Dance of Strings: When Western Music Meets Chinese Folk Songs and Dance

Description

In this piece of performance, Yang Yuntao, Artistic Director of Hong Kong Dance Company, works closely with Yao Jue, world-renowned violinist and Lam Fung, top Asian composer, to examine Chinese folk music with a Hong Kong perspective. It has been 5 years since Yang’s last cooperation with Yao in the Grand Dance Poem of The Butterfly Lovers. Once again after their last collaboration for The Butterfly Lovers , Yang and Yao create together a moving performance that delights and enchants the audience.

Accomplished dancer and choreographer, Yang was a winner in the Hong Kong Dance Awards in 2003 and 2006 for his outstanding dance performance, and was awarded Best Artist (Dance) in the Hong Kong Arts Development Awards 2009. He joined HKDC in 2002 as Principal Dancer. He has been HKDC’s Artistic Director since November 2013. Yang’s award-winning choreography credits for HKDC include: Spring Ritual · Eulogy, winner of Outstanding Achievement in Production at the 2013 Hong Kong Dance Awards and presented in Beijing and Taipei in 2013; The Legend of Mulan, winner of Outstanding Production and Outstanding Ensemble Performance in the 2014 Hong Kong Dance Awards and presented in New York and Sydney in 2015 and in London in 2017; Storm Clouds, winner of three awards in the 2015 Hong Kong Dance Awards; and L’Amour Immortel, winner of three awards in the 2016 Hong Kong Dance Awards and presented in Beijing and Guangzhou in 2017.

Yao Jue’s professional career has been punctuated by widely acclaimed performances throughout Asia, Europe and the United States. She is the only violinist to be included in the 1995 book China’s Famous Females published by the International Women’s Congress in Beijing. Her photo graces the cover with the caption “Jue Yao’s playing shows that the Chinese have reached a world-class level in music making.”

A graduate of the Beijing Dance Academy, award-winning dancer Huang Lei joined HKDC in 2001 and has performed in Dream Dances, Water Margin, Princess Changpin, Everlasting Love, Seven Sages of the Bamboo Grove, Spring Ritual.Eulogy, The Legend of Mulan, The Butterfly Lovers, Chinese Hero: A Lone Exile and Lady White of West Lake. Huang has performed with many other companies in Hong Kong, including the Hong Kong Sinfonietta (A Soldier’s Story), Zuni Icosahedron (B.O.B) and Tang Shu-wing Theatre Studio’s Thunderstorm presented at the New Vision Arts Festival and Kuandu Arts Festival.