甩隙咔Luck-quacka

Aug 20

Dramaturgy and Reform of City Contemporary Dance Company during Hong Kong Social Unrest

DONG, Xianliang

Abstract

Since 2019, the socio-political movements have transformed the Hong Kong performing arts ecology. The City Contemporary Dance Company (CCDC), one of three major government-funded dance groups, had to make considerable reforms in its structure, finance, venues, and aesthetics to maintain routine operations due to the immediate withdrawal of its founder and former Artistic Director, Willy Tsao. While the new Artistic Director Yuri Ng assumed his duties, the company created the first full-time dramaturg position in the history of Hong Kong performing arts institutions by reallocating resources from different departments. In his new post, Ng’s first work, Luck-quacka, also included a company dramaturg and a guest dramaturg, intending to deconstruct CCDC’s hierarchical structure inherited from the collaborative colonial power. In retrospect to dramaturgs’ experience during the reform, this article demonstrates the position and intervention of dramaturgs in the existing relations of production in CCDC, as well as the contradictions of the choreographer, dramaturgs, and dancers through the collective artistic process. These challenges reflected that what stood urgent and fundamental for the dance company was reforming the creative system in response to the decolonization inquiries of the current political landscape; thus, the dramaturg’s practice of applying a democratic artistic methodology should persist and develop in the future.

Choreography

Yuri Ng, Noel Pong,
Ronly Kong and Peggy Lam

Dramaturgy

Melissa Leung, Dong Yan

Scenography

Siu Wai-man, Cindy Ho Pui-shan,
Lawmanray, Siu Tung and Anthony Yeung

Featured Performance

Dominic Wong and Ronald Tsang

Performance

CCDC Dance Artists and CCDC Dance Centre Dance Training Scholarship Scheme Students

CHEUNG King-yu, Felix KE, Eric KWONG, Bobo LAI

Chloe LAM*, Peggy LAM, LAM Zoi-hei*, Kammy LAU#