In the narrow hallway of the Singapore Ballet Academy (SBA), dancers are streaming into and out of classes. Standing in their ballet slippers on the vintage blue-tiled floor, young girls in matching leotards giggle as they compare stretching techniques while waiting to enter one of the three dance studios.

At the end of the hall, an older dancer does a perfect split while munching away on her lunch, throwing an occasional glance at an ongoing class in which girls - and two boys - no older than eight years old practise to the rhythm of the music being thumped out on a grand piano.