The evening performances comprise of four choreographies in distinctive styles and themes performed by our students of Ballet, Chinese Dance & Contemporary Dance.

The two new ballet works are premiers created for the ballet students. Inspired by the urban layout of city blocks, The Grid, choreographed by Canadian-American artist-in-residence Kinsun Chan to Philip Glass’s music, is a challenging contemporary ballet piece with strong visual, sound and dynamics exploring one’s daily confrontation of numerous decisions. In contrast, Inside Out by our new full time lecturer Anh Ngoc Nguyen returns to the traditional form of ballet technique training and focuses on exploring the long term relationship between ballet dancers and their training companion ‘ballet barre’ to a String Quartet by Ezio Bosso.

The Contemporary Dance department will present As It Fades (Excerpt) created by Malaysia-Singapore-based choreographer Kuik Swee Boon with music by award-winning sound artist Bani Haykal in collaboration with guzheng artist Natalie Tse. The work was originally choreographed in 2011 for the Singapore Arts Festival and restaged in 2014 for T.H.E main and second companies. As It Fades (Excerpt) draws upon folk tunes, dialects, and memories to create an emotionally-charged language that connects us to a fading Asian heritage. The School is honoured to have granted the right to perform this seminal production of T.H.E Dance company’s repertoire.

Yellow Earth Yellow River (Excerpt) choreographed by mainland choreographer Jiang Hua-xuan is a Chinese-dance work that deals with the power of nature. Premiered by the Hong Kong Dance Company in 2000 and now performed by our Chinese Dance students, the piece expands audience’s ideology of the nature, people, nationality and the world. In addition to selecting the well-known and imposing piano concertos The Yellow River and Tan Dun’s Symphony 1997: Heaven Earth Mankind, this work will also be accompanied live percussion performed by students from the School of Music. The combination of dance and music will add a breathtaking atmosphere to the evening.