bc magazine

Project 4th June, a 24-hour Online Dance Commemoration of Tiananmen

Singaporean artist Ming Poon, aka Ming Apur, likes as he puts it to use choreography as a “tool to interrogate, disrupt and re-organise the social and political relationality of the body in time and space.”

Poon’s latest work is Project June 4th a 24-hour online commemoration of the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests that looks to use dance to speak out against state censorship of peaceful dissent, criticism and the erasure and rewriting of history. For as Poon says “Once we forget, history repeats itself and the oppressors become emboldened”.

On 4 June 1989 the peaceful mass student protests in Tiananmen Square were ended by military force. Although more than 30 years have passed, the Chinese government still suppresses any mention or acknowledgement of the incident.

On 5 June a single man stood against a column of tanks… Project 4th June commemorates those who were murdered, the movement and choreography of Tank Man represents as Poon puts it “the potential that lies within ordinary persons to stop the machines of violence and oppression. It is also a call-out to stand up against injustice, no matter how small we think we are and how insurmountable we think the task is.”

6 dancers will take turns performing Tank Man throughout the 24-hour commemoration. Each will attempt to interpret the choreography in a way that expresses their individual thoughts and relationship to the Tiananmen Square incident, state censorship and the fight for human rights and democracy.

The 6 dancers are:
1. Pink Tank: “Watch out, the world is not behind you.”
2. Tank Ghost: “Of Ghosts and Shells”
3. Tank Zheng: “No Tank On Rainbow”
4. Tank Sexy: “The Days Without Cigarettes / 沒有煙抽的日子“
5. Tank Plant: “Planting the Reality”
6. Tank Critique Critique: “Which Tanks Do You Need To Stand In Front Of?”

If you want to watch, join or participate (see the video above for the choreography) in the commemoration Poon has an event etiquette to help make it safe for everyone. Keep your identity, as well as others’ anonymous!

If you turn on your camera during the commemoration, put on a mask before doing so. Also, make sure that your background does not reveal any personal information, ideally sit with a blank wall as your background.
Microphones will be turned OFF by default throughout the commemoration, to avoid voice detection.
Before entering the commemoration room, replace your display name with an alias. Your alias should be written in the following manner: Tank ___ (e.g., Tank Person, Tank ABC, Tank 123, etc,). Do not include any personal information in it.

Project June 4th
Date: 4 June, 2022 (
Venue: live stream on Zoom and Youtube
Tickets: Free
More info: www.mingapur.com
live stream on Zoom and Youtube

23rd Hong Kong Dance Awards 2022

The 23rd Hong Kong Dance Awards were presented in an online ceremony streamed live this month. A total of 20 awards including two Lifetime Achievement Awards and 18 jury awards were presented by emcees Irene Lo and Shirley Loong and accepted remotely by the winners.

Over 50 nominations were shortlisted in 15 categories, covering work created between January 2020 and December 2021. Hong Kong Dance Alliance Chair Allen Lam said “While it was sad that the traditional Awards Ceremony and Gala Performance could not be held due to the current pandemic restrictions. The quality of the shortlisted nominations shows the strength and resilience of the Hong Kong dance community, which has overcome the obstacles of the pandemic over the past two years to create so much truly exceptional work.”

Co-Chair of the Awards Jury, Natasha Rogai, added “In 15 years of working on the Awards, I have never seen stronger shortlists – there were several categories where two awards were presented and all the shortlisted nominations were worthy of an award.”

The Tom Brown Emerging Choreographer Award went to Kelvin Mak, artistic director of Beyond Dance Theater, whose powerful Remnants was named Outstanding Medium Venue Production sharing that award with City Contemporary Dance Company’s Days Are Numbered, which featured choreography by Justyne Li, Bruce Wong and Jennifer Mok.

Kelvin Mak said “I would like to thank the late Mr. Tom Brown for his support to the local dance scene, and to us emerging artists. I hope that this goodwill, passion, and spirit can be inherited and passed on.”

The Lifetime Achievement Award was presented to two women who have contributed to the development of dance in Hong Kong for decades: Tania Tang and Professor Shen Shir Ming.

Accepting the award, Professor Shen commented “I can see that the Hong Kong Dance Alliance set their sights beyond traditional definitions of dance; rather than simply focusing on choreography and performance, they aim to establish exchange and collaboration on all levels of the creative process between the dance sector and other industries, so that talents in dance may develop in a cross-disciplinary manner.”

Ms Tang said “Looking back, there were only a few foreign ballet teachers in Hong Kong. Nowadays, we are all witnessing a diverse ecology of dance arts in Hong Kong taking root and thriving. To the many generations of dancers to come, we must remain steadfast in our beliefs and work ethic; to all workers related to dance, we need to face all challenges head-on, and pass on the torch.”

https://youtu.be/eG-V11243pU

香港舞蹈年獎 2022 網上直播 23rd Hong Kong Dance Awards Presentation (https://youtu.be/eG-V11243pU)

23rd Hong Kong Dance Awards Winners

Outstanding Performance by a Male Dancer
Huang Lei
Nine Songs, Hong Kong Dance Company and Freespace

Shen Jie as Romeo
Romeo + Juliet, Hong Kong Ballet

Outstanding Performance by a Female Dancer
Hua Chi Yu
Nine Songs, Hong Kong Dance Company and Freespace

Outstanding Ensemble Performance
Dancers of Hong Kong Dance Company
Nine Songs, Hong Kong Dance Company and Freespace

Outstanding Music Composition
Leung Po Wing
I Don’t Mean It, City Contemporary Dance Company Dance Centre

Outstanding Set and Costume Design
Gabriela Tylesova and Albert Au: The Nutcracker, Hong Kong Ballet

Outstanding Choreography
Mui Cheuk Yin
Diary VII • The Story of……, Tai Kwun

Septime Webre
The Nutcracker, Hong Kong Ballet

Outstanding Online Production
Convergence, Hong Kong Dance Company and Freespace

Lifetime Achievement Award
Professor Shen Shir Ming
Ms Tania Tang

images:
Five Tiny Dances – Carbon Footprint – Keith Hiro
Nine Songs – Mak Cheong Wai
Convergence – Hong Kong Dance Company

Amadeus (a cyberpunk dream)

Amadeus (a cyberpunk dream) is a short film, available on youtube, created by the Hong Kong Ballet and the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra which depicts Mozart’s journey from the classical era to a psychedelic urbanscape in frenetic Hong Kong.

Director and production designer Ahong Cheung combines Mozart’s Eine kleine Nachtmusik performed by the HK Phil and choreography from HKB’s Artistic Director Septime Webre to transform the streets of Hong Kong into a vibrant Blade Runner style cyber-verse.

https://youtu.be/h9M4zUmHNwo

HKBallet + HKPhil present Amadeus (a cyberpunk dream) (https://youtu.be/h9M4zUmHNwo)

A disoriented Mozart finds himself in retro-futuristic SoHo pursued by ominous authority figures. While cyber-goth gangsters, mahjong players, street musicians, construction workers, and pedestrians mill about on the bustling streets.

images: hk ballet

Bon Appétit! – Macau Fringe Festival

Entitled A Feast of Creativity! Bon Appétit! and adopting the concept “All around the city, our stages, our patrons, our artists”, the 16th Macau Fringe Festival looks to offer an arts banquet for an entire city.

2017’s banquet includes a hairdresser’s salon turned into a musical. A recreation of an entertainment house at Beco da Felicidade and a funeral at the Ruins of St. Paul’s in the middle of the night. Organized by the Cultural Affairs Bureau, The Macau Fringe Festival runs from 13 to 22 January 2017 and features 23 programmes at multiple venues.

Zuò Zuò Tea House reveals the solitude and secrets of Rua da Felicidade by combining elements of dance and music and digging into the history of Macau’s red-light district. Mobile Kitchen invites people from the cultural field to take the role of chefs and share their cuisine, whether refined or homely, and encourage the public to savour the flavour of life.

In Antiwords, produced by Czech Republic Spitfire Company, two actresses drink beer after beer, bragging and arguing in an explosive mix of nonsensical humour and imagination. Circolando’s Night which debuts on the first day of the Festival features a trio of men who through their intensely physical and emotional expression ask questions of language and aesthetics.

In Good Hands, by Catherine Ireton, is a live musical set in a hairdressing salon about secrets and trust. The Magnificent 4 uses the human body as an instrument and a choreography that makes use of the legs and hand-clapping in creating a unique tempo.

In 5 Women, Dutch choreographer Kevin Pollak joins hands with five dancers at a birthday party set in a café where, through dance and movement, secrets that cannot be shared emerge. The Smooth Life is a puppet show set to Arabian music that tells the true story of the life of the director Husam Abed in a Palestinian refugee camp.

Funeral for the Living, directed by Daisuke Sagawa and performed by Japanese company Theatre Moments, debates issues of life and death. While The Other Side of the Sacred produced by Macao choreographer Candy Kuok in cooperation with Nina Dipla takes the audience on a journey that mixes dance, poetry and music.

In Weaving Landscape: Night Tide, the Associação de Arte e Cultura – Comuna de Pedra use different materials as a medium of creativity, making use of body language and installation art to explore the relationship between body, fabrics and all living things.

There’s also a range of extended programmes including Thematic talks: Foreign Theatre – Body, Memory and Labour and Fringe Reviews 2017, where artists and performing groups in different fields will share their creation experiences. For the full programme see www.macaucityfringe.gov.mo, tickets are on sale now from Macauticket.

Macau Fringe Festival
Date: 13-22 January 2017
Venue: various
Tickets: MacauTicket
More info: www.macaucityfringe.gov.mo

Udderbelly Festival – 4 December, 2015 – 14 February, 2016

It’ll be interesting to see over the next couple of months if the ‘there’s nothing to do in Hong Kong’ brigade will open their wallets to support the inaugural Udderbelly Festival Hong Kong which takes place at the Central Harbourfront event space from the 4 December-14 February. Centered around the iconic Udderbelly, a 410-seat pop-up theatre in the shape of an upturned cow (specially brought to Hong Kong from the UK) the festival features a smorgasbord of shows and will sit alongside The AIA Great European Carnival. The Udderbelly cowshed will be full of entertainment, music, food, comedy (lots of comedy) and family fun throughout the holiday season. Udderbelly has proved a huge hit with audiences at the Edinburgh Festival for over 10 years and on London’s South Bank for the past seven.

Udderbelly Festival
Date: 4 December, 2015 – 14 February, 2016
Venue: Central Harbourfront
Tickets: see individual event
More info:
Check the events diary for schedule

Eureka

Three Eureka Moments in One Show!
Now in their thirties, Victor Fung, Lai Tak-wai and Bruce Wong demonstrate their ideas in a series of new works. Three completely different choreographers share their eureka moment in diverse styles of contemporary dance.

If These Walls Could Talk
Identity X Relationship
Music starts. He and she fall in love at first sight.
They are a perfect match, but in a blink of the eye, someone else stands next to him.
Together, apart, death, rebirth.
Battles of the sexes, a glimpse into the complicated and ambiguous relationships between men and women – love turns to hate turns to love again and identities and feelings are bombarded over and over.

Choreography
Victor Fung: graduated from The Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts (HKAPA) and The University of California Santa Barbara (UCSB). He furthered his studies in choreography and completed his postgraduate studies at London Contemporary Dance School. He is currently conducting doctoral research with funding from Middlesex University and Dance4. In 2011, he established Victor Fung Dance, a platform through which his collaborative works with international dance artists are presented. He received the“Award for Young Artist” at the 2013 Hong Kong Arts Development Awards in recognition of his artistic achievement in dance. Recent performance credits include the Hollywood production 47 Ronin starring Keanu Reeves and Aida at Royal Albert Hall, his choreography for CCDC includes Fighter in Strip Teaser 2012.

Overwhelming
Humanity X Turbulence
Listen to your body through dance. Walk to the chaotic edge of the maze in your heart. Dancers reshape the form of ideas and inspirations, unveiling the humanity lurking under appearance. When we are going through pains and changes in the mist, should we follow the main road or find our own track?

Choreography
Lai Tak-wai: graduated from HKAPA majoring in modern dance. In 2002, he was awarded the Hong Kong Jockey Club Dance Fund Scholarship to further his studies at the National Conservatoire of Music and Dance in Paris. He then joined the Junior Ballet Contemporain in Paris for the 2002/03 season. Lai was a full-time dancer at Cloud Gate Dance Theatre in 2005 and was at CCDC from 2008 to 2014. At the 2013 Hong Kong Dance Awards he received the “Outstanding Performance by a Male Dancer” award for his performance in In Search of the Grand View Garden. He is currently an independent choreographer and freelance dancer. His choreography includes Sleepless, Substitute and Timeline in It’s My Turn.

How to Become…
Kung Fu X Id
Practice is the pursuit of enlightenment – comprehension, realisation and full understanding. Martial arts and dance are pursuits of physical and mental advancement. In a cross-over between kung-fu and dance, Bruce Wong shares his pursuit of the inner-self with the audience. Wong has won champions in the martial arts champion Baguazhang and Neijia Quan at the Hong Kong Open Wushu Championships. This is his search to find a way to cleanse one’s soul.

Choreography
Bruce Wong: CCDC dancer Bruce Wong entered HKAPA in 1995, where he was awarded several scholarships and was chosen to represent the Academy on overseas tours during his studies. In 1998, he was awarded an Asian Cultural Council Fellowship to participate in the American Dance Festival in the US. He received the Hong Kong Jockey Club Dance Fund Scholarship to attend Hollins University in the US for a Master’s degree. In 2010, he was one of the few dance finalists worldwide to be selected for the prestigious Rolex Mentor & Protege Arts Initiative. His recent choreography includes The Legend and The Hero, Dress Me Down in Strip Teaser 2012 and Re/dis-connect in It’s My Turn.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I3Vtj-RADws

《發現號》從頭發現一閃即逝的靈光!Eureka Moment – From Head to Toe! (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I3Vtj-RADws)

Eureka
City Contemporary Dance Company
When: 18-20 September, 2015
Where: HK Cultural Centre, Studio Theatre
Tickets: $220, $160 from Urbtix
More info:
18-19 September – 8pm
19-20 September – 3pm

BollyGood Movie @ Makumba – 8pm, 11 May 2013

BollyGood Movie @ Makumba – 8pm, 11 May 2013
In celebration of World Belly Dance Day Klub Raks is organising a BollyGood Movie charity night featuring the People’s Liberation Improv in a comedy night enhanced with some great belly dancing… In truth we really don’t know what’s going to happen but the contributors individually are great so combined it should be fun and an excuse for a dance and a laugh. If you’re feeling adventurous, then dress up as well!

BollyGood Movie
$200 inc a drink and snacks
8-11pm, 11 May, 2013
Makumba
2/F Ho lee Commercial Building
38-44 D’Aguilar Street, Lan Kwai Fong
Tel: 2810 5300, 9028 7064
www.klubraks.com

Live Vibe @ Jockey Club Amphitheatre, Polytechnic University of Hong Kong – 2-3 March 2013

Live Vibe @ Jockey Club Amphitheatre, Polytechnic University of Hong Kong – 2-3 March 2013
A mix of dance and humour the London dance variety show Live Vibe returns to Hong Kong for two unique performances. Live Vibe Hong Kong is hosted by Hakeem “Mr. Impact” Onibudo, with music by DJ Shan Swill and introduces some of Hong Kong’s talented new dancers and choreographers.

Jockey Club Amphitheatre, Polytechnic University of Hong Kong
2 March 2013 7:30PM
3 March 2013 2:30PM
Tickets: $180, $150, Tel: 2111 5333 www.cityline.com