ON VIEW: HONG KONG | Abby Chan
“Abby Chan possesses a theatrical flair,a global vision,and a rich sense of the contemporary.” ── Sue Healey
Abby Chan is a graduate of the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts,and was a dancer and guest choreographer with the Hong Kong City Contemporary Dance Company from 1991 to 1998. The founder of Chan-Can-Dance Theatre and co-artistic director of Mcmuimui Dansemble,she received the Lee Hysan Foundation Fellowship of the Asian Cultural Council to present her work in New York. In New York her work has been presented at various theatres and festivals including the Mulberry Street Theatre, Joyce SoHo, the chashama OASIS Festival, the Brooklyn Arts Exchange Women’s Performance Festival, 92nd Street Y, Galapagos Art Space, Chen Dance Center and La MaMa.
Chan’s choreography has been performed in Hong Kong, Guangzhou, Taipei, Singapore, Seoul, Tokyo, Kyoto, Malaysia, Sydney, Sao Paulo, Colorado and New York, and she is a four-time recipient of the Hong Kong Dance Award.
In addition to her dance work,Chan has collaborated and performed with a number of theatre companies,showcasing her versatility in performing arts. Recent appearances include Candace Chong’s play Wild Boar,directed by Olivia Yun for the 40th Hong Kong Arts Festival; Unlock Dancing Plaza’s first serial cross-disciplinary creation,the trilogy Walls 44; and her own free-form dance theatre production Kidult Ophelia. She was also the director of movement for the Dionysus Contemporary Theatre productions Equus and A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Chan featured as an actress in the local independent movie Pseudo Secular,and performed and served as director of movement for O Theatre Workshop’s Black Monday and Reframe Theatre’s A Concise History of Future in Hong Kong’s New Vision Arts Festival.
Her latest production, Cattle Runway, mixes theatre, multimedia, and a live string quartet to create an exhibition-like experience of a catwalk and fast fashion that explores the dynamics of contemporary human behaviour.
Website: www.abbychancandance.com