Alex Wong now lives in New York and L.A., but Surrey and its annual Festival of Dance still feels a bit like home.

Wong, who has danced his way around the world with the likes of music stars Taylor Swift and Ariana Grande, was backstage at Surrey Arts Centre on Tuesday (April 7), opening day of the 60th-anniversary festival.

“I danced here when I was probably eight or nine, until I was 17,” said Wong, son of longtime festival volunteer Karen Law, ballet section head and vice-president.

“It was a chance to perform, for sure, and this gave me a lot of opportunities to travel, to compete, a lot of scholarships to help continue my dance training, which was really, really important,” Wong testified. “I also met a lot of lifelong friends, just a very good experience to have something like this growing up, very important to my training.”

Wong is among tens of thousands of dancers who’ve performed at Surrey Festival of Dance, launched in 1966 by Doreene Rowe and six other founders.

Sadly, Rowe died last year; the 152-page festival guide for 2026 pays tribute to her and also Eric Iggleden, president of the dance fest society from 2007 to 2019.

This year dancers will get a chance to shine at the arts centre until April 22, in multiple dance divisions including jazz, hip-hop and street, international, modern/contemporary, ballet and tap/stage.

Backstage, Carol Girardi is again busy organizing things, as she’s done for close to 40 years.

“Doreen (Rowe), she twisted my arm to come aboard,” Girardi recalled with a smile. “They were doing everything by hand and I set them up on computers and got that sorted.”

While festival numbers have fluctuated over the years, kids and adults from around the region keep coming back to perform for trophies, scholarships and the fun of it.

“It’s not so much about scholarships it’s about giving kids the opportunity to dance on this big stage for a crowd of people,” Girardi insisted. “Performing means a lot to these kids.”

Last year, the sweetest thing happened.

“There was a girl doing a solo tap, she was about 10 or 11,” Girardi started. “She came off the stage, finished, and she was literally crying her heart out. The kids backstage, they were all there hugging her saying, ‘What’s the matter? What’s the matter?’ She was, ‘Oh, I missed a step! I missed a step!’ They said, ‘You did? Well, if you did, you did an amazing job!’ When she left backstage, she was happy. Seeing that camaraderie with the kids who are there for each other, it’s special.”

The fest has always been held in April, meaning a busy few weeks for Patty Halliday, a volunteer for 32 years.

“The first year, I was mega-pregnant with twins and wasn’t allowed to work,” Halliday recalled. “So Carol (Girardi) said, ‘Well, come do some typing,’ and I’ve been here ever since. My parents both volunteered here too, and my daughters (twins Emily and Haley) come help me — not today, they’re at work.”

Halliday sorts two tables filled with festival trophies, some of them four or five decades old.

“There are around 500 trophies — I want to say 532, but I could be wrong,” she said. “I keep track of every single one. The first trophies were in 1967, the first year they gave them out, in April that year.”

Wong, back in Surrey for just a couple of days, had time to look at all those trophies while waiting to go for lunch with his mother, busy organizing jazz dancers backstage.

“These trophies have the names of past winners, their names engraved on them,” marvelled Wong, who works in film and TV now. “I see my name on quite a few of these trophies and a lot of my friends that, you know, were also past winners. I took pictures and texted them. It’s really cool to see this history.”

Admission at the festival is $6 a day. Visit surreyfestival.com for the daily schedule and more details.