Dance

Originally from Southern Vietnam, Dam Van Huynh is a UK based dancer/choreographer. He is currently Head of Contemporary Dance at The Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts.   Dam founded his own company in 2008, Van Huynh Company – a vibrant, cutting edge contemporary dance company with a growing national and international reputation. From the very beginning, his work was distinctive and reflected his deep interest in redefining the body and its movement capability.  Dam comes to the academy from the UK where he is Director of Centre 151 - an independent charity based in the heart of Hackney, promoting culture, arts and community integration and is also the Associate Director of Dance Bridges Festival – biennial dance festival taking place in Kolkata, India.

Dam graduated from The Boston Conservatory at Berklee and has worked as a performer with various companies and choreographers including The Nevada Ballet, Merce Cunningham, Portugal’s Companhia de Dança Contemporânea - CeDeCe, Richard Alston – U.K and Phoenix Dance Theatre – U.K. He was invited to attend the Rauschenberg Residency – Florida, U.S.A in 2020 with long term collaborator Elaine Mitchener. He was appointed Artist-in-Residence at The Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts – HKAPA in 2010/12 allowing him to further develop his own working methodology. His involvement with Dance United led him to be Associate Artist with the company in 2012/14. 

Dam is an award winning artist within the field of contemporary dance with works premiering in noted theatres across the UK including Southbank Centre,  The Place, Sadler's Wells Lilian Baylis Studio. His recent collaborative work The Then + The Now = Now Time premiered in 2019 at MaerzMusik in Berlin – Germany and was noted as a politically powerful and outstanding work. He made his operatic directorial debut at Ultima Festival – Oslo in 2015 with Of Leonardo da Vinci in collaboration with Elaine Mitchener, David Toop and Barry Lewis. Over the years, he has collaborated with many composers, musicians and directors. He recently worked as Movement Director for Tom Morris towards a new production to premiere at the National Theatre. He directed Industrialising Intimacy by Elaine Mitchener and was also invited to collaborate with Mitchener on a series a performances at the Wellcome Collection as part of This Is A Voice exhibition in 2016. He collaborated with Tansy Davies during her Aldeburgh residency and with Dai Fujikura on Mưa (Rain), R&D for a movement opera inspired by Vietnamese water puppetry. Dam regularly performs in gallery spaces and created a performance at The Hepworth Wakefield for an intervention curated by David Toop and Rie Nakajima around Allan Krapow’s YARD. He also worked with Nitin Sawhney, Es Devlin and onedotzero for a film production supported by the British Film Institute. 

Dam is the recipient of awards from The Place Prize, Asian Arts Award, Zawirowania International Choreography Competition and Gdański Festiwal Tańca. He was later invited to be a juror on the panel for Gdański Festiwal Tańca dance contest. His choreographic works have been performed internationally and include commissions by CEPRODAC - National Dance Company of Mexico, HKAPA - Hong Kong, Unlock Dancing Plaza - Hong Kong, the British Museum, Adugna Dance Company/Gemini Foundation - Ethiopia, Fóramen M. Ballet - Mexico, Dance United, INTOTO Dance, The Boston Conservatory, Northern School of Contemporary Dance, LC3 - The Place, Trinity Laban. He regularly creates works for other companies and delivers workshops on his methodology around the world.