Source: 48 Hours, (Hong Kong, 2013.12.19)
DANCER-CHOREOGRAPHER Justyne Li Sze-yeung has always been interested in mythical tales. She created Narcissus & Echo for the Hong Kong Dance Alliance's Emerging Choreographers Series in 2007, then Galatea and Galatea & Pygmalion three years later. Her exploration into the Greek myth of Pygmalion and Galatea continues in her latest piece Galatea X.
The work is based on the story of sculptor Pygmalion who falls in love with a beautiful ivory statue of Galatea that he created. The object of his desire eventually comes to life when Aphrodite, the goddess of love, answers his prayers.
Li explains the Galatea series stems from her curiosity over how a statue would move if it was to come to life: "It must be so different from a human." She adds that her first take on the tale has a dark twist, that the statue never came to life and Galatea is just a figment of a deluded man's imagination.
Her next attempt Galatea & Pygmalion, a short piece she created for a group show and backed with music by Philip Glass, looked at the idea of mortality and immortality as the sculptor ages and dies while the statue lives on. Inspiration from the myth hasn't dried up yet - and probably won't anytime soon - as Li has now come up with a third interpretation. Instead of focusing on specific ideas and the narrative as they did in the first two, Li and her husband, co-choreographer and dancer, Wong Tan-ki will walk the audience through their creative process in the performance.
In Galatea X, more attention is paid to how movement changes and morphs into dance. Having come up with many ideas - and given up on just as many - their final work is a meticulously choreographed piece that reflects the couple's progress and growth since they first started working together when they set up Neo Dance HK in 2006.
"We want to look at the perceived role and relationship between 'the creator' and 'the created'," says Li. "The way choreographers build a dance piece movement by movement is very much like a sculptor crafting a statue bit by bit.
"It may seem that the sculptor is the creator who created the statue. However, just like how the pieces we came up with as choreographers over the years are affecting our personality and thoughts, and vice versa, the influence is mutual."
This highly reciprocal interaction can be applied to their own relationship, they say. Both dance graduates from the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts, they married in 2009 and living and travelling together gives them plenty of time to communicate and interact. Although they do have disagreements, their differences are what spark the creative process.
So will there be a fourth interpretation? Probably yes, says Li. "There're so many interpretations and so much potential to this story. I jotted down pages of ideas when I was brainstorming for this third instalment, a lot of which I haven't been able to use," says Li.
"I've taken it as far as comparing the tale to human beings' desire to create robots with artificial intelligence or even [a fantasy of an] invasion of an outer space civilisation many years back. There's still so much I can do with this story."
Galatea X,
HKICC Lee Shau Kee School of Creativity Multi-media Theatre,
135 Junction Road, Kowloon City,
December 21 and 22, 8pm, HK$180 Urbtix,
tel: 9229 5053
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