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Ground Search 3

Venue

Arts Pavilion, West Kowloon Cultural District

Date and time (HKT)

17 Oct (Thu) 14:00

Pass holder

FULLDAYSTUDENT

Full pass holders, Day pass holders and Students pass holders are eligible to attend

Language

English mainly, supplemented with Cantonese or Mandarin

Date & Time	Sessions
17th October (Thu)
14:00 – 14:30	COMMON GROUND
14:45 – 15:15	Wayson Poon
15:30 – 16:00	Unlock Dancing Plaza
16:15 – 16:45	Alysa Leung@ If Time’s Limited
17:00 – 17:30	Labora Terry Arts
17:45 – 18:15	Hong Kong New Music Ensemble
18:30 – 19:00	Yeung Ming Cantonese Opera Troupe

COMMON GROUND

www.kennyleungdance.com

Common Ground was founded in 2021 by a group of dreamers from contemporary dance, drama and street dance exploring the nature and possibilities of performing arts in a limitless cross-disciplinary creative dimension. Founding Artistic Director Kenny Leung has created several cross-disciplinary programmes for the company, including Body Codes II: Performscape (2021) which was nominated for Outstanding Small Venue Production at the Hong Kong Dance Awards. His latest full-length theatrical work is Imagined Altar (2024).

Imagined Altar

Imagined Altar—A ritualistic encounter of exotic mysteries

Imagined Altar transforms the theatre into a tribal altar, inviting audiences into a cabinet of curiosities filled with exotic cultures. Four folk sculptures come to life in a flash unleashing energy with wild abandon. Vigorous and intense, Imagined Altar is a ritualistic dance fiesta in celebration of life!

Choreographer Kenny Leung's first attempt in merging dance theatre with the viewing experience of exhibition was his critically acclaimed work Body Codes II: Performscape. Continuing his exploration of “exhibiting theatre”, the new full-length work sparks our reimagination of cultural heritage and tribal unity through a contemporary interpretation of folk dance.

Wayson Poon

www.onthewayson.com

Hong Kong-based contemporary dance artist Wayson Poon has lived and worked in Europe and Asia as a creator, performer and researcher. His unique practice, known as OnthewayDance, combines spiritual methodologies both East and West guided by Taoist notions of qi while emphasising the connection between dancer and audience. Notable works include Fleeing by night, in,visible(cities);, Vortex, Moving a memory and PHONATE. His works have toured festivals in Denmark, Finland, Japan, Italy, China and the United Kingdom.

Poon received the Award for Young Artist (Dance) at the Hong Kong Arts Development Award in 2016. He was a recipient of the Asian Cultural Council Fellowship in 2019 to further develop his movement research. He received the Dr Tom Brown Memorial Scholarship and the Hong Kong Jockey Club Music and Dance Fund Scholarship in 2022 to pursue his Master’s degree at The Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts.

~~PHONATE~~

PHONATE (un/taped)
The contemporary dance piece PHONATE premiered at the WestK Freespace in February 2023. It delved into dance movement research, centering on internal organ movement and incorporating the artist's concerns about social issues. PHONATE (un/taped) is a deconstruction of the original choreography. During this 30-minute presentation, the audience will witness the unravelling of various layers of ~~PHONATE~~ and gain insight into its future.

Unlock Dancing Plaza

www.unlock.com.hk

Unlock Dancing Plaza is one of Hong Kong’s most forward-thinking and adventurous contemporary dance companies. Founded in 2002 by Ong Yong Lock and Elsie Chau, the company has been financially supported by the Hong Kong Arts Development Council since 2009. In 2022, Joseph Lee succeeded Ong as Artistic Director, with Ong becoming Creative Director (Public Engagement) focusing on outreach and community programmes. Determined to extend possibilities in dance, Unlock aspires to develop a diverse performing arts ecology. Free from institutionalised dance aesthetics, the company proposes to redefine dance as a natural form of self-expression, honouring individuality and breaking from the production-focused goals. In recent years, Unlock has made new attempts to conduct various experimental projects to reimagine dance.

The Sound

Turning the idea of dance on its head, The Sound explores the sophisticated interpersonal relationship through the shifting of voice, energy and space. Our names are verbalised, becoming fragmented and then reassemble only for the command to make a mini-sofa of plastic bags. Though the sofa grows in size, everyone could only perch on top of it in mid-air.

Public Participation—Body on Stage

This series suits a wide range of people and aims to inspire participants with different backgrounds. Teaching processes and creative workshops combine to explore the interaction between dance artists and participants. Everyday objects such as plastic bags, tennis balls, A4 paper and other materials are used to probe body movement and perception in performance. These objects not only serve as props, but are also endowed with vividness and artistic values through associations with certain retrospective and introspective qualities. While interacting with these objects, participants create free dance works. The company will also arrange opportunities for performances to present the pieces to the public. As a result, the participants can get bodily satisfaction from performance.

Alysa Leung@If Time’s Limited

www.alysaleungprojects.com

www.iftimeslimited.com

Alysa is an artist and dramaturg based in Hong Kong, travelling between Asia and Europe. She graduated with an M.A. in Contemporary Theatre, Dance and Dramaturgy at Utrecht University (2021‒2022) with a full Holland Scholarship. She is devoted to combining sites, body and self-identity connections with artistic research, experimental performance and community arts. Her research interest ranges from cities to oceanic cultures.

In 2024, she formed “If Time’s Limited”, a multidisciplinary collective of independent artists and researchers working in a fluid configuration in artistic research and performance projects, focussing on the relationality and open exploration that fluidity enables.

[Lecture Performance] Once upon a time, there was a pirate queen in Hong Kong Waters…

Hong Kong is a metropolis; Hong Kong is a metropolitan city by the sea. If the sea keeps memories, what does it record about us?

Inspired by the pirate queen Zheng Yi Sao, Beyond the Shore is an artistic research series connecting mythology, history and gender through interdisciplinary dance performance, inviting the audience to reimagine oceanic narratives with an archipelagic perspective. Creative collaborators of Beyond the Shore include dance artist Alysa Leung, dramaturg Dr Evelyn Wan and film director Anson Sham.

The lecture performance contextualises previous research and artistic practice surrounding water legends from Hong Kong to the Asian region reflecting on contemporary notions of body/identity. Beyond the Shore series has already been presented in various formats in Itoshima, Peng Chau and Surabaya.

Labora Terry Arts

linktr.ee/LaboraTerryArts

Terry Tsang

An emerging Hong Kong choreographer and independent dancer, Terry Tsang was nominated for Outstanding Performance (Male Dancer) at the Hong Kong Dance Awards in 2019. In 2023, he received the Tom Brown Emerging Choreographer Award and the Award for Outstanding Online Production for Labora-Terry Landscape at the Hong Kong Dance Awards. Tsang received the Award for Young Artist (Dance) at the Hong Kong Arts Development Awards in 2024.

An alumnus of The Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts majoring in Contemporary Dance, Tsang was a full-time dancer in the City Contemporary Dance Company (CCDC) between 2013 and 2019. An independent artist since 2019, his work Mo Ngaan Tai appeared in the “New Force in Motion” series and was later restaged at other festivals. In 2020, he started “Hell-door-breaking”, a dance research project inspired by traditional Cantonese funeral rituals, and created Travel of Soul Time AFTER Time for CCDC. The same year, he served as an artist-in-residence at the University of Michigan’s Department of Music, Theatre & Dance.

In 2023, his company Labora Terry Arts was established to explore future artistic landscapes.

Hell Door Breaking

Terry has been accustomed to mysterious and fearful Chinese traditional rituals such as funerals (“Po Di Yu”, literally “Hell Door Breaking”) and ritual operas (“Shen Gong Xi”) since childhood.

From 2019 onward, Tsang studied scriptures from Taoist priests to learn more about traditional rituals.

Since then, he has used dance, ritual, music, movement and dance videos to share his research on "Po Di Yu" at various performing arts venues and dance festivals in Hong Kong. In 2020, Terry-Fying—Work-In Progress Showcase was supported by Tai Kwun as the first stage of research presentation.

Two years later, the second research phase, Backtrack-ing, was part of the Hong Kong Dance Exchange (HDX) at the Hong Kong Cultural Centre’s Studio Theatre. In 2023, Travel of Soul Time AFTER Time, the full-length choreographic work marked the third research phase. It graced the stage of the Kwai Tsing Theatre Auditorium in collaboration with the City Contemporary Dance Company.

Hong Kong New Music Ensemble

www.hknme.org

Founded in 2008 by William Lane, the Hong Kong New Music Ensemble (HKNME) is one of Asia's leading contemporary music groups, dedicated to performing modern compositions at the highest level. The Ensemble has premiered numerous works worldwide, many commissioned by HKNME, at prestigious festivals and venues such as the Hong Kong Arts Festival, Tongyeong International Music Festival and MONA FOMA. Since 2012, HKNME has been annually funded by the Hong Kong Arts Development Council.

shapes songs

shapes songs is an initiative of the Hong Kong New Music Ensemble bringing adventurous music to young people. It aims to make contemporary music fun and accessible to our youth, harnessing their collective, energetic spirit early in their educational journey.

Curated by internationally renowned artist Samson Young, the project features 18 new duets for young students to perform with their teachers. These diverse musical scores are recently published in a score book, and feature striking original illustrations inspired by the music of four Hong Kong artists, produced in close collaboration with Hong Kong Open Printshop.

In this presentation, HKNME’s CEO William Lane will introduce the music and art created for shapes songs, explain its pedagogical and artistic value and future potential, and introduce some special live performers.

Yeung Ming Cantonese Opera Troupe

lauwaiming.hk

Yeung Ming Cantonese Opera Troupe is dedicated to promoting Cantonese opera, nurturing talent within the field, fostering interest among the younger generation and safeguarding the genre’s cultural heritage. Through high-quality productions blending tradition with innovation, we aim to reshape perceptions and attract audiences. Our troupe has staged unique performances like the newly arranged The Purple Hairpin. Our original story Chi Kei and Pak Nga integrating tradition with technology was supported by the China National Arts Fund. Our performances have also extended globally to the United States, Singapore and mainland China, further promoting the beauty of Cantonese opera to the world.

Passing on Tradition, Shining in the East

Passing on Tradition, Shining in the East is a 10-minute mini-Cantonese opera showcase backed by the Chinese National Arts Fund in 2024. This production highlights various iconic Cantonese opera excerpts, presented by our professional actor Lau Wai Ming and young talents from the Ming Yeung Arts House. Such cross-generational collaboration aims to preserve and pass on the essence of this art form. The production stays true to Cantonese opera customs with exquisite costumes and props with great visual appeal. Noteworthy is the leading role played by one of the few remaining female Cantonese opera artists excelling in male roles, promising a fresh experience for the audience. The show also features segments from our original production Chi Kei and Pak Nga supported by China National Arts Fund in 2023, which opens up avenues for exceptional works to shine in public performances.