Life is Sweet

Hi, I'm Lindsey and I'm working with 2 groups who will be performing at the Urban Dance Festival. We shall be creating work for Tong Chong Street (or Sugar Factory Street in English) hence the name of our dance "Life is Sweet'!!
The name of the street refers to the sugar refining plant which was one of Swire’s initiatives to encourage diversity of trades and expand in a number of new directions. The first of these initiatives began with the purchase of several large blocks of land at Quarry Bay on Hong Kong Island in 1881. Work soon started on the Taikoo Sugar Refinery and the factory was in production by 1883.

My group will work collaboratively to create choreography...so everyone can input their ideas...rather than me 'teach' them a set piece with steps (not my thing!) I try to use different stimuli to inspire the dances...words, images, music, poems, etc.

There are 2 very cool art works on Tong Chong St. both by the 60's artist Allen Jones they are entitled "City Shadow 1 & 2" and they look at positive & negative space...which reminds me of one of the poems I found when goggling "Life is Sweet"

“As you wander through your life, friend
Whatever be your goal
Keep your eyes upon the donut
And not upon the hole”

The piece will be created to draw attention to the focus in our lives…do the people on the street celebrate the donut or get absorbed in the hole? Does society focus on the sweet things in their lives or embrace the negative instead?

We are back!!

After the huge success of Swire Island East Urban Dance Festival in 2007, YAF is organising the dance festival again this year to further promote and encourage a dance atmosphere in the Hong Kong Island East and provide entertainments for the business community and local residents in the area. As a known contributor to the arts, Urban Dance Festival will act as a major arts event that further establish SWIRE Island East’s key role in promoting a healthy cultural atmosphere in Hong Kong.

The focus of the dance festival in 2007 was on site-specific dance, it has proven that site-specific dance works though abstract in concept, could be equally well received with the audience. The proximity between performers and audience is uncommon to most dance festivals in Hong Kong, where audiences can only obtain a fixed view of the performance, whereas, site-specific dance helps breaking down the wall between dancers and audiences and creates a much friendlier, spontaneous and stimulating art experience.

Urban Dance Festival 2009 will still maintain the format of dancing in specific chosen sites. Contemporary dance techniques will remain as a chief dance form but we will also incorporate other forms of dance for varieties. For example, choreographers might be using flamingo techniques to create a piece, or mixing jazz style to a contemporary work.

This year’s focus will be on local professional and emerging dance groups to emphasise our commitment on promoting dance within our community. Local professional dance groups will be commissioned to create an original piece for the festival at a chosen site in and around One Island East and Tong Chong Street. Youth dance groups formed by local secondary schools will also be invited as part of our artist-in-residence program to devise new dances for the festival. UDF 2009 will grow the arts education element to include more pre-festival on-site rehearsals and technique workshops for youth as well as dance professionals; a photography exhibition element will also be incorporated to introduce dance in a different medium. On the day dance workshops, guided tours and ambience roving characters will remain as key features in the Festival with the addition of percussion group to lift the festival atmosphere.

The festival will be able to develop more dance opportunities for local dance artists and choreographers, and will also give insights on how to further their career as a professional dancer. As for the public, Urban Dance Festival will bring dance to their doorsteps and provide exciting, impulsive and entertaining cultural experience to everyone. Hopefully it will eventually grow into an international dance festival, which dance groups from all over the world will actively participate at the Festival. And cement Hong Kong in a leading position as an arts hub for the international dance community.