When she saw the casting call for the show in June last year, it was like a dream come true. Ms Lau sent off her show reel — “I was trying my luck” — and quickly got a callback. By September 2024, she had been offered a role — she would train to be the water princess she wanted to be all those years ago.

The fact that she was considering moving abroad for this job drew concern from her otherwise supportive mother. She recalled: “My mum said, ‘Megan, don’t be crazy. Why do you want to hang and fly left and right?’  Her hesitation came from a place of love and worry, but on the other hand, I don’t think it came as a surprise to her that I wanted to do something like this.”

Although the prospect was exciting, Ms Lau admitted it was a tough decision to make. “In Singapore, we’re sort of ingrained to follow this road map of success,” she said. “To veer off this road, you have to be willing to put in the hard work and be determined to lean into that fear — to not be afraid to find success in something less conventional.”

Once she made up her mind, there was no stopping Ms Lau. She joined the 80-person cast in October last year as an aerialist perched some 20 metres in the air. Although she had been a dancer all her life, there was a lot of learning and training to be done to perform in and out of water for the 100-minute show. To add to the challenge, Ms Lau had a fear of heights — one she quickly overcame.

Halfway through the semester in her Honours year, Ms Lau was on a plane to Macau. In an Instagram reel, she explained how she calculated every possibility: whether to graduate without honours, whether she could complete a thesis instead of modules. By “sheer grit or a miracle”, she made it work: She dialled in for classes from her hotel room in Macau, corresponded regularly with her professors by email, flew back for classes on her days off and for her exams — all without breaking pace at her new job. This level of tenacity is what sets Ms Lau apart. And today, her mother and older brother, reassured of her safety, remain her biggest supporters. They flew to Macau for the premiere of her lead role.

UNIVERSITY IN THE TIME OF COVID
“I was in the COVID batch of undergraduates; I enrolled in 2020,” said Ms Lau. “For the first semester, we didn’t step foot in university at all. All our lessons were online.” This was challenging for a young woman who, by her own admission, “cannot sit still”. However, being a resident of Temasek Hall made all the difference. “At least I could make friends and be on campus. Though there were COVID restrictions, it made hall life and university life enjoyable,” she shared. Ms Lau counts among her best memories of university the time in-person lessons resumed. “Transitioning to real-life lessons was great,” she recalled. “We had done all our intro classes online, and I was finally seeing my friends in person.”

Ms Lau was in the fourth cohort of the PPE department (Philosophy, Political Science and Economics) at FASS, which she chose because “I wanted to do something in economics — it was my best subject.” Prof Loy Hui Chieh (Arts & Social Sciences ’98, MA ’00), the head of PPE, was “a figure any PPE student could turn to. He was on Telegram and in all our group chats,” she remembered. “If I ran into any problem, he would respond with help.”

Being in a hall of residence fulfilled Ms Lau’s other interests beyond academics. She credits Master of Temasek Hall Mr Victor Tan (Science ’87, MSc ’91) and Resident Fellow Mr Nisar Keshvani for creating “a lovely community.”

Ms Lau was in the Temasek Hall dance club and its swimming team. She was also involved in the hall’s yearly theatre production. “I’m someone who operates on a tight schedule,” she admitted. “Being in hall and part of all the activities has shaped me in a way I didn’t expect.”

FOLLOWING THE FLOW

That Ms Lau performs in a world-class aquatic show seems only natural if one were to take a peek into her background. She began dancing at the age of 5, when she passed by a ballet school in a shopping mall and asked her mother to sign her up for classes. She pursued ballet all the way through secondary school, before exploring other areas of dance like jazz and contemporary dance. She also took rhythmic gymnastics in primary school. “During university, I worked as a freelance dancer. In 2021, I picked up aerial — to me it was a very natural flow,” she added.

Ms Lau is cognisant of the fact that this is not a long-term job. “Being an aerialist or doing any kind of physical job, you definitely can’t do it forever, right? But for now, I’m just really enjoying my time here in Macau. A lot of my fellow cast members have done other big shows, and I’m really enjoying training and learning from the people around me.”

She added that she has been very lucky that no one has really commented that she has ‘wasted’ her degree. “I don’t think it’s a waste at all,” she stated. “I think university is more like a whole package: going to school, building friendships, gaining education — these are like building systems I will take with me through life. It’s essentially an experience that I will always carry with me. A degree is something that has shaped me — it’s about the journey of learning.”