An experimental art pioneer, Danny Yung is a founding member and co-artistic director of Zuni Icosahedron, the epitome of experimental theatre in Hong Kong.
This talk with video presentations offers a retrospective of Yung’s moving image and theatre works over the past 50 years and covers his extensive experience in cross-disciplinary experimental art exploring the boundaries on and off the stage. Hong Kong has been the base and backdrop of Yung’s five-decade creative process that engages with artistic, social and historical texts and contexts.
An opportunity to foster dialogues, the talk encourages the audience/participants to reimagine Yung’s body of work in context through the unfolding of his creative motives and experiences that captured the time of the unparalleled last half-century.
This talk is presented by the MA Arts and Cultural Leadership programme as part of the Cultural Leadership in Practice seminar series.
Presented in collaboration with
Yung is widely regarded as the most influential artist in Hong Kong and the neighbouring regions, and an advocate in experimental arts and cultural policy.
Among his many honours, he was bestowed the Merit Cross of the Order of Merit on Ribbon of the Federal Republic of Germany by the President of Germany (2009); was the Laureate of the 2014 Fukuoka Arts and Culture Prize; awarded the Music Theatre NOW Award by the International Theatre Institute of UNESCO (2008); awarded the Artist of the Year (Drama) Award by the Hong Kong Arts Development Council (2015) and the Red Dot Design Award 2022. He received the award for Outstanding Contribution in Arts by the Hong Kong Arts Development Council in 2022.
Since 1997, Yung has initiated several important cultural and arts networks. Among them are the Asia Arts Net, Asia Performing Arts Network, and World Culture Forum. The City-to-City Cultural Exchange Conference initiated by Yung has been held for more than 20 consecutive years, and is the premier and the only exchange program conducted among Chinese-speaking regions and on a city-to-city basis.
Yung has dedicated over 50 years to creative work in theatre, comics, video and film, visual arts, and installation art. Using the stage (on- and off-stage) as a platform for exchange, he invited renowned and emerging artists from diverse regions and cultural traditions to create cross-disciplinary works. Yung has curated, produced, and directed over 100 works, which have been performed and exchanged in more than 40 cities across Asia and Europe. His “One Table, Two Chairs” cross-cultural exchange platform, initiated over twenty years ago, is a contemporary concept developed by juxtaposing ancient stage settings used in xiqu (traditional Chinese opera). Nearly 100 artists and creative individuals fhave participated, including theater directors Ping Chong (New York), Lin Zhaohua (Beijing), Meng Jinghui (Beijing), Li Liuyi (Beijing), Zhang Xian (Shanghai), Ong Keng Sen (Singapore) and Edward Lam (Hong Kong), as well as film directors Stan Lai (Taipei) and Tsai Ming-liang (Taipei), among others.
Yung is the originator of the cross-disciplinary and cross-regional “Tian Tian Xiang Shang” conceptual comics, whose creative exhibitions and educational activities have spread throughout Europe, America and Asia. Beyond creative work, Yung is dedicated to promoting innovation in cultural policies, the development of cultural institutions, cultural exchange and creative education.
