City Contemporary Dance Festival 2024【Advanced Booking】
As the leaves turn golden, let’s ignite ardency with a 45°C flame and heat up a feast celebrating the body, dance and harvest.
What are the concepts behind ‘An Ardent °Fall’? It is the latitude and longitude of winter, spring, summer going to autumn. It is an immeasurable and measureless formula, reaping and amassing what has been sown. It is both yields and experiences, at once harvesting and sharing. It is not fervent acclaims, but full blooms; not reaping, but sowing; not the past, but the future. It is embracing, celebration, and living in the present.
Marking the 45th anniversary of City Contemporary Dance Company (CCDC), the Dance Season 2024/25 is themed on autumn, while refining dance into numbers. It is maths, it is romance, it is dance. 45-year-old Justyne Li has conceived the opening performance for CCDC’s 45th dance season to honour happiness 45² times; (5-12)∞ little dancers slide into a wonderland; two cross-generational choreographers Helen Lai and Chou Shu-yi take inspiration from Bei Dao’s poem February, exploring particular movements and shadows in twofold; Qiao Yang, following her solo dance at the age of 55, will perform a new work by Sang Jijia tailor-made for her at the age of 60. Collaborating with two guest dancers, Luo Fan and Kelvin Mak, the work is transformed into three different ‘sound frequencies’ to reverberate the snowing sound at (55+3)Hz.
An Ardent °Fall – the accumulation is complicated and the assessment is even more so. Why not make it into a revelry? Dissolve the barriers, infuse imagination, and remove the constraints. This is an unending banquet. As the leaves turn golden, our expression keeps flowing.
Advance Booking:
1. 50% discount for full-time students/ senior citizens aged 60 or above/ people with disabilities and the minder/ CSSA recipients. They must present valid proof of identity when entering the performance venue.
2. Concession tickets for full-time students are available on a first-come-first-served basis. ( Except the programme Sliding into Heart )
3. All discounts are applied to standard tickets only.
4. Prices to be rounded up to the nearest dollar. Ticket discounts can only be applied once per ticket.
5. One person per ticket regardless of age and subject to age limit specified for each programme. Tickets sold are non-refundable.
6. Discounted tickets are limited and available on a first-come, first-served basis. Allocation of seats will be at the discretion of CCDC.
7. No other discount will be offered during advance booking. Other discounts with partners and performing arts groups are only applicable during public sales.
8. CCDC reserves the right to add, withdraw or substitute the programme, artists, seating arrangements and audience capacity.
【Exquisite Dancing Bodies Meeting Fervent Classic Tunes – An Orchestration of Future Visions for the Human Race】
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is evolving exponentially, and even starting to develop its own self-consciousness. The boundaries of human cognition are becoming less defined… Can humans take charge of technology, or will they be replaced by it? An intersection of time and space, a clash of the classic and the futuristic, and a battle between the flesh and a mysterious mastermind will take place on stage. In the thick of external commands and self-consciousness, is autonomy still possible? Is the thrill from the struggle between autonomy and manipulation quantifiable?
Intermediate generation choreographer Justyne Li shows care towards humanity and the present era, along with her curiosity. After three years of cultivation, her short work Ode to Joy has been reshaped with her idiosyncratic contemporary vocabulary, guiding dance artists to push their bodies beyond their imagination. A tug-of-war between the flesh and technology is looming on the horizon. The audience is invited to enter a programmed realm in another dimension of time and space, and witness the dancing bodies oscillate between two extreme mental states.
In the 0 and 1 computer world, explore the intricated connections between human autonomy and the constantly progressing technology. Let’s open the ‘Pandora’s Box’ of artificial intelligence on stage.
Choreography and Direction: Justyne LI
Dramaturgy: Melissa LEUNG
Set and Lighting Design: Lawmanray
Costume Design: Cindy HO
Sound Design: WAN San Hong
Performance: AN Tzu-huan, Felix CHUN, Suyi HON, Felix KE, Eric KWONG, Genie LOK, SHUM Pui-yung, Nini WANG, Tanki WONG, Skye YAO, Simpson YAU, Tally ZHUANG
Tickets are now available at URBTIX
Approximately 70 minutes.
Audience of aged 6 or above are welcomed.
The performance contains strong lighting, strobe effects, loud sound effects and smoke.
Listen to the fleeting moments of clarity, behold the refined beauty.
Every dimension of experience shimmering and pulsating
Snow,
drifting onto the shoulders of time;
those fleeting moments, moments in wavering prime.
Tenderness carried…
carrying
persistence's weight, gentle and bright;
breath, in - out -
tiny and deep, weaving into threads;
taste of life, afterwards,
facing the ever-changings;
a dance of deep echoes,
on snow we tread,
to future we go.
Choreography: Sang Jijia
Music: Dickson Dee
Dramaturgy: Janice POON
Set Design: YUEN Hon-wai
Lighting Design: Lawmanray
Costume Design: Taurus WAH
Sound Design: Anthony YEUNG
Video Design: Adrian YEUNG
Performance: QIAO Yang, LUO Fan, Kelvin MAK
The programme is approximately 65 minutes
This new music work is commissioned by City Contemporary Dance Co. Ltd in 2024 with sponsorship from CASH Music Fund.
International Arts Carnival 2024: 'Sliding into Heart'
As the hand-clapping game goes ‘Siu Ming Siu Ming Siu Siu Ming, up up down down left left right right front front back back…puff’, where has he slid to? This dance season, the household name ‘Siu Ming’ becomes the protagonist. Let’s slide into a mysterious territory to experience an ‘extra-ordinary’ adventure.
Choreographers Shirley Lok and Peggy Lam join hands to explore familiar everyday elements and themes among children and grown-ups. Against a whimsical backdrop with captivating projections, CCDC dance artists will lead young dancers to embark on an awe-inspiring discovery on stage. We invite you and your family members to be part of this family-friendly contemporary dance adventure!
Concept, Choreography and Direction: Shirley LOK
Concept and Dramaturgy: Alysa LEUNG
Co-choreography and Rehearsal Coaching: Peggy LAM
Set and Lighting Design: Lawmanray
Costume Design: Cheryl CHING
Sound Design: LEUNG Po-wing
Video Design: LO Wing
Creation and Performance: CCDC Dance Artists, Young Dancers
Integrating contemporary dance, visual arts and installation, dancing bodies intersect with projection visuals and wander through the historic building on the hill surrounded by sea view. In this revitalised heritage site located in the southern part of Hong Kong, the past and present meet.
CCDC's award-winning resident choreographer Sang Jijia leads multidisciplinary artists to create a site-specific performance at The Pokfulam Farm, a revitalisation project which transformed the former Old Dairy Farm Senior Staff Quarters. Under the mesmerising moving landscape at the Pokfulam Farm, a uniquely curated immersive theatre experience for the audience awaits through video mapping, sound design and installation.
The past and the present encounter in the twilight.
Everything echoes.
In time, we shall meet.
Meeting In-between Time has been premiered in 2022, it was awarded 'Outstanding Alternative Space Production' and nominated for 'Outstanding Choreography' at the 24th Hong Kong Dance Awards. CCDC is bringing this highly acclaimed performance back to the audience along with its celebration for the 45th Anniversary.
'Certain Movements and Shadows'
Amid the shifting tapestry of light and shadow, a quiet pursuit awakens…
Bei Dao pens the despair and hope of the city
Fleeting light shifts, shadows entwine – an elusive dance of glimmers and reflections
Poetry and movement intertwine; she, he, and his verses descend together
How do scattered fragments piece together gestures and shadows
To revisit an era of memories, a city, a place of solace, perhaps even the roots of life itself?
Renowned choreographers Helen Lai and Chou Shu-yi join forces in this collaboration that bridges generations and regions. Drawing inspiration from Bei Dao's poetry, the duo crafts a brand-new work where CCDC dancers use their bodies and movements to paint a novel dance landscape. This fusion of light, shadow, and live music features a score composed by the promising young musician Olivier Cong, backed by a stellar production team of local theatre veterans – including stage designer Lee Chi-wai, CCDC's Resident Lighting Designer Lawmanray, costume designer Taurus Wah, video designer Lo Wing, and sound designer Leung Po-wing. Together, we invite the audiences and the city to embark on a mesmerising and enigmatic journey.