Difficulty: Challenger (Level 2)
There’s a pumping beat. A 12-year-old steps into the spotlight, her wrists and arms making sharp, playful and confident movements.
Gaga Khu Yue-ching has already danced her way onto international stages. In 2023, she won the Children Street Battle at the Dance World Cup World Finals in Portugal, competing against dancers from around 50 countries.
A year later, she became the locking champion in the BDS World Youth Street Dance Competition.
Gaga was the first Hongkonger to be selected for the China National Youth Street Dance Team. She also performed for the second time at this year’s Cathay International Chinese New Year Night Parade.
It all started when she passed a dance studio in Tai Po when she was just three years old.
“I saw people dancing, so I wanted to try it out. [My father] brought me to dance lessons,” she said.
From that day forward, dancing would be more than just a hobby – it would become a part of her.
Dancing is a family activity. Gaga’s father, Gucci Khu Chi-wing, started street dancing around 16.
Khu said he was astonished by his daughter’s “strong sense of music”.
“There were some unexpected moves that I was surprised by,” he said. “She was very into the music when she was performing. It was inspiring for me.”
Gaga began with jazz-funk and “girl style” dancing. She started locking seven years ago after her father encouraged her to try a class.
“Locking is really funky … [with] power moves on the ground, unique clothing and different types of music that really attracted me,” Gaga said.
Training and competing
Last year, Gaga won the under-18 “all style” battle at the Notorious IBE 2025 – one of the world’s longest-standing hip hop dance events. She also became the competition’s youngest champion.
Her journey to winning this battle was unexpected.
By chance, the Khu family had been travelling around Europe for the summer. Gaga’s father saw an Instagram post about the competition taking place in Amsterdam that week. It was a few hours away, but the family decided to give it a shot.
As a Hong Kong representative, Gaga held her own against dancers from all over the world in several rounds, from the preliminaries to the finals, over three days.
A familial support system
Gaga’s mother, Barbie Liu Sau-yan, said she wanted to give Gaga the freedom to pursue her interests. She saw the importance of recognising your child’s talent and encouraging their passions.
Gaga’s father said his daughter was also learning life lessons from dancing. “Losing is the beginning of improvement,” he said. “We’ve been telling [Gaga] that losing is not important. Just become stronger.”
For her part, Gaga said she wanted other dancers her age to “just do what they want to do, what they love”.
