In Hong Kong, multi-tasking comes naturally. At the office, people think nothing of talking on the phone and working on the computer at the same time. Out on the streets, they walk (or run), listen to music, send or receive text messages and chew gum simultaneously. Then there’s
Willy Tsao.

words yvonne teh

Not content with establishing Hong Kong’s City Contemporary Dance Company (CCDC) in 1979, Willy Tsao became its artistic director in 1989 and chief executive director in 2004. Then in 1992, he took on the artistic directorship of the Guangdong Modern Dance Company (GMDC) and formed the Beijing LDTX Modern Dance Company (LDTX) in 2005. Now the native Hong Konger can lay concrete claim to being the only artistic leader presiding over three dance companies in the world.

In the year he formed the Beijing company, Tsao melded the three modern dance troupes for a programme entitled A Trilogy of Modern Dance at the John F Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, DC. The New York Times described it as “delirious and joyful”. But until this June the three companies had never performed together in Tsao’s home territory.

And so Willy Tsao’s new show, Awakening, is a performance of three separate and quite different dance pieces, one from each of his companies. The title, he admits, occurred to him when, hunting for a less prosaic header than that used in the Washington show, he decided to draw directly from his experiences of more or less single-handedly establishing the three companies from square one – each represented a new dawn, a fresh beginning. And, as Tsao outlined to bc, “Modern dance itself is something quite new to China… Each individual piece [comes across or really] is new, [and] always we try to make people aware that something new is happening. Hence the title Awakening.”

As a rule, Tsao prefers companies to exercise their own creativity and develop an individual style rather than follow a direction he has set out. So he was very pleased to discover that with all three, “All I have to do is to tell them that they’re free to do whatever they want, and there’s enough talent there. Once they understand, they’ll give their best.”

And when he says, as far as he is concerned, inspiration for artistic expression can come from anywhere, the three companies proved it when they danced extracts from their performances at a recent press preview. CCDC resident choreographer Helen Lai’s It’s So Easy to Fall In Love, GMDC deputy artistic director Liu Qi’s Upon Calligraphy and LDTX’s Li Hanzhong and Ma Bo’s All River Red are a study in contrasts.

In speaking about her contribution to Awakening, Lai repeatedly uses the phrases “very personal” and “quite difficult”. The first is probably to be expected as the dance takes the audience on a dramatic journey that reveals the passion, sweetness and bitterness of romantic relationships. The ‘difficulty’ stems from the triple Hong Kong Dance Awards winner’s aim to show “the difficulty of creating a piece about love. My feeling [is] that to love is quite difficult and to begin something is also quite difficult”. Small wonder then that, as she admits, “The piece is still not finished. The choreography will probably be only finished two days before the performance!” It is that arduous to convey the struggles and torments love-afflicted individuals go through trying to relate and connect with each other.

Struggle is also a theme in LDTX’s All River Red but the focus here is on historical and contemporary issues facing many of Beijing’s residents. Putting on his LDTX hat, Tsao says that he decided to use Igor Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring for the music of this piece because many Beijingers find it musically encapsulates their experiences.

Right from the start, when The Rite of Spring prompted catcalls from some members of the audience and others stormed out at its 1913 premiere, there was little doubt this was a ‘breakthrough piece’. Although the LDTX’s very modern dance effort has drawn a much less negative reception wherever it has been performed (over 150 times now; though the Awakening dance gala will mark its Hong Kong debut), it has also has been described as a breakthrough that flouts conventions to the point of being revolutionary.

Nevertheless the excerpt from Liu Qi’s Upon Calligraphy is perhaps the most striking of the three. A dance piece on Chinese calligraphy, it is effectively a poem of movement derived from different styles of Chinese script, from the soft and flowing to the ancient one known as ‘the mother of every other Chinese script’, whose sharp, angular strokes were crafted onto bamboo sticks.

Liu’s choreography calls on its performers to creatively manipulate their bodies in ways that mimic and suggest the moments of calligraphy brushes as they are lifted into the air and pressed onto writing surfaces. She has ingeniously found the meeting point between modern dance and traditional Chinese calligraphy; yet she is quick to reassure those unfamiliar with this decorative writing style that the dance will be understood and appreciated by anyone who knows how to write – all will be able to relate to the energy, feeling and movements that fashion expression out of abstract script.

Awakening will be performed on June 1 and 2 at the Kwai Tsing Theatre Auditorium. Shows start at 8 pm. Tickets are $120, $160 and $220 from URBTIX, 2734 9009.