In an atrium in Tsim Sha Tsui's Harbour City mall, under a stained-glass skylight, a man in a ragged grey jacket and pinstriped trousers slowly lifts a black bowler off his head. As mournful violin music fills the space, he pirouettes, kicks and dissolves into a heap on the floor. Lunchtime shoppers who have gathered on the three floors surrounding the atrium stand riveted.
This free entertainment, courtesy of the City Contemporary Dance Company (CCDC), is part of the Hong Kong institution's attempt to create some buzz on the cusp of its 25th anniversary. To attract conservative Hong Kong audiences to its modern dance programme, the CCDC has tweaked its offerings and revamped its Kowloon headquarters, adding a cafe and a big studio where passers-by can drop in to watch rehearsals.
'It's hard when you ask people to buy tickets to something they don't know,' says Pun Siu-fai, director of the CCDC's Dance Centre. 'Public displays draw the public's attention. We don't have the money to do a lot of advertising, but we can go out and appeal to them.'
According to the CCDC's annual report, box office receipts made up a paltry 1.6 per cent of last year's $21 million income, the majority of which came from government funding, dance-class fees and corporate engagements.
The CCDC's efforts are part of a broader movement by Hong Kong dance outfits to raise their profiles. The Hong Kong Ballet, also celebrating its 25th anniversary, has just extended the contract of its artistic director, Stephen Jefferies, added a new signature ballet to its repertoire and is touring overseas. In September, the Academy for Performing Arts will launch a Gifted Young Dancer Programme to train teenagers and young adults for full-time dance careers.
The Harbour City performance by dancer Xing Liang is a segment from Comedy of K, a dance-theatre piece about the collision of fantasy and reality that exemplifies the CCDC's upping of the creative ante. The production, inspired by the writings and life of Franz Kafka, will kick off the company's 25th season next month. 'I'm trying to introduce new forms,' says Helen Lai, the CCDC's resident choreographer. Among elements designed to increase its popular appeal, Comedy of K incorporates video clips by French video artist Jean-Sebastien Lallemand that show 'fragmented dream images', Lai says. As well, local comedian and actor Jim Chim will play various characters. In one scene, he'll read from newspapers, then develop the news into a short comic sketch.
For the production's first 10 minutes, there may be a nude man dancing onstage, to symbolise the vulnerability of the character Gregor Samsa in Kafka's Metamorphosis, on discovering he has turned into a bug. Lai says she may scrap the nude scene if she decides it doesn't work in context.