Freespace Dance 2024:
FIRST Creation Platform:
Presentations by Independent Artists
(Scarlet Yu and Woo Yat-hei)
23.11.2024
6:00pm
The Room, Freespace
WestK
- Please switch off your mobile phones and any other sound and light emitting devices before the performance.
- No eating and drinking in the venue. Unauthorised photography and audio or video recording are not allowed.
- The presenter reserves the right to make changes to the programme.
About FIRST Creation Platform
Independent local choreographers offer first looks at new creative ideas and share insight into their creation process
Launched in 2023, FIRST is an interactive artistic platform designed to encourage local choreographers to share new work-in-progress and practice-in-development ideas.
As a creation research and development platform, FIRST invites dance artists or artist groups to individually present and explore new concepts in any format. At the same time, the audience and industry peers can offer feedback and suggestions that support the future development of these ideas.
This year, the platform features work-in-progress presentations by TS Crew (Hong Kong) x contact Gonzo (Osaka) and Hong Kong artist Zelia ZZ Tan, as well as sharing sessions with local dance artists and their collaborators, including Scarlet Yu, Woo Yat-hei, Chan Wai-lok with Larry Shuen and Wayson Poon with Kong Chan.
Creative Concept
Scarlet Yu’s microbial dance floor is where bodies and microbes converge. This initial phase of her research delves into how the intra-relational body - through untamed food, dance, microbiome and the exploration of postmemory - becomes a lens to examine memory, survival and transformation.
Creative Team
Choreographer:
- Scarlet Yu
Special Appearance:
- Bobbi Chen
Clinical Science Advisor:
- Dr Amy Chan Bik-wan
About the Artists
Scarlet Yu
Choreographer
Scarlet Yu is an artist born and raised in Hong Kong, currently living in Berlin.
She centres her choreographic practices on collaboration, coexistence and in-betweenness. Her work challenges dominant narratives through embodiment and explores its intra-relationship with memory, heritage and identities. Yu creates work that fosters dialogue and shared experiences, and her work has been presented in museums, galleries, theatres and public spaces.
In 2018, she served as a jury member for Tanzplattform Germany and was selected for the ADAM Artist Lab and Hombroich: Summer Fellows in 2017. She holds a Master’s in Choreography from The Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts.
Dr Amy Chan Bik-wan
Clinical Science Advisor
Honorary Clinical Associate Professor, Faculty of Medicine, The Chinese University of Hong Kong
Dr Amy Chan Bik-wan is a consultant histopathologist subspecialised in head and neck pathology and dental pathology. She currently holds the posts of Honorary Clinical Associate Professor of The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Honorary Associate Professor and PhD Co-supervisor of the University of Hong Kong and Executive Board Member of the international Multidisciplinary Salivary Gland Society. Additionally, she possesses a Master of Science degree in bioinformatics and genomics. Her contributions to the field encompass over 40 publications, along with roles as an international conference speaker and a journal reviewer. Chan is also a light and theatre artist, delving into the relationality and materiality of light and traversing the intersections of light and music, theatre and installation, and the arts and science. Notable works include light installation-performances Seen/Unseen, Things That Talk, Morbid Anatomy and Memento Mori: Sonata for Light.
Creative Concept
Transforming the theatre space into a traffic island to allow everyone to engage in dialogue with themselves and the realities they care about
Artist Woo Yat-hei has drawn inspiration from the concept of reclamation to create Traffik Is-Land, both as the action of reclaiming and as a subject matter, particularly focusing on land reclamation. When discussing reclamation, there is often an underlying assumption that certain things have yet to be recognised, recovered or developed. He is fascinated by the idea that some things remain incomplete or pending completion.
Land reclamation is a significant part of the history of urban development in Hong Kong. Since the mid-19th century, it has served as a crucial tool for the city to address the needs of its growing population and expand the supply of usable land. Hong Kong has undergone continuous transformation through a series of land reclamation projects. The relationship between a city and its land has inspired Woo to delve into the potential of creating new structures atop existing ones.
In this research proposal, Woo has adopted two approaches. Firstly, he examines land reclamation, urban development and spatial studies as resources for artistic concept development. He looked into different land reclamation cases, investigating construction methods, models, materials and their connection to human geography.
In the second artistic approach, Woo explores the potential of enacting acts or gestures of reclamation within a shared temporal space. Through exploring a poetic expression of the body, as well as utilising interactions among movements, objects and spaces, he engages in a dialogue with the audience. By attempting to contemplate the relationship between the body and the concept of reclamation, he reveals its diverse forms, ultimately creating a series of events that generate open-ended interpretations.
In this work-in-progress, Woo reimagines the theatre space as a metaphorical traffic island where everyone spends some time together, fostering dialogues between ourselves and the realities we care about.
About the Artists
Photo: Maximillian Cheng
Woo Yat-hei
Choreographer and Performer
Woo Yat-hei is a Hong Kong dancer, actor and choreographer. He graduated from The Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts with a BFA in Contemporary Dance and Choreography. As an independent dance artist, he has collaborated with various renowned companies and artists across the fields of dance, theatre and film.
His recent works include Konstantin’s Video Essay (2022, Institute of Imagination by FELIXISM CREATION), I Drag Deep Thought Word (2023, Room712) and I Drag Deep Thought Word: Open Field (2024, Unlock Dancing Plaza: Open Research Week).
He also formed a cross-disciplinary collective that conducted fieldwork and research on San Lau Street in the Sha Tau Kok Frontier Closed Area, focusing on the ongoing interactions and intersections among the community dynamics shaped by contextual and structural factors.
Photo: Eric Hong @ Moon 9 Image
Step Ip
Sound Designer
Step Ip works in theatre sound design and electronic music composition for contemporary dance, music productions, multimedia art and sound art performances. She has collaborated with Zuni Icosahedron, City Contemporary Dance Company, West Kowloon Freespace Noise Fest 2024, Choreographer and Composer Lab, Littlebreath Creative Workshop, Make Music Work II etc. She is a music production graduate from The Hong Kong Academy Performing Arts. She was supported by soundpocket’s Artist Support Programme (2022-23) (Special Edition). She is a live musician and she has an experimental band called Virgin Vacation, touring in Taiwan, Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen and Tokyo. They had been nominated as The Best Asian Creative Artist Gima Award.
Presented by
