SINGAPORE – In the days leading up to her move to Macau in 2024 to work as an aerialist, Ms Megan Lau grappled with doubt.
As a philosophy, politics and economics graduate from the National University of Singapore (NUS), the 24-year-old could not help but wonder if she was trading a secure future for a fleeting dream.
In her last year of university, she had applied on a whim to join the House Of Dancing Water, touted as the world’s largest water-based show, after seeing a casting advertisement online.
She was taken by surprise when she received a callback for auditions, and later an offer to join the cast.
“Am I making the right decision? Am I throwing my degree away?” she remembers asking herself on the morning of her departure in October 2024.
The dream of performing professionally had been a seed planted long ago, when she started ballet at the age of five.
She believes everything she did – years of dance training and aerial practice – had prepared her for this moment.
Still, she had to weigh the pros and cons of taking up the offer.
“I want to follow my dreams, but I also kept questioning whether it was viable,” she said. “But I’m young, in my 20s – this is my prime. And this job is extremely physically demanding. I knew I wouldn’t always have the window to do this.”
Macau’s House Of Dancing Water combines acrobatics, dance, stunts and theatre – all performed around and above a 30-foot-deep pool holding 3.7 million gallons of water, the equivalent of more than five Olympic-sized swimming pools.
The show, which first premiered in September 2010, reopened in May 2025, after a hiatus of nearly five years.
Since then, Ms Lau has been performing 10 to 12 shows weekly as an aerialist in the show, executing choreographed acrobatic routines high above the stage.
She is the only Singaporean in the cast of about 100 people who come from 20 countries around the world.
She also serves as the understudy for the lead role of Princess Aani, a heroine imprisoned by the Dark Queen. She steps into the part once or twice a month.
Landing this role marked a full-circle moment for Ms Lau, who was awed by the show in 2014 when she first watched it with her mother. After the performance, she told her mother she dreamed of playing Princess Aani one day.
