Yvonne Ng / tiger princess dance projects
In Search of Holy Chop Suey & Weave…part one
Livestreaming May 20 & 21 at 7pm & May 22 at 4pm PDT
Yvonne Ng Photo Cylla von Tiedemann
Born and raised in Singapore, of Peranakan Chinese descent, Yvonne Ng, B.F.A., M.A., is the founder, choreographer, presenter, arts educator and artistic director of princess productions (since 1996), which houses tiger princess dance projects (TPDP) and the biennial dance: made in canada/fait au canada Festival (2001). TPDP’s repertoire includes Yvonne’s works and commissioned works, creating original roles for Bill James, José Navas, Dominique Dumais, Kevin O’Day, Marie-Josée Chartier, Robert Glumbek, Stephanie Skura, Deborah Hay and Tedd Robinson. tiger princess dance projects has toured to Singapore, Ireland, Italy, Germany, Australia, China, Canada and the USA. Yvonne is a certified Open Source Forms©, Dance for Dementia (Baycrest NBS Sharing Dance) and Ashtanga Yoga teacher, with training in Partners for Youth Empowerment Creative Facilitator (Level 1& 2), C-I TrainingÔ, Senior Fitness (CCAA), Dance for PDTM (Parkinson’s) and functional anatomy with Irene Dowd. Yvonne is the recipient of the 2017 Muriel Sherrin Award, the 2016 Jacqueline Lemieux Award, K.M. Hunter Artist Award, New Pioneers Arts Award, Chalmers Arts Fellowship, Soulpepper’s Community Artist Award and the Ontario Premier’s Award for Excellence in the Arts – New Talent. In 2000, received a Dora Mavor Moore Award for best performance and has received multiple nominations. https://princessproductions.ca/tiger/
Yvonne Ng Photo David Hou
Credits
In Search of the Holy Chop Suey
Concept, Creation & Performance: Yvonne Ng in collaboration with
Set Designer: Silvie Varone
Costumes: Silvie Varone & Yvonne Ng
Music: DakhaBrakha, Ólafur Arnalds, Alva Noto & Ryuichi Sakamoto, field recordings.
Lighting Designer: Arun Srinivasan
Creative Facilitators: Marie-Josée Chartier & Dan Wild
Rehearsal Director: Johanna Bergfeldt
Weave...part one
Concept, Creation & Performance: Yvonne Ng
Music: Alva Noto & Ryuichi Sakamoto
Original Lighting Design: Simon Rossiter
Lighting Design Adaptation: Arun Srinivasan
Dramaturge: Susan Cash
Creative Facilitator: Katherine Duncanson
Where or in what time space does identity reside? Ng asks “How does someone else’s movement quality impact my own dancing self?” as she undertakes a pointed investigation for her solo, In Search of the Holy Chop Suey. In it, she ponders a life of creation and imitation in movement and mines influences from sources as varied as her mother, modern dance and kung fu legends, ordinary people, wild animals and more. Says Ng, “When I imitate, I also uncover something unique in myself. Each time I fail to become more like my mother (or my favourite kung fu hero Bruce Lee), I become more me.”
Weave...part one uses a contemporary dance framework to braid my mother’s life with mine. She was sold and adopted (post World War II) into a Peranakan Chinese family as a baby and at age seven, passed onto her Lau Ye (Grandaunty) for convenience. At age 19 on the death of the adopted patriarch, she was discarded and all association with the family cut. Some of the situations I lived through and choices I had to make in Canada (my immigrant passage to Canada, the rights that I was not afforded as a woman or new immigrant, nor dared voice) have paralleled her experience of being forsaken and these have crystalized who I became and how I have made my life as a sole female immigrant of colour in Canada. Central to the solo is a questioning of the role/value of a woman in Asia and in Canada – if all this has really changed with the passing of time.