Longing in Hong Kong

Description of the work

"I am interested in bringing my practice of exploring the wide potential of movement and audience relationship to this site in Hong Kong that connects the overhead passageway made of glass, or "Glass Bridge" with the red brick Tong Chong Street below.  I am thrilled with this opportunity to create a new site work for the Swire Island East Urban Dance Festival Finale. The relationship between aspirations inherent in the suspended bridge above, and the day to day realities of the ground below, forms the foundation of the new work.  Our company is particularly inspired by the notion of performing on a glass bridge - a bridge connecting our company in Los Angeles to the artists in Hong Kong. This glass bridge is solid and graceful, but glass can also be fragile and easily broken.  This contradiction ignites our imagination and propels our dancers in this new work." Heidi Duckler, Founder of Collage Dance Theatre.

Collage Dance Theatre

Collage Dance Theatre (CDT) was founded by Heidi Duckler in 1985. CDT is a non-profit, site-specific dance performance company based in Los Angeles, California. The company’s early works, designed for the stage, dealt with contemporary culture and its artifacts. Duckler’s first site-specific work was Laundromatinee in 1988, performed at the Thriftywash Laundromat in Santa Monica, California.

Over the years, Duckler experimented with combining new elements with movement and site. Church of Food incorporated odour; in a church with a stove as set, performers cooked and ate as they danced. For Parts and Labor, Duckler danced on an amplified Cadillac while musicians drummed on the hood. In 1993, Out of Circulation marked the company’s first approach to incorporating audience as character. Audience members checked in at the library site's Information Desk and were guided to their areas of  "research".

CDT continued to incorporate a variety of art disciplines and to seek unusual venues such as empty swimming pool. In 1995, CDT began to extend the idea of public art by inviting a variety of community groups and individuals to take part in Mother Ditch. Never satisfied to use the same approach twice, Duckler continued to seek venues that provided new challenges. With the award-winning Most Wanted, set in the Lincoln Heights Jail, Duckler made use of the total environment, including security areas, hallways, and jail cells. The audience were fingerprinted, photographed, and, at one point, "locked up" in a holding cell as the performance examined the idea of imprisonment on different levels. In 2000 she had the opportunity to perform in Los Angeles' historic Subway Terminal Building. She used the space as a metaphor for the human body.

CDT continues to seek new and challenging, non-traditional spaces to inspire its performances. By drawing diverse communities into its art, experimenting with a variety of media, and choreographing the space itself into new uses.  If you wish to know more about CDT, please visit the following official website: http://www.collagedancetheatre.org/