Award Recipients  |  2000

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2000

1999

The Hong Kong Dance Award 2000 is awarded to Willy Tsao and Scarlet Wong for their pioneering work in establishing a monthly journal devoted to dance in Hong Kong. Mr. Tsao’s vision and Ms. Wong’s prodigious work and creativity in bringing the monthly dance journal /hk to fruition has given an enormous boost to the maturation of the Hong Kong dance Culture. The dance journal / hk has provided a regular public forum for local dance critics and dance writers to engage in a dialogue with the dance community and its audience, has broadened the interest in dance to new audiences, and deepened the understanding of dance for its readers and the community. The firm foundation provided by Mr. Tsao’s and Ms. Wong’s production of the dance journal /hk during 1999 has enabled the Journal to continue to grow and reflect the needs of the community it serves.

The Hong Kong Dance Award 2000 is awarded to Mui Cheuk Yin in recognition of her efforts to spread the news about the excellence of Hong Kong dance to world. In 1999, Mr. Mui continued and intensified her touring and presentation of her work at festivals and dance concert venues throughout the world winning acclaim for her own work and by reflection for Hong Kong dance; generating interest in Hong Kong dance among her audiences and among dance professionals internationally. The reputation she has gained through her international touring has elevated her to a level achieved by only a handful of other international dance artists, performers, and choreographers and has insured Hong Kong as important place on the international dance map.

The Hong Kong Dance Award 2000 is awarded to Daniel Yeung for his highly inventive, masterfully composed, and exquisitely performed work Dance Exhibitionist – a Paradise for the Natural Body. As the inaugural performance for his own y.d theater, presented during the Hong Kong Dance Alliance’s All Independent Dance Series ’99, Mr. Yeung’s daring and complete integration of video and environmental elements into his choreography is an outstanding example of the very best of Hong Kong dance. At the same time that Mr. Yeung was able to shatter the audience’s preconceptions of the possibilities of dance, solo dance, multimedia dance, dance in small spaces, dance humor, and revelation through dance; he was also able to achieve a complete rapport and familiarity with his audience. Though his choreography, Mr. Yeung enabled his audiences to learn more about themselves.

The Hong Kong Dance Award 2000 is awarded to Yuri Ng for his masterfully rich choreography of Ciao Ciao Suzy Wong. In this arresting work, Mr. Ng beautifully weaves together elements that reflect the complex fabric that constitutes Hong Kong’ unique cultural voice. Mr. Ng’s use of props in his choreography to develop extended metaphors of the components that go into the intricate mixture that are emblematic of Hong Kong’s diversity are utterly modern while being firmly grounded in tradition. In Ciao Ciao Suzy Wong, he takes this tradition and thrusts it, uncompromisingly into the present, using elements previously employed to reaffirm the status quo, instead, to pose new models and question the old. He accomplished this while being sensitive to his dancers’ individual voices and allowing their concerns to emerge.

The Hong Kong Dance Award 2000 is awarded to the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts School of Dance for its production of Willy Tsao’s paean to modernism Birdsong. In their performance of this masterwork, by Hong Kong’s most renown exponent of modern dance, the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts School of Dance demonstrated its increasing prominence as an international professional dance education center. The Academy joined a number of other professional dance companies and tertiary professional dance education organizations that have also performed Mr. Tsao’s poetic dance that depicts the rite of passage from realization of constraint to aspirations of freedom. The Academy’s modern dance students distinguished themselves in this eminent field through their fully realized and expert performance of the work.

The Hong Kong Dance Award 2000 is awarded to Lim Chee Keat for his sensitive and multi-faceted performance in the Hong Kong Dance Company’s production of Helen Lai’s choreography A Wanderer’s Autumn Grief. Mr. Lim’s eloquent and fluid performance of Ms. Lai’s fusion of modern vocabulary with Shen Yun’s manipulation of the fan spoke volumes of this total immersion and commitment to the work. Mr. Lim’s performance drew his audience into the character’s emotional turmoil, his inner landscape, and enabled us to experience the cleansing and elevation of the soul that occurs through catharsis, the mark of a mature and masterful artist.

The Hong Kong Dance Award 2000 is awarded to the Hong Kong Dance Company for its re-run production of Jiang Hua Xin’s exquisite choreography Ju Dou. In his translation into dance of Zhang Yi Mou’s film masterpiece, Jiang Hua Xuan has choreographed his own fully nuanced and visually perfect dance masterwork. The Hong Kong Dance Company’s remounting of the work in 1999 gave full measure to the work in all its resplendent glory. Dancer excelled in their art, exhibiting a full range of movement expertise, shifting fluidly from classical, to folk, to modern dance forms and enabling each part of the work to enjoy the exactly appropriate inflection within these broad stylistic boundaries.

The Hong Kong Dance Award 2000 is awarded to Helen Lai for her exquisite choreography of the production Summer Solstice for the City Contemporary Dance Company. One of Hong Kong’s foremost choreographers, Helen Lai consistently creates highly innovative dance works that garner local and international acclaim. In Summer Solstice, Ms. Lai re-interprets Sophocles’ ancient Greek tragedy of Antigone trough movement and sound, setting this sensational classic in the bustling piazza outside Hong Kong’s Cultural Center on the longest day of the year. By juxtaposing the timeless Western tragedy with contemporary Hong Kong, Ms. Lai re-invigorates and re-invents the work for modern audiences. In so doing, she once again reveals her genius for sensitively incorporating the environment, capturing the heart of her literary sources, and fusing dance, drama and the here and now into compelling and authentic theater.

The Hong Kong Dance Award 2000 is awarded to Wu Yi-san for her poignant performance in the City Contemporary Dance Company’s production of Helen Lai’s masterwork Summer Solstice. Within her petite physique, Ms. Wu embodies a powerful dance instrument that she uses with consummate artistry in her exploration of dance roles. In Summer Solstice the dual role of ancient Greek tragic heroine, Antigone and the modern-day soul imprisoned by life are brought exquisitely to realization in Ms. Wu’s stunning performance. Though performed in the outdoor piazza of the Hong Kong Cultural Center, Ms. Wu’s riveting ten-minute solo served as a focal point for the production, drawing the attention of passers’ by and moving many to tears with its depth of feeling. Ms. Wu’s performance is the distillation of the art of dancing into magic.

The Hong Kong Dance Award 2000 is awarded to the City Contemporary Dance Company Education and Outreach Department for their all embracing and continuous efforts on behalf of dance education and the promotion of all forms of dance to diverse audiences throughout Hong Kong. The City Contemporary Dance Company Education and Outreach Department takes dance to primary, secondary, tertiary, and specialist schools, community centers, centers for the elderly and handicapped, and performs in community events, and at special dance exhibitions in the Hong Kong community. In addition to presenting special performances, the Department provides dance classes in all dance forms to the community at large, in special sessions at schools and venues, and in its own studios. Thought its efforts, interest in dance has blossomed and the appreciation and respect for dance as a multi-faceted and diverse cultural expression, available to all, continues to grow.anslates the choreographer’s vision into a palpable presence that never overshadows the choreography but works to amplify the work’s sweeping impact.

The Hong Kong Dance Award 2000 is awarded to the Hong Kong Ballet in recognition of their efforts to establish Hong Kong as an important exponent of ballet in Asia through their extensive 1999 tour to mainland China. The Hong Kong Ballet brought its own brand of ballet dancing into China’s heartland and exhibited through their innovative programming and technical excellence the vitality and versatility of Hong Kong ballet dancing. In so doing they challenged the conception of China’s prominence in this genré and established themselves and Hong Kong as not simply equals but leaders in the art form.