Curatorship
Care------the ancient meaning of ‘to curate’, has been expanded in the 21st century to encompass a connotation of criticality in the meticulous planning and execution of arts endeavour. To curate in the contemporary sense imagines the future based on the questions asked about the present, while awareness of historicity lingers.
‘Hong Kong Dance Research’ regards curatorship as the materialisation of the contemplation of the present and the future. By curating forward-looking and implementation-ready exchange projects, locally and overseas, for arts practitioners at non-specified intervals, we strive to instigate and facilitate diversified and ground-breaking thinking to open up perspectives for Hong Kong’s performing arts.
Practitioners’ conversation on dance and visual arts
Online Focus group
28/11/2020
Moderator: Joanna Lee
Discussants: Kingsan Lo, Fai Tsang, Ivy Tsui, Eddie Cheung, Felix Chan, Eveline Wong, Georgina Lo
Reading and sharing: Documenting Performance
Date: 23 February, 2021 (Tuesday) 7:30-9:30pm
The documentation and application of Hong Kong’s performing arts archive is far from satisfactory. Performance recordings stored on shelves and in carton boxes wait to see the day, only to find themselves sent to landfills. There is the need to establish knowledge on what to document, how to do so, systematisation, value determination, among others.
Documenting Performance (2017) edited by Toni Sant ‘is the first book to provide a collection of key writings about the process of documenting performance, focused not on questions of liveness or the artistic qualities of documents, but rather on the professional approaches to recovering, preserving and disseminating knowledge of live performance.’
Hong Kong Dance Research is presenting a reading and sharing sessions the book.
Discussants:
Dong Yan (PhD, Hong Kong City University, resident researcher of ‘Hong Kong Dance Research’)
Charles Lee (M. Phil, National Taiwan University, Research Assistant of Institute of Ethnology, Academia Sinica)
Joanna Lee (M Sc., The Chinese University of HK, co-founder of ‘Hong Kong Dance Research’)
Iris Tang (M.A., University of the Arts London, Benesh Choreologist)
Rendez-vous with Tam Po-shek
‘For decades, I have been exploring meditation, religious practice, and the arts. Once the path to take has been identified, start with changing the spiritual self. One’s art changes according to his heart. Meditation and life are the two sides of the same coin. There are no “methods” to practice or art expression if they do not coalesce with our lives,’ says Master Tam Po-shek.
Tam’s art crosses the fields of poetry, Chinese calligraphy and painting, literature, music, and photography. He is one of the few maestros in Hong Kong who integrates meditation, Chinese culture, philosophy, Buddhist study, music, Chinese painting and calligraphy in his teaching. ‘Dance Research Hong Kong’ invites Master Tam and some Hong Kong dance-makers to a conversation series on the nature, human, and the arts.
Moderator: Eveline Wong
Discussants: Cary Shiu, Wayson Poon
Observers: Felix Chan, Joanna Lee
Session 1: May Our Souls Keep Up With Our Pace (27 Dec 2020)
Session 2: Pause and Breathe with Your Heart ( 10 Jan 2021)
Session 3: The Habitual and the healthy (24 Jan 2021)
Session 4: The frustrating life of a performer (6 Feb 2021)
Lecture Series: The versatile arts administrators
Three consecutive sessions of lectures custom-designed for the graduating students of the School of Dance, HKAPA.
To be delivered in Oct, 2020.
Session 1: The current landscape of arts administration in Asia
In Asia, two perceptions/ actualities of arts administration prevail: that art administrators are there to navigate the existing system to identify resources for the artists they represent. They subordinate to the creative personnel and their involvement in the creative process is limited. Based on personal field experience, the talk will present the various aspects of and the evolving roles of art managers and administrators in Hong Kong and Taiwan.
Session 2: The creativity of entrepreneurship and independent producer
An overview of the contract-based working models of independent producer and SMEs (small and mid-size enterprises) with independent artists; the difference between producer and art agent; mission and strategies of SMEs; the creative involvement of producers in the collaboration with organisations .
Session 3: Arts administrator as critic, curator and advocate
Arts administrator as the initiator of the creative quest, starting from a critical POV. He develops discourse to attract artists and audiences who share his vision and is deeply involved in the creative project.