Amy Chan (陳一云)
Light artist, theatre practitioner, artistic director of Drama COLLABoratory and pathologist. Interest in expanding the notion of light in postdramatic theatre through the exploration of musicality, performativity and theatricality of light in performance and installation, and the in-betweens of light-music, performance-installation and arts-medicine. Lightscape (light and space) is the co-performer, protagonist and antagonist in her works.
Her major works include the interdisciplinary museum theatre performance and installation project The Hong Kong Plague of 1894 (Hong Kong Museum of Medical Sciences and CACHe, 2014) , light installation Cabinet of Curiosities (2016) in group exhibition PseudoCollection - What Do Artists Collect (1a Space, 2016), site-specific light installation-performance Morbid Anatomy (Pathology Teaching Laboratory, 2016), and solo light installation Memento Mori: Sonata for Light (Lumenvisum, 2017). Her recent online lecture performance Remembrance of Amnesia (2020), reflecting on pandemic and memory in Hong Kong, was presented in My Documents | Share your screen! , the online performance series created and curated by renowned Argentinian theatre maker Lola Arias, and streamed on YouTube and the digital platforms of Künstlerhaus Mousonturm Frankfurt am Main, Kampnagel Hamburg and Münchner Kammerspiele of Germany, and Kaserne Basel of Switzerland.
Amy crosses the borders between different communities, media and disciplines. She is the long-term artistic collaborator and tutor of St James Creation, the artist workshop and gallery under St James' Settlement with special attention to people of Trisomy 21 (Down Syndrome) and autism, for more than 10 years. She also collaborates with artists of different disciplines, with particular interest in light-music collaborations in projects such as World Premieres and Hong Kong Premieres of works by international and local composers including Alvin Lucier, John Luther Adams and Chan Sze-rok, as well as light-Cantonese opera collaboration in The Fable of the Ungrateful Wolf (PSi25, 2019).
As a lighting designer, director, performer and playwright working for various productions since 1991, she has designed lighting for over 80 theatre productions, art gallery and installations, including A Tree to be Found, the installation artwork in Para/Site in 2003, the award-winner of Hong Kong Arts Biennial 2003 and the collection of Hong Kong Museum of Art. Her original autobiographical theatre performance Two girls from Ngau Tau Kok (as co-creator, co-director, performer and lighting designer) has re-run in various venues for 5 times throughout 9 years. The play was adapted into a graphic novel of the same title and an English radio play broadcasted in the Worldplay series 2003 of BBC world channel. The original Chinese script and the translated English script were published respectively.
A Master of Fine Arts (with distinction) graduate of Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts, major in lighting design with core research on light in postdramatic theatre, her artistic research has been presented in various international conferences such as The Congress of the Society for Theatre Studies of Germany and Performance Studies International annual conferences, and is published in peer-reviewed journal Critical Stages. She was an invited speaker of the Postdramatic Theatre Worldwide Symposium (2019) in Akademie der Künste, Berlin, Germany, discussing the resonance and perspectives of postdramatic theatre in Hong Kong and on her own light-theatre works 20 years after the first publication of internationally renowned theatre scholar Hans-Thies Lehmann's groundbreaking book.
Light-Performance (Selected)
2020 - Remembrance of Amnesia (online lecture performance) in My Documents | Share your screen! The Open Call Edition, created and curated by Lola Arias, production by Künstlerhaus Mousonturm Frankfurt am Main with Lola Arias, co-produced by Kampnagel Hamburg, Kaserne Basel and Münchner Kammerspiele.
2019 - The Fable of Ungrateful Wolf (light x Cantonese Opera, as light installation/performing light artist/Cantonese opera singer), PSi25 Calgary, Canada
2017 - HYPER-PLASIA (light installation-lecture performance), Kampnagel, Hamburg, Germany
2016 - Morbid Anatomy, Pathology Teaching Laboratory, Prince of Wales Hospital, Hong Kong
2014 - The Hong Kong Plague of 1894, Hong Kong Museum of Medical Sciences, Hong Kong
2001-2009 - Two Girls from Ngau Tau Kok, various venues, Hong Kong
Light Installation (Group and Solo)
2020 - Things That Talk, ACO Art Space, Hong Kong (solo light installation-performance)
2017 - Memento Mori: Sonata for Light, Lumenvisum, Hong Kong (solo installation)
2016 - Cabinet of Curiosities in Pseudo Collection - What Do Artists Collect, 1a Space, Hong Kong (group exhibition)
2014 - The Hong Kong Plague of 1894 - (Ab)Normal, The Conservancy Association Centre for Heritage (CACHe) , Hong Kong (curation and group exhibition)
Light Collaboration in Performances, Music and Installations (Selected)
2020 - Strange and Sacred Noise by John Luther Adams (light installation x percussion quartet), The Up:Strike Project, Y-Studio, Hong Kong [*Hong Kong Premiere]
2017-19 - Our Stories - Memories in Clay (ceramics joint exhibition and community art project, funded by Arts Capacity Development Funding Scheme), St James' Creation, various venues, Hong Kong
2019 - Academy Multimedia Composition Concert (light-music project), School of Music, Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts, Academy Recital Hall, Hong Kong. [*World Premiere of Lux by Yoyo Chan Pui-ting, Postmodern Surgery by Tony Chan Chi-Long, and The State at 0400 by Kathleen Fung Yee-Shing]
2019 - Beaming Shadows (light-music project), Exordium Collective, Fringe Upstairs, Hong Kong [*World Premiere of Flight Paths for Alto Saxophone with Slow Sweep Pure Wave Oscillators by American composer Alvin Lucier for saxophonist Charles Ng]
2018 - Project: CHROME (light-music project), the TimeCrafters, Parsons Music Piano Center and Fringe Dairy of The Fringe Club, Hong Kong
2018 - Sounding Architecture in Concert (light-music project), Loke Yew Hall, the University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong [*World Premiere of The Ghost Chase for Mezzo-soprano, Piccolo, Percussion and Gamelan Gong Kebyar by Hong Kong composer Chan Sze-rok]
2013 - Encountering: Xavier le Roy (multimedia installation in collaboration with choreographer Scarlet Yu), HKAPA, Hong Kong
2012 - The Scholar and the Executioner (drama), Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts, Drama Theatre, Hong Kong
2012 - Clayfunland by St James' Creation Ceramics Gallery (ceramic installation) , Gallery by the Harbour, Hong Kong
2010 - New Vision Festival 2010 : Sand/Moon (music theatre), Kwai Tsing Theatre, Hong Kong
2008 - Le French May 2008 : Les Bonnes (physical theatre), Fringe Club, Hong Kong
2003 - Hong Kong Arts Biennial 2003 : A Tree to be Found (Installation / Performance), Hong Kong Museum of Art, Hong Kong
2003 - A Tree to be Found (Installation / Performance), Para/Site, Hong Kong
2000 - 16th International Festival of Deaf Pantomime : The End? (physical theatre), Brno, Czech Republic
1998 - Talking Short, Talking Long (drama), various venues, Hong Kong and Macau
Features and Reviews
A pathologist’s illuminating journey through the world of light art (HASLink 2019 Sept) / 燈光 ‧ 行醫 ‧ 藝術路 (《協力》2019年九月號)
看陳一云個展:光的邀請 (Review on Memento Mori: Sonata for Light, in Chinese) (2018)
所有照片都顯示死者的回歸 (Review on Memento Mori: Sonata for Light, in Chinese) (2017)
The Master's Mind (探索與實踐 走上藝術碩士課程之路) (in English and Chinese. 2017)
《病理誌》：一次以光影為本的劇場閱讀經驗 (Review on Morbid Anatomy, in Chinese) (2016)
Hongkongers get peek at the things local artists collect, South China Morning Post (2016)
Publications and Selected Writings
Amy Chan(2020)The Diffracting Light in Contemporary Theatre,Performance Research,25:5,107-113,DOI: 10.1080/13528165.2020.1868852
《牛頭角兩小妹》(Two Girls from Ngau Tau Kok) (graphic novel). Stepforward Multimedia, 2002
Conference Presentations
2019 - Invited speaker of Postdramatic Theatre in transcultural perspective panel in Postdramatic Theatre Worldwide Symposium, Akademie der Künste, Berllin, Germany
2019 - Presentation:“The Fable of the Ungrateful Wolf” at the intersection of Cantonese opera and Light – adaptability and plasticity as creative strategy. (co-presented with Natalie Cheung Kit-Ying, Chak Lui Chan and Chin Mei Law) PSi25, Performance Studies International Annual Conference, Calgary, Canada.
2018 - Free paper presentation: The Potentiality of Drama Education and Multidisciplinary Arts Project in Medical Bioethics Teaching. Medical Education Conference, the Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong
2017 - Free paper presentation: Exploring the Role of Postdramatic Theatre Performance in Medical Bioethics Teaching. Medical Education Conference, the Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong
2016 - Paper presentation and performance: Dramaturgy of Light as Critique in Performance. The Congress of the Society for Theatre Studies, Frankfurt and Gießen, Germany
2016 - Paper presentation and performance: Death in Postdramatic Theatre. Death, Art and Anatomy Conference, University of Winchester, UK
2015 - Paper Presentation: Theatre-in-Education in the Era of Postdramatic Theatre: A case study on The Hong Kong Plague of 1894 Project. (co-presented with Natalie Cheung Kit-Ying) National University of Tainan Department of Drama Creation and Application 2015 Conference, Tainan, Taiwan.
Awards and Scholarships
2014 - Martin Professional (HK) Limited Scholarship 2013/14
2003 - Light installation for Hong Kong Arts Biennial 2003 Award installation A Tree to be Found
1997 - Nominations for Outstanding Director, Best Performance and Outstanding Visual Effects, Hong Kong Urban Council Drama Festival
1991 - Outstanding Performer Award, Hong Kong Urban Council Drama Festival
Qualifications
2017 - Master of Fine Arts (with distinction), major in lighting design, School of Theatre and Entertainments Arts, The Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts.
2003 - Special Effect Assistant (Stream B) License, Entertainment Special Effect Ordinance (Cap. 560), HKSAR Government
2001 - Postgraduate Diploma in East/West Theatre Studies, School of Professional and Continuing Education, The University of Hong Kong
1997 - Certificate in Theatre Studies, School of Continuing and Professional Studies, The Chinese University of Hong Kong
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